AGENTS.md — AI Agent Contributor Guide

This guide is for AI agents contributing to the Sprout codebase. It covers agent-specific context and conventions. For general contributor info (setup, code style, PR process, architecture), see CONTRIBUTING.md.

Repo Structure

crates/
  sprout-relay        # WebSocket relay server — main entry point
  sprout-core         # Core types, event verification, filter matching
  sprout-db           # MySQL event store and data access layer
  sprout-auth         # Authentication and authorization
  sprout-pubsub       # Redis pub/sub fan-out, presence, typing indicators
  sprout-mcp          # MCP server providing AI agent tools
  sprout-acp          # ACP harness bridging Sprout events to AI agents
  sprout-workflow     # YAML-as-code workflow engine (evalexpr conditions)
  sprout-search       # Typesense-backed full-text search
  sprout-audit        # Hash-chain audit log
  sprout-huddle       # LiveKit audio/video integration
  sprout-proxy        # Nostr client compatibility proxy
  sprout-admin        # Operator CLI for relay administration
  sprout-test-client  # Integration test client and E2E test suite

desktop/              # Tauri 2 + React 19 desktop app
migrations/           # SQL migrations (auto-applied on relay startup)
scripts/              # Dev tooling
.env.example          # Config template — copy to .env before running

Getting Started

. ./bin/activate-hermit   # activate hermit toolchain (Rust, Node, etc.)
cp .env.example .env      # configure local environment
just setup                # install deps, run migrations
just relay                # start relay at ws://localhost:3000
just ci                   # run before any PR

See CONTRIBUTING.md for full setup details and dependency requirements.

Quality Gates

Run just ci before every PR. It runs: fmt, clippy, unit tests, desktop build, and Tauri check. All must pass.

Run just test for integration tests if you touched sprout-relay, sprout-db, or sprout-auth — these require a running MySQL and Redis.

Additional rules:

No unsafe code
No unwrap() or expect() in production paths — use ? and proper error types
New public API must have doc comments

Key Patterns

Dual API surface: Sprout exposes both a REST API and a NIP-29 WebSocket relay. Both paths converge on shared DB functions in sprout-db. When adding a feature, implement the shared DB logic first, then wire up both surfaces.

Event kinds: All event kind integers are defined in sprout-core/src/kind.rs. New features get new kind integers — add them here first, then implement handling in the relay.

Channel scoping: Channels use h tags (NIP-29 group tag), not e tags. Filters and queries must scope to h tags when operating within a channel.

MCP tools proxy REST: The MCP server in sprout-mcp wraps REST endpoints. Add the REST endpoint first, then add the MCP tool that calls it. Do not implement logic directly in MCP handlers.

Workflow conditions: sprout-workflow uses evalexpr for condition evaluation. Keep expressions simple and testable.

Thread counters: reply_count and descendant_count are materialized on thread root events. Any code that inserts replies must update these counters — check existing reply handlers for the pattern.

Testing

just test-unit    # unit tests, no infrastructure needed
just test         # full integration suite (requires MySQL + Redis)

E2E tests live in crates/sprout-test-client/tests/:

e2e_rest_api.rs — REST endpoint coverage
e2e_relay.rs — WebSocket relay protocol
e2e_mcp.rs — MCP tool surface
e2e_tokens.rs — auth token flows
e2e_workflows.rs — workflow engine

Desktop E2E: cd desktop && pnpm exec playwright test

See TESTING.md for the full multi-agent E2E guide.

Desktop App

The desktop app is Tauri 2 + React 19 + Vite + Tailwind CSS. Features are organized under desktop/src/features/. Biome handles linting and formatting.

just desktop-dev   # web-only dev server (faster iteration)
just desktop-app   # full Tauri app with native shell

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