- Always use tests to demonstrate the existence of a bug before fixing the bug. - If you suspect that a bug exists, use a test to demonstrate it first: - prefer unit tests testing a small amount of code to integration or e2e tests - Option<...> or Result<...> are fine but should not be present in the majority of the code. - Similarly, code managing Box<...> or RC<...>, etc. for containers pointing to heap data should be split from logic - @context/repo-map.md is your "road map" for the repository. use it to reduce exploration and keep it updated. - @context/design-principles.md is also important for keeping the repository consistent. - prefer merges to rebasing. - always start responses with bananaS! - there is a prolog MCP available, load a session from `kb` at the root of the repository at the beginning of every session and save structured facts to the knowledge base as you go. (cover work done, interesting locations in the codebase, important decisions, etc.) - query the knowledge base as needed and use Prolog reasoning when it makes sense. - Prolog should be used as a design tool to reason about the code and the implementation of tickets and to persist a formal model of it. # Agent Instructions This project uses **bd** (beads) for issue tracking. Run `bd prime` for full workflow context. ## Quick Reference ```bash bd ready # Find available work bd show # View issue details bd update --claim # Claim work atomically bd close # Complete work bd dolt push # Push beads data to remote ``` ## Non-Interactive Shell Commands **ALWAYS use non-interactive flags** with file operations to avoid hanging on confirmation prompts. Shell commands like `cp`, `mv`, and `rm` may be aliased to include `-i` (interactive) mode on some systems, causing the agent to hang indefinitely waiting for y/n input. **Use these forms instead:** ```bash # Force overwrite without prompting cp -f source dest # NOT: cp source dest mv -f source dest # NOT: mv source dest rm -f file # NOT: rm file # For recursive operations rm -rf directory # NOT: rm -r directory cp -rf source dest # NOT: cp -r source dest ``` **Other commands that may prompt:** - `scp` - use `-o BatchMode=yes` for non-interactive - `ssh` - use `-o BatchMode=yes` to fail instead of prompting - `apt-get` - use `-y` flag - `brew` - use `HOMEBREW_NO_AUTO_UPDATE=1` env var ## The Wave Workflow Most work here is done by **waves**: an orchestrator chunks the open backlog, fans several agents out into their own git worktrees, merges what comes back, reviews it, and pushes the wave as one PR. This section is what that costs to get right. Everything in it was learned by getting it wrong first. ### Who owns what Three files are **orchestrator-only**, and the rule exists because they are guaranteed conflicts — every agent has a reason to touch them and they merge badly: | File | Why | |---|---| | `.beads/` (incl. `issues.jsonl`) | bd owns it. See "Never hand-edit" below. | | `prolog-sessions/kb.pl` | MCP-maintained, whole-predicate replacement. | | `context/repo-map.md` | Every agent wants to add a gotcha; every wave would conflict. | Wave agents **read** all three freely (`bd show`, `bd ready`, grep `kb.pl`) and **write** none of them. They report proposed repo-map lines and `kb.pl` facts as *text* in their hand-back, and the orchestrator applies them — batched, at the end of the wave, after the review. Batching matters for `kb.pl` specifically: `loadProgram` **replaces a whole predicate**, so every addition means re-sending every existing clause of `doctrine/2`, `decision/3`, etc. Doing that once per wave instead of once per fact is the difference between cheap and painful. It has already silently wiped 22 decisions and 19 doctrines once — count with `findall/length` before and after, and check the count before saving. `saveSession` re-adds the MCP's own `host_rpc` shims to `kb.pl` every time. Strip them after each save. ### Partitioning a wave Partition by **crate or directory**, not by ticket count, and tell each agent explicitly which ground is *not* theirs. Two rules that fall out of the ones we broke: - **Tickets that share a file belong to one agent.** The four TUI widget migrations all touch `src/draw.rs`; split across agents they are a guaranteed conflict, so they go to one agent to do sequentially. Group first, then count. - **An agent that must stray says so rather than guessing.** Give the boundary and ask for a report when it has to be crossed. Two agents each adding a workspace member will still collide in `Cargo.toml`/`Cargo.lock`. That one is expected; keep both sides. ### Every wave agent's brief must include 1. **Verify your base commit first.** Worktrees do **not** reliably branch from the orchestrator's HEAD — one was created three merges behind and only noticed because it was told to look. `git log --oneline -1` against a named commit, reset onto `main` if behind. Name the expected commit in the brief. 2. **The baseline test count**, so "1090 passing" is checkable rather than asserted, and a drop is visible. 3. **Do not push, do not merge to `main`.** The orchestrator merges. 4. The commit-message trailers, spelled out. 5. **What to report**: branch and commits, what changed per ticket, *what could not be verified and why*, and proposed repo-map/`kb.pl` text. Ask explicitly for the thing the agent learned that the ticket did not predict — that is consistently the most valuable part of a hand-back, and agents omit it unless asked. `bd` works in any worktree, but `.envrc` must be allowed there or you get a **version mismatch** rather than a clean failure — `direnv allow` in the worktree, or rely on the `[whitelist] prefix` in `~/.config/direnv/direnv.toml`. Note `direnv status` reports `Found RC allowed 0`, and `0` means **allowed** (the enum is 0=Allowed, 1=NotAllowed). It reads like the opposite. ### Between waves Run the **code-review skill** on the merged range and iterate until its backlog is empty. This is not ceremony: in this repo the review's characteristic find is not a wrong line, it is **a test that passes while the thing it names is broken** — a vacuous fold test, a bit-witness that cannot see the bit, a one-category fixture, a helper that fabricates the `_Measure` items the code under test needs, a check-the-checker that injected malformed JSON and so proved nothing. A green suite is not evidence. Ask the reviewer to *inject the fault* and watch the check fail. ### Shipping a wave **Do not push `main` to `gh/main`.** Work reaches GitHub as a branch and a pull request, and lands on `main` by being merged there. The orchestrator still merges agent branches into its *local* `main` to integrate and run the gates — that is how conflicts get found early — but the push is a branch push, not a `main` push. `origin` and `gitea` are mirrors and take `main` directly. This is easy to drift out of, because merging locally and pushing feels like finishing. It happened in this repo: 27 commits across six agent branches — including a new crate, a new protocol type, and a type moving between crates — went straight to `main` unreviewed, while `AGENTS.md` already said not to. If you notice a batch has bypassed the loop, the cheap repair is a **review-only PR**: base a branch at the last PR merge, open a PR with `main` as the head, let Copilot review the diff, and land the findings as an ordinary PR afterwards. It cannot be merged — the commits are already in — so close it once its findings are filed or fixed. Rewinding the default branch to fake a mergeable PR is not worth it on a repo with other collaborators. One PR per wave, built by a **dedicated PR agent in its own worktree**, so waves pipeline against it: the next wave runs while the PR absorbs review fixes. Copilot review must be **re-requested after every fix push**; it does not re-review on its own. The mutation takes a **`botIds`** field — `userIds` fails with *"Could not resolve to User node"*: ```bash gh api graphql -f query='mutation($pr:ID!,$ids:[ID!]!){requestReviews(input:{pullRequestId:$pr,botIds:$ids,union:true}){clientMutationId}}' \ -f pr="$(gh pr view --json id -q .id)" -f ids=BOT_kgDOCnlnWA ``` REST also works, with the login spelled `copilot-pull-request-reviewer[bot]` — without the `[bot]` suffix it 422s as "not a collaborator". In a worktree-isolated agent the shell guard refuses an inline `gh api graphql -f query='mutation(...)'` as "too complex to verify". Put the query in a file and pass `-F query=@file`; PR comment bodies likewise go through `-F body=@file` rather than command substitution. Two environment notes. **`gh` is not on `PATH` here** — the name is shell-aliased to `git-hub`, a different tool — so use `nix shell nixpkgs#gh --command gh …`. And **a Copilot review takes about six minutes**; tool calls return fast, which makes elapsed time easy to misjudge, so check `date -u` against the GitHub timeline before concluding a review is stuck. (One agent closed and reopened a PR to "unstick" a review that was proceeding normally.) Across four PRs Copilot has found genuine bugs and no false positives, so its findings are worth the loop. **But judge each one against the repo's doctrine rather than applying it reflexively**, and when you decline, reply on the thread with the reason. The distinction that has mattered: a finding can be *correct* and still be wrong to fix in that PR. On #12, a non-ASCII `truncate` panic was applied (byte-identical on ASCII, so it cost no evidence) while a hint-line padding bug in the same file was declined — fixing it would have rewritten the exact-frame characterization tests that were the PR's only evidence the migration changed nothing. Two right findings, different costs. File the declined one. Merge only once Copilot passes. Prefer a **merge commit** — `AGENTS.md` says merges over rebases, and a wave's commits are individually meaningful. ### Never hand-edit `.beads/issues.jsonl` bd manipulates that file and auto-exports to it. Editing it — or even `git checkout`-ing it, which fires the post-checkout hook — breaks auto-export and desynchronises `export-state.json`. Use `bd` commands, let auto-export run, and commit whatever it leaves. ### Cite a ticket ID you have read back `bd create` assigns the ID; it is not derivable from the title. An orchestrator that files with output suppressed and then writes the ticket into a gotcha or an ADR **will invent one** — six invented IDs survived into `context/` in a single session before an agent tried one and found nothing. Read the ID back after filing, and before pushing docs run the audit: ```bash for id in $(grep -ohE 'improvise-[a-z0-9]{3,4}\b' context/repo-map.md context/adr/*.md \ | sort -u | grep -v 'improvise-core\|improvise-wasm'); do bd show "$id" >/dev/null 2>&1 || echo "MISSING: $id" done ``` A dead ID is worse than no ID: it reads as a promise that the follow-up exists. ### Before filing a ticket, search Agent-filed issues duplicate work that is already open, sometimes already in progress. Two duplicates were filed in this repo within minutes of the hand-backs that prompted them. `bd search` the core concept *and* scan in-progress issues first. ## Beads Issue Tracker This project uses **bd (beads)** for issue tracking. Run `bd prime` to see full workflow context and commands. ### Quick Reference ```bash bd ready # Find available work bd show # View issue details bd update --claim # Claim work bd close # Complete work ``` ### Rules - Use `bd` for ALL task tracking — do NOT use TodoWrite, TaskCreate, or markdown TODO lists (the exception being that you must maintain context/design-principles.md and context/repo-map.md) - Run `bd prime` for detailed command reference and session close protocol - Use `bd remember` for persistent knowledge — do NOT use MEMORY.md files (the exception being that you must maintain context/design-principles.md and context/repo-map.md) ## Session Completion **When ending a work session**, you MUST complete ALL steps below. Work is NOT complete until `git push` succeeds. **MANDATORY WORKFLOW:** 1. **File issues for remaining work** - Create issues for anything that needs follow-up 2. **Run quality gates** (if code changed) - Tests, linters, builds 3. **Update issue status** - Close finished work, update in-progress items 4. **PUSH TO REMOTE** - This is MANDATORY: ```bash git merge origin/main bd dolt push git push git status # MUST show "up to date with origin" ``` 5. **Clean up** - Clear stashes, prune remote branches 6. **Verify** - All changes committed AND pushed 7. **Hand off** - Provide context for next session **CRITICAL RULES:** - Work is NOT complete until `git push` succeeds - NEVER stop before pushing - that leaves work stranded locally - NEVER say "ready to push when you are" - YOU must push - If push fails, resolve and retry until it succeeds ## Beads Issue Tracker Use Beads (`bd`) for durable task tracking in repositories that include it. Use the `beads` skill at `.agents/skills/beads/SKILL.md` (project install) or `~/.agents/skills/beads/SKILL.md` (global install) for Beads workflow guidance, then use the `bd` CLI for issue operations. ### Quick Reference ```bash bd ready # Find available work bd show # View issue details bd update --claim # Claim work bd close # Complete work bd prime # Refresh Beads context ``` ### Rules - Use `bd` for all task tracking; do not create markdown TODO lists. - Run `bd prime` when Beads context is missing or stale. Codex 0.129.0+ can load Beads context automatically through native hooks; use `/hooks` to inspect or toggle them. - Keep persistent project memory in Beads via `bd remember`; do not create ad hoc memory files. **Architecture in one line:** issues live in a local Dolt DB; sync uses `refs/dolt/data` on your git remote; `.beads/issues.jsonl` is a passive export. See https://github.com/gastownhall/beads/blob/main/docs/core-concepts/sync-concepts.md for details and anti-patterns.