hephaestus/AGENTS.md

AGENTS.md

Guidance for Claude Code working in this repository. See also ai-assistance-guide.

Overview

hephaestus — Personal context management system: wiki-style knowledge base and task management.

This is a generated repo, not the template source. C1/C2 changes use feature branches + PRs (tea pr create); noteworthy changes get changelog fragments in docs/changelog.d/.

Rules

1. Always run mise run ai-docs at session start This will refresh your context with important information you will be assumed to know and follow. Read the full output — never truncate, pipe to head/tail, or skip sections.
2. Classify the change as C0/C1/C2 before starting (see below) — this determines branching and PR requirements
3. Generated repos use feature branches + PRs for C1/C2 — checkout main, pull, create branch, open PR via tea pr create. This template source repo usually stays C0/direct-to-main so it remains clean and templatable.
4. Use changelog fragments in generated repos, not as template residue — docs/changelog.d/<name>.<type>.md Types: feature, bugfix, infra, doc, ai, misc
   • Generated repos: add fragments for noteworthy changes
   • This template repo: keep docs/changelog.d/ empty except for .gitkeep
5. Never commit secrets

Change Classification

Before starting work, classify the change:

Class	Name	When to use	Key trait
C0	Quick Fix	Small, low-risk, fix-forward safe	Direct to main, no PR
C1	Human Review	Moderate complexity or risk	Feature branch + PR, docs-first
C2	Mikado Chain	Multi-phase, multi-session, high complexity	Mikado Branch Invariant

C0 — commit directly to main. No branch or PR needed. Fix forward if problems arise.

C1 — in generated repos, use a feature branch with an early PR. In this template source repo, prefer direct cleanups unless the user explicitly wants branch-based review. Search related docs first, write documentation changes before code. Upgrade to C2 if complexity spirals.

C2 — branch mikado/<chain-stem> governed by the Mikado Branch Invariant: all card commits first, then code progress, then card closures. Commits use C2(<chain>): plan/impl/close/finalize convention. Reset the branch when new prerequisites are discovered. Resume with mise run docs-mikado --resume.

See agent-change-process for the full methodology.

Project Structure

A Cargo workspace (Cargo.toml at the root) plus the Neovim plugin and repo tooling. v1 reached Todoist feature-parity on 2026-06-03 — the Rust backend is feature-complete (all three runtime modes + sync + OIDC auth) and all three surfaces (heph CLI, heph-tui, heph.nvim) are installed daily-drivers. Remaining/future work is now tracked in heph itself (see Planning below), not in a doc; the v1-prototype-tech-spec is the historical build record.

./Cargo.toml            # workspace manifest (shared deps + members)
./crates/heph-core/     # core lib: data model, Store trait + SQLite store, extraction,
                        #   recurrence, "what is next?" ranking, op-log/HLC/CRDT (yrs) sync
./crates/hephd/         # daemon: local/server/client modes — unix-socket RPC + HTTP sync/rpc + OIDC auth
./crates/heph/          # CLI (thin client of hephd): next/task/doc/get/export/search/journal/auth
./heph.nvim/            # Neovim plugin: primary surface; replaces obsidian.nvim (Lua + headless e2e)
./docs/                 # Diataxis docs (incl. [[design]] + [[v1-prototype-tech-spec]]), Quartz config, release content
./docs/changelog.d/     # towncrier fragments for noteworthy changes
./.dagger/              # Dagger module (src/hephaestus_ci/) backing docs builds and releases
./.forgejo/workflows/   # build + release workflows
./.forgejo/scripts/     # per-project build/release hooks (build runs cargo test once present)
./mise-tasks/           # repo automation via `mise run`

Development is TDD (v1-prototype-tech-spec §2, §9): failing test first, implement to green, commit on green. heph-core is clock-injected — no ambient wall-clock reads; time is always passed in. The historical v1 build spec is v1-prototype-tech-spec; the living rationale/decisions are design.

Other doc paths are listed via mise run ai-docs. Wiki-links ([[like-this]]) refer to docs/ cards.

Planning future work (heph self-hosts its roadmap)

Since v1 parity, heph tracks its own remaining/future work as tasks in the Hephaestus project inside the live store (the "bootstrap lift" — heph plans heph). This replaces the old v1-prototype-tech-spec §14 tracker, which is now a historical build record.

• See the roadmap: heph view ondeck (CLI) or heph-tui → the On Deck sidebar view (the backlog lives as blue/on-deck tasks); open the Hephaestus project in the sidebar to see all of it.
• Capture new work: heph task "<title>" --project Hephaestus -a blue (blue = on-deck backlog, kept out of next/ToM until pulled up). Add detail in the task's canonical-context doc via heph.nvim.
• Don't reopen the §14 tracker for new work — add a task instead. Update the spec only to correct historical record.
• Note the design doc remains the living design/decision log; the tech-spec is frozen as the v1 build description.