# AGENTS.md

## Project goals

1. **Unify and systematize issue workflow** for the development team with
   minimal context usage. Issue operations are wrapped in scripts so agents
   spend tokens on the task, not on re-deriving commands and formats.
2. **Keep the tracker out of the work.** An issue is a unit of work first and a
   Gitea row second. The two are separate layers, and the first one does not
   know the second exists.
3. **Route all Gitea interaction through the `tea` CLI via scripts** instead of
   direct ad-hoc calls wherever possible. Scripts give deterministic,
   reviewable behavior; the `tea-guard` hook enforces that every `tea`
   invocation runs under the operator-pinned login.

## Layers

The hard rule of this repo. Knowledge flows one way only:

```
skills/issue    DOMAIN     what an issue is: format, validation, dependency graph
      ▲                    offline — no tracker, no network, stdlib imports only
      │ imports
skills/sync     BRIDGE     map.py    md <-> Gitea JSON, pure functions, no I/O
                           _gitea.py login pin, tea api, pagination, filters
skills/use      REFERENCE  tea CLI docs for everything that is not an issue
skills/auth     IDENTITY   pin the login the whole tracker side runs under
      ▲
      │ calls
agents/         EXECUTION  tea-runner: runs the scripts, reports a receipt
```

`skills/issue` never imports from `skills/sync`. Delete `skills/sync` and the
domain layer keeps working. The check is mechanical — every import under
`skills/issue/scripts/` is stdlib, and `subprocess` is not among them:

```bash
grep -rh '^import \|^from ' skills/issue/scripts/ | sort -u
```

If a tracker concept (issue number, login, HTTP call, label color) shows up in
the domain layer, it is in the wrong place.

## Repo layout

- `skills/auth` — pin the Gitea login used by `tea` (`/tea:auth`)
- `skills/issue` — issues as units of work (`/tea:issue`), entirely offline
  - `references/format.md` — canonical issue format; single source of truth
  - `scripts/issue.py` — domain module: slug identity, parse/render, validation,
    taxonomy, dependency graph, body checkboxes
  - `scripts/issue_new.py` — create a local issue from its type template
  - `scripts/issue_check.py` — validate against the format
  - `scripts/issue_ac.py` — list the body's checkboxes; tick one by number or
    substring, changing exactly one character of the file
  - `scripts/issue_tree.py` — draw the dependency graph
  - `scripts/issue_index.py` — rebuild `tmp/issues/INDEX.md`
- `skills/sync` — move issues between the local store and Gitea (`/tea:sync`)
  - `scripts/map.py` — md ↔ Gitea JSON, pure, no I/O; label colors live here
  - `scripts/_gitea.py` — transport: login pin, `tea api`, pagination, filters,
    label ids, the remote-id map
  - `scripts/pull.py`, `push.py`, `remote.py`, `comment.py`
- `skills/use` — `tea` CLI reference for everything that is not an issue
  (`/tea:use`); `references/tea/` holds the command docs
- `agents/tea-runner.md` — subagent on Haiku that executes the scripts and
  returns a compact receipt. Delegate batches (bulk pull, push a named set,
  bootstrap labels, rebuild the index), never the thinking: it has no `Edit`
  and no `Write`, may not `--force`, and may not decide what an issue says.
  Delegating a single call costs more than running it inline — the win is the
  loop, the retry, and the error triage.
- `hooks/` — PreToolUse hooks: `tea-guard` blocks or rewrites `tea` invocations
  that don't use the pinned login; `agents-sync` keeps every directory canonical
  (`AGENTS.md` real file, `CLAUDE.md` symlink to it)
- `tests/` — stdlib `unittest`, no third-party anything

## Tests

```bash
python3 -m unittest discover -s tests -v
```

Plain `unittest`; no pytest, no dependencies — the scripts under test are
stdlib-only and the tests hold the same line. `skills/*/scripts/` are not
packages, so a test that needs the domain module imports it with
`sys.path.insert`.

**A test never touches `tmp/issues/`.** Anything that needs a store builds a
throwaway repository in a `tempfile.TemporaryDirectory()` — a `.git` marker, a
copy of the script layers, fixture issues — and runs the real scripts inside it
as subprocesses. That is the only way to test behavior that depends on where a
script is run from, and it keeps the developer's own store out of the blast
radius.

## Local issue store

`tmp/issues/` (gitignored) holds **two kinds of file, and only one of them is a
store.** An `origin: local` issue lives here and nowhere else — this file *is*
the issue, and losing it loses the work. Anything with `origin: gitea` is a
**cache**: the tracker has it, this copy is a working copy, and it is deleted
the moment a push confirms the tracker is up to date.

One flat markdown file per issue, named by its slug, with one metadata field per
line so plain grep works without a parser.

- **The path is `<repo root>/tmp/issues`, resolved from `issue.py`'s own
  location, not from cwd.** `issue.store_root()` walks up from `__file__` to the
  nearest `.git` or `AGENTS.md` — so every script in both layers sees one store
  whatever directory it is run from. An explicit `--out` overrides it and is
  used exactly as typed; a relative `--out` stays relative to cwd.
- Nothing creates the store as a side effect of a write. Readers distinguish
  "does not exist" from "is empty"; only `issue_new.py` and `pull.py` create it,
  and they say so on stderr.
- Identity is the slug (`wire-sqlc-appclick.md`), never a tracker number.
  Numbers live in the `gitea:` field.
- `origin: local` is a complete state, not a draft: an issue that never leaves
  this machine is valid and finished. It is not a *durable* state, though —
  pushing ends it, and the local file goes with it.
- **A successful push deletes the local file** (`<id>.md` and
  `<id>.comments.md`), and prints the number and URL the issue now lives at.
  `--update` too: one rule, no exception. What is in the store is what has not
  left. Get it back with `pull.py <n>`.
- Deletion happens only after a confirmed tracker response and only after
  `.remote.json` has been written. Network down, non-2xx, an answer that does
  not carry the right number: the file stays and the run stops. A never-pushed
  `origin: local` issue is never touched by any of this.
- The slug survives the round trip because it goes up in the body as
  `<!-- tea:id … -->` (`map.with_id_marker`) and is indexed by number in
  `tmp/issues/.remote.json`. A rename in the web UI, a lost `.remote.json`, a
  fresh clone, another machine — the file comes back under the same name and
  every `depends:` that points at it still resolves.
- `.remote.json` is therefore no longer "an index over the files": it is the
  local number → slug ledger, its entries outlive the files they name, and
  nothing prunes them. It is still recoverable — from the markers in Gitea, not
  from the files.
- Pulling overwrites the body — a fetch, not a merge. It is also how a pushed
  issue comes back at all.
- No drift tracking, and now nothing to track: there is no second copy to
  diverge from. `synced:` tells you how old your working copy is.