hephaestus/docs/how-to/install-heph.md
Erich Blume 1315b9ce18
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docs: daemon lifecycle becomes an explicit service (connect-only surfaces)
A surface-owned, auto-spawned daemon can't be shared once the CLI is also a
first-class client — so drop auto-spawn and manage the daemon as an OS service.

- design §4: daemon lifecycle = explicit OS service; surfaces connect-only
- heph-nvim.md: rewrite the daemon-lifecycle section (connect-only) + history
- new how-to/run-the-daemon.md (heph daemon start/stop/restart/status); indexed
- install-heph.md: post-install is `heph daemon start`; plugin no longer spawns
- tech-spec §14: mark the managed-daemon entry superseded
- changelog fragment

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-06-02 21:07:11 -07:00

2.7 KiB

title modified tags
Install heph (and isolate dev) 2026-06-02
how-to

Install heph (and isolate dev)

How to install heph/hephd from the forge and run the heph.nvim plugin, isolated from in-repo development so the two never share data. No prebuilt binaries yet — everything builds from source (works on macOS/arm64, linux/arm64, linux/amd64).

1. Install the binaries from the forge

Build and install heph + hephd to ~/.cargo/bin (on PATH) from a forge ref. Until v1 is tagged, install from the branch:

cargo install --locked \
  --git ssh://forgejo@forge.ops.eblu.me:2222/eblume/hephaestus.git \
  --branch feature/v1-prototype \
  heph hephd

Re-run with --tag vX.Y.Z once a release is cut. This needs forge SSH access (an unlocked 1Password / ssh-agent key).

The installed daemon owns the default paths — socket $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/heph/hephd.sock, DB $XDG_DATA_HOME/heph/heph.db — i.e. your real data.

2. The Neovim plugin

heph.nvim lives in a subdirectory of the monorepo, and lazy.nvim can't load a subdir plugin from a bare git URL (it puts the clone root on runtimepath). For now, point lazy at a dedicated checkout via dir:

git clone --branch feature/v1-prototype \
  ssh://forgejo@forge.ops.eblu.me:2222/eblume/hephaestus.git \
  ~/.local/share/heph/checkout
-- lazy.nvim spec
{
  dir = vim.fn.expand("~/.local/share/heph/checkout/heph.nvim"),
  config = function()
    require("heph").setup({}) -- connect-only: talks to the daemon you started
  end,
}

The plugin is connect-only — it talks to a hephd you run as a service, it does not start one itself. Start the daemon once:

heph daemon start    # launchd agent (macOS) / systemd user service (Linux)

See run-the-daemon for start/stop/restart/status. Update the plugin by git pulling the checkout (and after a cargo install upgrade, heph daemon restart to pick up the new hephd). (A future split of heph.nvim into its own forge repo will make this a normal { "eblume/heph.nvim" } spec.)

3. Isolate development

In-repo development must not touch the installed store. Run the dev daemon on separate paths and point a dev Neovim at it:

mise run dev   # runs the working-tree hephd on .dev/hephd.sock + .dev/heph.db
# dev Neovim — the plugin reads these envs and targets the dev daemon
HEPH_SOCKET="$PWD/.dev/hephd.sock" HEPH_DB="$PWD/.dev/heph.db" nvim

The installed plugin (no envs) talks to the installed daemon; the dev Neovim talks to the dev daemon. They never share a socket or DB. .dev/ is gitignored.

  • heph-nvim — the plugin surface and its managed-daemon lifecycle
  • tech-spec — §3.1 runtime modes; the daemon's exclusive DB lock