Working on knotless

For every agent working here: CLAUDE.md is this file, imported.

Use rustup run stable cargo (the Justfile's cargo), not a system cargo. Node is the version .node-version names, CI's: the harness's PDS loads a better-sqlite3 built for it, and refuses another major. Tests run against the npm reference PDS through harness/, never pds.js.

Running tests

Build and test on the runner, not on this machine: several agents building here at once have brought it down. Open the pull early, push to its branch as you go, and read what its checks say with knotless checks <repo> --pull <uri> --wait <secs> --log. Each push runs warm from main's caches (see What CI checks): check (fmt and clippy) in a minute or so, test in a few, running only the test binaries the push changed. cargo fmt costs nothing, so run it before pushing.

Build here only for a loop the runner is too slow for, such as one test being fixed, and then in one checkout at a time, with CARGO_BUILD_JOBS=2, and just pds stopped once done. Never run just cov, just lint's clippy over the workspace, shots-linux, shots-check or shots-live here: their checks run them. What follows is for that loop.

• just pds in the background first: test binaries then share that PDS instead of each starting one.
• just changed names the files changed since tests last passed and the tests that cover them; just t-changed runs those and marks the pass. just t <cargo test args> runs any selection on the shared PDS.
• The web pages are the SvelteKit app in web/; knotless-serve answers what they show as XRPC queries, each with its lexicon under lexicons/ and the views it shares in dev.knotless.defs, as atproto's appviews do. The pages' TypeScript types are made from those lexicons by @atproto/lex (npm run lex in web/, which dev, build and check run first), into web/src/lib/lexicons, not kept in git. just lex checks the answers the screenshots recorded against their lexicons, and the test check every answer the serve tests receive.
• Before changing a page, load the ui skill (.claude/skills/ui): its house rules (sentence case, empty states, space), and just look, which draws any page in any state from the recording as pictures to open: empty, signed in, a menu open, a long title. Look at every state you touch before pushing.
• For the web pages: the pull's shots check shows what moved, with pictures. No screenshot is kept anywhere: the pages are shot as main draws them and as the change does, in one run. To look before pushing, just shots, which builds web/ and main's, shoots only the pages whose HTML differs, drawn from harness/shots/fixtures.json with no PDS, and leaves each that moved under target/shots/results/ (its expected, actual and diff). After a change to what a page's answer holds, just shots-up in the background once, then just shots-record. Each checkout's shots have three ports of their own, from its path; SHOTS_PORT sets another base for all of these.
• shots-live shoots this checkout's pages from the recording and again through knotless-serve over a world: one that moved means the recording is out of date. Keep just shots-up running in the background while working on pages: shots-live then reuses its world rather than seeding one, which is most of its time.
• The social cards are drawn by knotless-serve: just shots-cards takes them from a world into target/shots/cards to look at.
• The components in web/src/lib are layered, atomic design's way: atoms (one element: an icon, an avatar), molecules (a few atoms that mean something together: a person, a commit row), organisms (a part of a page: a check list, a feed), templates (a page's layout, without its data). A component uses its own layer and those below it, never one above; just lint checks it. Pages under web/src/routes fill a template with what the queries answer.
• The pages' styles are web/src/app.css, and every colour, size, space, radius and weight in it is a token from web/src/tokens.css: take one by name rather than writing a value, and add one there when none fits. A colour for what it means is its role, --danger, --success, --attention, --done or --neutral, never the hue under it (--red), so a theme can draw success in blue. Every colour that is text meets WCAG AA (4.5:1) on what it is drawn on, in every theme: harness/contrast.mjs checks it, in web and just lint, and a new colour that is text goes in web/src/lib/contrast.json, which the theme editor, and knotless's own check of a theme made anywhere (crates/knotless/src/theme.rs), hold people's own themes to too. A menu that opens is a <details class="popover …">.
• In Svelte markup, keep a run of inline text one expression or one line: a block or component beside it splits the text into nodes, which shapes differently from the same text whole and moves pixels.
• Done: all seven of the pull's checks pass. When one fails in a way its log and pictures do not explain, run that one thing here, alone (COV_CLEAN=1 rebuilds everything first, for a cov miss that makes no sense).

Lexicons

A new or changed schema under lexicons/ follows the Lexicon Style Guide (https://atproto.com/guides/lexinomicon) and passes just lex: goat's linter, less two warnings kept on purpose (pack's inline bytes and listReports' id), then harness/lexicons.mjs. That checks what the linter does not see: knownValues rather than enum; objects in new arrays rather than bare values; open unions; a description on every main; a maxLength on strings without a format in what people write (records and procedure input); accounts by DID, not handle. And that every schema only grows from main's, as the branch left main: a schema already published is evolved, not changed, with new fields optional and nothing removed, renamed, retyped, made required or narrowed. Fix anything either says, or say why not.

Still by hand: no required a reader could do without, since it can never be dropped; a description on any field whose name does not say what it holds; maxGraphemes beside maxLength for text people read; reuse of dev.knotless.defs and com.atproto.repo.strongRef over new shapes.

cargo fmt can put a ? on a line of its own, which coverage then counts as a line never run: bind the value first, or use a named function for a row mapper, rather than lowering the gate.

Queries

A query of the index (crates/knotless-serve/src/index.rs) is planned as the tests run it, against tables said to be prod's size (crates/knotless-serve/src/plans.rs), and test fails on any that scans a table that grows with the network: forge, check_run, comment and the rest of GROWING, or sorts many of its rows (a range leading its index, or what a search finds for each row of a scan, as a repository's pushes for every repository). Tests on empty tables pass a query that takes seconds on prod, so this is what holds them. Its log names the query and its plan. Give it an index, or a query that uses the one there: an expression index needs the expression as written, and a column compared to it marked + (json_extract(c.value, '$.pull') = +p.uri), as the column's affinity otherwise keeps the index unused. A scan meant to be, of a few rows an operator reads now and then, says so in its SQL with why, -- scans: forge, as only the operator asks, where review sees it; a sort meant to be, -- sorts: forge, …. On prod, a statement slower than 100 ms logs sql, with the request's trace. To see the plans while fixing one, run its tests with KNOTLESS_PLANS=<dir> and node harness/plans.mjs <dir>.

Docs

docs/ is a small wiki: design pages explain why, the guide shows how, the reference lists what. A change that alters what a page says updates that page in the same pull:

• storage records, push, claims, compaction: docs/design/storage.md
• gateway, delegation, pushRefs, createCommit: docs/design/gateway.md
• pulls, issues, states, merging, moderation: docs/design/collaboration.md
• the merge queue: docs/design/merge-queue.md
• knotless-run: docs/design/runner.md, docs/reference/runner-internals.md
• knotless-triage and triage.rs: docs/design/collaboration.md (Labels), docs/reference/cli.md
• knotless-serve, its cache, appview and pages: docs/design/serve.md, and its methods in docs/reference/api.md
• names, redirects, transfers, commit authors: docs/design/identity.md
• spaces and private repositories: docs/design/access.md
• releases, publish, versioning: docs/design/packages.md
• a flag, environment variable or command's output: docs/reference/cli.md
• an MCP tool: docs/reference/mcp.md
• a workflow key: docs/reference/workflows.md
• who can do what: docs/design/security.md

To write or rewrite a page, or to check one against the code, use the docs skill (.claude/skills/docs/SKILL.md): facts from the code first, then the page from the reader's questions. just docs checks links, anchors and diagrams (npm ci in web/ first, for Pele).

The pages also serve the docs as a site at /docs: docs-site/, a Starlight site that reads docs/ as it is, each page's # heading its title, its links made the site's, and its sidebar in astro.config.mjs. A page added to docs/ goes in that sidebar too. just docs-site shows it as you write.

Versioning

A pull that changes what those who use knotless see (a command, a flag, what the client does) adds a change file under .changeset/, as knope document-change writes one (https://knope.tech): default: patch, minor or major in its front matter, then a heading and a line for them. knope release turns them into the version and CHANGELOG.md. Commit titles stay prose: no conventional commits. The check check fails a pull that changes crates/knotless/src or crates/knotless-mcp/src and adds no change file, unless its body says, on a line of its own, Changeset: none: for a change no one using knotless sees.

What CI checks

The workflows in .knotless/workflows/ run on pushes to main and on pulls into it or into a feature/ branch (see Landing a change), each pull at its head merged with its base as it is now, and again whenever either moves; a push to any other branch runs nothing. On a pull, web, lexicons, shots, docs and e2e run only when it changes what they read (each file's paths); otherwise each passes at once, noted as skipped. A push to main runs all seven, and check and test run on every pull. main deploys only once they all pass:

• check: cargo fmt --check and clippy, warnings denied; on a pull, a change file for a change to the client (harness/changes.sh).
• test: just cov's 100% gate, over the spaces alpha, and the stock PDS for the few test binaries that reach what a PDS without spaces does (COV_STOCK in harness/cov.mjs), and that every XRPC answer the serve tests received, kept with a stored run or fresh, is as its lexicon says (harness/answers.mjs over what harness/cov.mjs gathers), and that no query the index ran scans a table that grows with the network, as SQLite would plan it at prod's size, or sorts many of its rows (harness/plans.mjs; see Queries). A test binary that passed before is not run again: when it, the workspace binaries it ran and the harness are the same, its stored profile counts instead (COV_STORE in harness/cov.mjs), so a change runs only the binaries it changes. A pull's run, its pre-flight, goes against both nets and holds the gate, as a batch's does, so a line nothing reaches fails the pull rather than a batch. A binary that fails is run once more; one that then passes is logged FLAKY: <net> <binary> <test> with its first failure: fix it. One that fails again only in tests harness/quarantine.json names, until the day it gives, passes too, logged QUARANTINED: <net> <binary> <test>, and is run alone until it passes, three times at most, so the lines only it reaches still count: a test that fails now and then is put there while it is fixed, and taken out with the fix.
• web: the component layers and svelte-check.
• lexicons: just lex, against main's schemas where the branch left main.
• shots: just shots-check in Playwright's Linux image: each page whose HTML differs from the base's, shot as the base draws it and as the change does. Its pictures (before, after, and where they differ) of each that moved, or is new, are the check's outputs, and one the pull's body does not name on a Shots-moved: line fails it.
• docs: just docs: every relative link and anchor in the docs lands, and every Mermaid block draws with Pele; and the site at /docs builds.
• e2e: just e2e: the pages used in Chromium over a world seeded for the run as the shots' is, served as a gateway behind the harness's https front: logging in through the PDS's approval page, then every write the pages make, from starring and commenting to merging, settings, organizations, transfers and deleting an account's data, as two accounts, each read back on the page and from the PDS (harness/e2e/flows.spec.mjs); then a private repository's, over the spaces alpha, each read back from its space and as not there to anyone else (private.spec.mjs, just e2e-private). A flow that fails leaves its page among the check's outputs. A new control that writes gets a flow there, and in the private flows too when a private repository reads it back differently.

A push to main at the same tree as a pull's run that passed, as knotless merge leaves it, does not run these again: the runner files them as passed at once, each log naming the pull's run. deploy.yml still runs, and waits for them as ever.

scenarios.yml is not one of the seven: it runs the scenario tracks on main only when the owner asks for it, as knotless rerun <repo> --ref refs/heads/main --workflow scenarios -e TRACKS="team", and costs model usage, so ask before starting one. Its report is the end of its log. look.yml is too, at any branch: just look for an agent with no checkout, its pictures the check's outputs (the ui skill says how). docs-audit.yml is the same kind: Claude Code sessions checking each docs page against the code (-e PAGES="design/storage.md" for some), whose report says what each page gets wrong or leaves out.

What just lint, just cov and just lex pass here passes there. A check's result and log: knotless checks <repo> --pull <pull uri> (--wait <seconds> waits for it; --log adds each log's end; --json gives each step), or the checks tool over MCP. Its pictures: --images <dir> saves them to open, and over MCP images: true returns them to look at. A pull that moves pages on purpose names them in its body, on a line of their own, Shots-moved: home, pull-open (the names its check gives; all for every page), then runs that check again (knotless rerun <repo> --pull <pull uri> --workflow shots): the body is read as the check runs, and editing it moves nothing. A batch reads the line from the squashed pulls' bodies. One moved by mistake is a fix to make. A change to a page in a state the check does not draw, as a menu or dialog open, an edit box, a filter that empties a list or a button busy, shows that state in the pull: just look's pictures of it, desktop light and phone dark, each given to knotless pull (or knotless edit) as an --image. Only the states the change touches: the check already shows what moved of the pages it records.

Prod's health: knotless status https://knotless.dev --repo chadtmiller.com/knotless (--json for all of it): its feeds, index and a mirror, from /_status; deploy/README.md says what each means.

Landing a change

Open a pull rather than committing to main: push the work to a branch named for it (web/mermaid, serve/jetstream), then knotless pull knotless://chadtmiller.com/knotless main knotless://chadtmiller.com/knotless <branch> "<title>" -m - < body.md, the title and body written from .knotless/pull.md (knotless template <repo> pull); -m - keeps the shell off the Markdown. It is merged into main and deployed from there. A body saying Fixes <issue> (or Closes, Resolves), the issue by its knotless.dev page or at:// URI, closes that issue as it merges. Once its own checks pass, land it with knotless merge <repo> <pull uri> --queue, which returns at once: the runner lands queued pulls in batches, main with each squashed onto it as a commit of its own, checked once at the batch's tip, so many landing together cost one run. It takes a pull queued in within half a minute, and checks the next batch on top of the one being checked, so a pull queued behind a batch does not wait for that one to land. knotless queue <repo> lists the queue and what each is doing, and --leave <pull uri> takes one out. A pull that conflicts with those ahead of it, or breaks the batch (found by halving it), is ejected, and knotless show says why: fix it and queue it again. Plain knotless merge merges at once, and only once all seven checks have passed at its head merged with main as it is now, and otherwise says which failed, are running, or are of an older head or base: --wait <secs> waits for them, and --force is the owner's alone. A pull that conflicts with main fails each check without running: merge main into it, or rebase it onto main. The runner checks a pull as it moves only when its author and its head repository's owner are the owner or a collaborator; anyone else's is not checked until the owner runs it with knotless rerun <repo> --pull <pull uri>. Every run starts warm from the caches main's last passing run left, each over a copy-on-write layer of its own, so runs of one workflow go side by side, and only main's keep what they wrote: a pull's writes go when it ends. (Anyone else's pull of a workflow that asks for secrets starts from empty caches instead.) While the runner lands the queue, a pull not in it is checked again only as its head moves, not as main does, and after the queue's batches: the queue checks it against main once it is queued.

Queue a pull at once, once pushed: the queue holds it until its pre-flights, check and test (queue: first in their workflows), pass at its head, and ejects it if either fails, so one that does not build, fails a test or misses a line never fails a batch. A pass against an older main counts. Pulls queued behind it that are ready go ahead meanwhile, and knotless queue says pre-flight check or pre-flight test while it waits. Queueing turns away a pull that conflicts with main or whose checks failed, saying why. One ejected: read why with knotless show, fix it, and queue it again; one that conflicts with a pull ahead of it can take that pull's branch merged in, or wait for it to land and take main. Ejected three times for the same reason, stop and say so rather than queue it again. When several agents land pulls at once, one of them lands them all, and the rest hand it their pulls' URIs rather than each watching its own. A deploy restarts the runner. A batch whose checks pass while it stops still lands; one it cuts off is built and checked again, with nothing to do.

Work that should not reach main yet goes on a feature branch, feature/<name>, cut from main. Its parts are pulls into it, made as pulls into main are but with feature/<name> as the base: the seven checks run on them at their heads merged with the feature branch, and knotless merge, queued or not, lands them there. Nothing deploys from a feature branch, and a push to one runs nothing. Keep one pull open from it into main, unqueued, as the check that the whole of it still passes on main as it is now; merge main into the feature branch as main moves, since a pull into main that conflicts fails without running. When it is ready, that pull is queued as any other.