AGENTS.md

Kortix project

Linear tracking

Capability-page work uses Team Jay, project customize, and the milestone that matches the active phase. Search before creating issues. Move the active issue to In Progress before editing. Mark it Done only after the change is merged, deployed to dev, and verified there.

What "ownership" means

The words "can you own this?", "are you on it?", and "can you take care of this?" all mean the same thing: you are 100% responsible. The person who handed it to you must be able to walk completely away, come back a week later, and find it done properly — because you cared about every edge and corner.

• it's not done if it's not implemented
• it's not done if the implementation is ugly
• it's not done if it's not documented
• it's not done if users can't discover it
• it's not done if you can't market it

Owning something means owning it end to end. The whole arc from "we have a problem" to "nobody has to think about this again." Not just the code change in the middle, the whole thing. If someone hands you something and still has to track whether it actually got solved, you didn't own it.

Here's what that actually looks like in practice.

Start with the problem, not the solution. A lot of the time you'll already have a fix in your head before you've understood what's broken. "We need to move from X to Y" isn't a problem, that's a solution you've pre-committed to. The real problem is probably "it's slow", "it's flaky", "it breaks for this customer". Name that first. Then ask what else could solve it, what the tradeoffs are, and which option actually wins.

Then pressure-test it before you build:

• Edge cases. Which exist, which matter, which we can safely ignore.
• Failures. Networks fail, that's a given. Retry? How many times, for how long?
• Data. How much, does it need migrating or cleaning, how do you get real data to test against, and what are you assuming about its shape that you haven't actually verified?
• Testing. How will you know it's correct? Are automated tests enough or do you need to poke at it by hand? Is the result something you can see in a screenshot or a video?
• The bigger picture. How does this get announced, how does it fit the roadmap, can you even picture it shipped? If something there bothers you, push back. Ask.

Then actually do it, with precision, care, urgency and calm all at once. No half-assing. The bar before you merge: am I proud of this? Would I put it in front of Steve Jobs and walk him through what I built, the constraints, the tradeoffs?

And then prove it works. Not "the tests pass", prove it. In 99% of cases you can confirm it yourself: run it, ask an agent to walk through the scenarios, poke at the data before and after, take a screenshot, make a demo. Are you actually sure it solves the problem you started with?

Then make sure it lands in production and works in production, which is not the same as merged. Did it deploy? Did the deploy quietly fail? Is there a flag to flip, and does the flag work? Can you use the thing in prod right now and confirm it's really there?

And then close the loop with everyone it touches:

• The team. If it's a new feature, a new convention, or a tricky thing people should know about, tell them. Don't underestimate peripheral vision. You knowing that someone changed Z yesterday can save someone else three hours of debugging tomorrow when a bug report about Z comes in.
• Customers. Whoever reported it, whoever's blocked, let them know it's fixed.
• The world. If it's worth announcing, announce it.
• Future you. Are there follow-ups? Should you check the logs in a week to make sure it's still healthy?

But that's how we build a product in a small team. We don't have PMs, we don't have a QA department. We're small, but we're great, and we can do all of that.

And it's always okay to ask for help, it's okay to ask questions, it's okay to redo things and triple-check. What's not okay is to quietly assume someone else will catch the parts you didn't think about.

The bar: autonomy, agency, ownership

This is what I require from the agent I work with. In my own words:

Either you are performing or you are not. Either you are taking on high ownership, are high agency and pushing without me having to micromanage you, or you are not.

Especially in today's age you are limited by great talent more than ever. Because we can all AGI Max, you have a single chokepoint on good judgement.

Every person that comes on the team has to have the capability to truly own something. If you have built products, you develop ownership because you owned something — whether it worked out or not — for a prolonged amount of time. You develop true agency.

I hire you because I expect that if I am able to walk out of the room after giving you a high level thing and come back, it's going to be done good, ideally better than I would've done it.

Most people are shit at their jobs, some are decent/good, but only people who are exceptional should be at Kortix.

Being exceptional on paper is simple — it's a combination of Ownership, Agency and actual Merit/Skill. It's hard, because you have to not only be very smart but also crazy driven to push like a motherfucker and want to feel every edge and corner to make sure the output is good.

Learnings: incident rules live in the learnings skill

.claude/skills/learnings/SKILL.md is the append-only register of rules paid for with real downtime — each with the incident that taught it and the automation that enforces it. Load it before writing or reviewing a DB migration, touching deploy/release workflows, planning a promote, or responding to a prod incident. After resolving ANY incident or near-miss, append its rule there in the same session — an incident that leaves no learning behind is not finished.

How to communicate: precise, technically accurate, no fluff

Write every response — chat, PR text, commit messages, code comments, docs — in the spirit of ASD-STE100 (Simplified Technical English). The goal is maximum technical precision with zero filler. Apply these rules:

• State facts, not vibes. Every claim is specific and verifiable: name the file, function, route, flag, SHA, status code, or number. No "should work", "probably", "a bunch of", "various", "seems fine" — say what is true and how you know, or say you do not know it yet.
• One idea per sentence. Keep sentences short (aim ≤ 20 words) and each one carries a single instruction or fact. Split compound thoughts instead of chaining clauses.
• Active voice, present tense, direct. "The gate rejects the request", not "the request may end up being rejected". Give the instruction; do not soften it.
• One term per concept. Use the same word for the same thing every time — do not alternate "session"/"run"/"task" for one concept. Match the codebase's existing names exactly (session_id, not "session ID / run id").
• No filler, no hedging, no praise. Cut "basically", "just", "simply", "I think", "great question", "as we know", and marketing adjectives. Lead with the answer; drop the throat-clearing.
• Quantify. Prefer exact values over adjectives: "up to ~9 min", "returns 402", "3 of 7 flows", not "slow", "an error", "most".
• Show the evidence. When you assert a behavior, cite the command you ran and the real output. Distinguish verified fact from assumption explicitly.
• Structure over prose. Use numbered/bulleted lists for steps, findings, and status. Reserve paragraphs for genuine explanation, and keep them tight.
• Say the unknown plainly. If something is unverified, blocked, or risky, state it in one line — what, why, and what would resolve it — instead of burying or omitting it.

This standard governs how you talk. It does not override the technical rules below; it is how you report on them.

First, at session start: which canonical branch are you in?

Every change belongs to one canonical branch — the branch for whatever is being worked on. One canonical branch, one worktree. Establish which one you are in before any non-trivial change. Do not create a branch by reflex.

1. Join the canonical branch that already exists for this work. List them with git worktree list and git branch -r. If the work continues, extends, fixes, or cleans up something already in flight, it belongs on that branch. Ask the user which branch when it is not obvious.
2. Start a new canonical branch only when the work is genuinely a new thing. Give it its own worktree: pnpm worktree create --name <slug> --yes --no-start, then do all edits and runs under ../suna-<slug>. Add --db only when the work needs migrations, destructive data work, schema drift, or independent auth/storage state. See the worktree skill.
3. The primary checkout (pnpm dev, web 3000 / api 8008) is for running and investigating. Do not park feature work there.

Pack more into one branch, not less. A follow-up fix, a rename cleanup, a stale-reference sweep, and the change that caused them all belong on the same branch and land together. Splitting one objective across several branches is how a half-finished cutover reaches main in pieces — each piece green alone, the whole thing broken.

Sub-branches are allowed. Agents may cut working branches off the canonical branch and merge back into it. A sub-branch never opens a PR against main. Only the canonical branch does.

Carve-outs where you just proceed: read-only investigation and questions, and trivial single-file typo/comment fixes on the current branch.

Default delivery: share by preview, merge to main only when told

main auto-deploys to dev, so merging to main publishes to the whole team. It is not a save point, and it is not how you show someone your work.

1. Work on the canonical branch in its worktree. Commit as often as you want.
2. Open a draft PR against main on the first commit and apply the preview label. That builds a complete self-host preview for the branch — its own PostgreSQL, Supabase, API, gateway, frontend, and HTTPS origin. This is how work is shared and reviewed internally. Sharing never requires merging.
3. Run the relevant local unit, type, integration, and end-to-end checks with real inputs and outputs. Keep the PR green as you go, not at the end.
4. Merge main into the canonical branch daily. A branch that diverges for weeks detonates on merge exactly like a 1,500-line PR does.
5. Never merge to main without the user's explicit approval of that merge. Not "the task is done", not "the checks are green" — the user says merge. The only machine-enforced rule is that every change reaches main and staging through a pull request — no required approvals, no required status checks, no bypass actors. Anyone may merge their own PR. The discipline is yours, not the ruleset's, so the bar is what you verified, not what CI let through.
6. A change to a client-facing runtime contract — the @kortix/sdk public surface, session/thread transport, the streaming protocol — merges only after the whole objective ran on its own preview origin through a real session. Green tests are not the bar. Someone used it.
7. After the merge, follow the Deploy Dev run to completion. Confirm the deployed artifact contains the merged SHA; a successful /health response alone is not deployment proof. A newer push cancels an older run by design — if yours was cancelled before it deployed, the next push re-picks-up your still-stale surface, or force it with gh workflow run deploy-dev.yml -f surface=all. Full procedure, surfaces, and verification: docs/runbooks/deploy-dev.md.
8. Re-run the user-visible behavior against https://dev.kortix.com and/or https://dev-api.kortix.com. Prefer the real Kortix CLI configured for the dev API for CLI/project/session flows, and direct authenticated HTTP calls for API contracts. For web behavior, drive the deployed UI and assert its network request plus visible result.

Preview verification, local verification, and dev verification are all required. A local pass does not replace the preview origin, and a dev smoke test does not replace focused local tests. Record the branch, PR, preview origin, merge SHA, deploy run, deployed SHA evidence, and the exact dev command or interaction in the final response.

Architecture: @kortix/sdk is the source of truth

@kortix/sdk is the single source of truth for everything that talks to the Kortix backend — projects, accounts, sessions, files, secrets, triggers, the session runtime, OpenCode REST compatibility, SSE streaming, model state, and auth-token plumbing. The apps (apps/web, apps/whitelabel-demo, apps/mobile) are thin consumers. Treat these as standing rules whenever you touch the data/runtime layer:

Editing packages/sdk itself? Load the sdk skill (the rules) first. It is a published npm package with its own hard rules that have no analogue elsewhere in this repo: TDD is mandatory (failing test first, run it, watch it fail, then implement — and every turn ends with the gates run, the real output pasted, and an explicit shippable YES/NO/NOT YET); exported names (including types) are a public API contract and renaming one is a breaking change; the version field is inert and must never be bumped by hand; adding an export requires three synchronized edits; and the framework-free core is enforced by a static import-graph tripwire.

• Logic lives in the SDK, never in a host. No raw fetch to the Kortix API, no @opencode-ai/sdk imports, no transport / runtime / data-state code written in app code. New data or runtime behavior is added to the SDK and exposed through its public surface — not hand-rolled or duplicated in a host. If you need something the SDK doesn't expose, add it to the SDK.
• One client per host. Create it once via createKortix({ backendUrl, getToken }) and read everything through @kortix/sdk + @kortix/sdk/react. Auth is just getToken — an API key / PAT for programmatic use, or a Supabase JWT for the logged-in web app. Hosts never instantiate a second client.
• A whole session is one hook. useSession(projectId, sessionId) owns the entire runtime lifecycle — /start, the sandbox switch, the live SSE stream, readiness seeding, immutable runtime identity, the native conversation id, and message sync. Hosts don't hand-roll the mount, drive a server-store "switch", or mount a separate event provider.
• Session-scoped + provider-agnostic. The public API is session-scoped (kortix.session(pid, sid).health() / .previewUrl() / .restart() / …). The sandbox provider is a server-side concern. Every session uses the OpenCode REST runtime. Host code must not implement a second transport.
• apps/web data modules are shims. Files such as apps/web/src/ui/index.ts, apps/web/src/lib/iam-client.ts, and apps/web/src/hooks/admin/use-*.ts are thin re-exports (export * from '@kortix/sdk/...'). Keep them as shims; put the real logic in the SDK. When a merge conflict lands on one of these, keep the shim (--ours) and port any new host-side logic into the SDK — do not revert to a host-local implementation.
• Docs are the spec. apps/web/content/docs/sdk/* and packages/sdk/README.md describe the intended surface. Keep them current with the SDK, and flag legacy/deprecated surfaces in-doc rather than documenting them as current.

You CAN run and verify everything end-to-end. Do it.

This repo ships a complete, runnable local stack with live cloud sandboxes. Do not claim you "can't verify from here" or hand back unverified work — you have everything needed to run the app, hit the real API, provision real Daytona sandboxes, drive the real UI in a browser, and assert behavior. Use it.

Required verification standard — real inputs, real outputs

For every behavior change, assume 100% autonomy to verify the user-visible contract before handing the work back. Do not stop at typechecks, unit tests, or mocked internals when a real surface exists.

• API changes: exercise the actual HTTP route with real request payloads (curl, bun fetch, or the ke2e runner against a running API). Assert the status code and exact response fields that prove the behavior. For writes, also assert the persisted/read-back state or resulting repo/file output.
• CLI changes: run the real CLI command as a process from bash, with the same flags and stdin a user or agent would use. Assert exit code, stdout, stderr, and any files/API calls/commits it should create. Do not rely only on importing command functions.
• Web changes: drive the real page in Chromium/Playwright/chrome-devtools. Click/type/toggle the actual controls, intercept or observe the network request, and assert the visible UI state plus the outgoing payload. Screenshots are useful evidence, but assertions on DOM and network data are required.
• Cross-surface features: verify each exposed surface independently. If the same feature ships on API + CLI + web + mobile, each gets its own black-box assertion for the inputs users can make and the outputs they receive.
• Default/negative paths count: when changing defaults or removing implicit behavior, assert both the new default and the explicit opt-in/alternate path.
• No silent gaps: if a surface cannot be fully exercised in the current turn, say exactly which input/output remains unverified and why. Otherwise keep going until the real surface is verified.
• Final response format: when work is finished, answer per the How to communicate standard at the top of this file — numbered/bulleted, no fluff. Include exactly what changed, what was verified (with the command + output), what remains unverified or risky, and what the user should test next. Do not bury the actionable testing path in a paragraph.

The stack (already wired)

• Web — Next.js dev server on http://localhost:3000.
• API — Bun server on http://localhost:8008/v1 (/health returns JSON).
• Supabase — local, on http://127.0.0.1:54321 (Docker).
• Sandboxes — REAL cloud sandboxes on the enabled provider (Daytona, Platinum, or E2B; credentials in apps/api/.env / .env.local). Each project session gets its own sandbox; session_id == sandbox_id. The sandbox daemon is reached through http://localhost:8008/v1/p/<external_id>/8000/.... OpenCode REST uses the compatibility proxy.
• Tunnel — scripts/dev-local.sh (pnpm dev) auto-starts a cloudflared quick tunnel so cloud sandboxes can call back to the local API (KORTIX_URL).

Bring it up with pnpm dev from suna/ (it loads apps/api/.env + apps/web/.env, starts Supabase, the API, the web app, and the tunnel). Check what's already running before starting a duplicate: curl -s localhost:8008/v1/health, lsof -iTCP:3000 -sTCP:LISTEN.

Secrets are dotenvx-encrypted (mandatory). apps/api/.env (+ .env.dev) are committed as ciphertext (KEY=encrypted:…); keys live in Dotenv Armor. Never write a plaintext secret into a tracked file or commit — add/change values only via dotenvx set KEY value -f apps/api/.env (then commit), read with dotenvx get, and machine-local overrides go in the gitignored apps/api/.env.local. If the user pastes a key, store it with dotenvx set, never paste it raw. A pre-commit hook + GitHub push protection enforce this — don't bypass them. Full procedure: the dotenvx-secrets skill.

Authenticating to the live API (for scripts/tests)

Mint a real JWT against local Supabase, then call the API with it:

1. SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY lives in apps/api/.env; the anon key (NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY) in apps/web/.env.
2. Create a confirmed user: POST 127.0.0.1:54321/auth/v1/admin/users (apikey + Authorization: Bearer <service_role>, body {email,password,email_confirm:true}).
3. Password-grant for the token: POST 127.0.0.1:54321/auth/v1/token?grant_type=password (apikey: <anon>).
4. Call the API: Authorization: Bearer <access_token> against localhost:8008/v1 (e.g. /accounts, /projects/provision, /projects/:id/sessions, /p/<ext>/8000/...).

See tests/e2e/helpers/session-auth.ts for the exact calls.

One local testing system

• pnpm test is the only repository-level test command. It runs local REST and CLI flows, SDK tests, runner unit tests, route coverage, and worktree tests concurrently.
• pnpm test -- --id ACC-4 runs one flow. --domain access runs one domain.
• pnpm test -- --sdk-only runs only packages/sdk tests.
• pnpm test -- --browser-only runs Playwright browser journeys. It starts the deterministic local stack.
• Local browser runs use two Playwright workers. CI browser shards use one.
• pnpm test -- --packages-only runs every app/package test and publish check.
• pnpm test -- --full adds browser journeys and every app/package test. It starts the deterministic local stack.
• pnpm test -- --target-smoke verifies the deployed staging API and gateway SHA, then runs the tagged Playwright staging smoke. Release CI supplies the staging credentials and RELEASE_SOURCE_SHA.
• pnpm test -- --target-full verifies the same deployed SHA, then runs every configured staging REST, CLI, and Playwright journey. The production release gate uses this command and fails on any excluded API flow.
• Browser and full modes reuse only a running API that proves the deterministic test profile. Stop an ordinary development stack before either command.
• Every root run writes lane and total timings to tests/test-results/local/benchmark-<timestamp>.json.
• Every Linux CI job runs on Blacksmith through runs-on: ${{ vars.CI_RUNNER_<tier> || '<label>' }}. Tiers, the kill switch back to GitHub-hosted runners, and the Docker layer cache: docs/runbooks/ci-runners.md.
• GitHub Actions runs four lanes — core, browser-1, browser-2, packages — natively, one Blacksmith runner each (CI_RUNNER_L), through .github/workflows/tests.yml. The two browser lanes are halves of one sharded run (--browser-shard=1/2 and 2/2). The slowest lane defines the gate duration. Each lane is the unchanged root command at the exact PR head SHA; browser lanes install Chromium and prestart Supabase first. Do not add CI-only test logic. (The Platinum/Daytona sandbox-worker path was removed on 2026-08-26; only deploy-preview.yml still uses a cloud sandbox.)
• Release tests run pnpm test -- --target-full against deployed staging. They block production when API or gateway health reports a SHA other than RELEASE_SOURCE_SHA, when any API flow is excluded, or when a configured Playwright journey fails.
• The preview label creates one full self-host preview in a persistent warm Platinum sandbox. auto uses Daytona only for a Platinum infrastructure failure. The preview has its own PostgreSQL, Supabase, API, gateway, frontend, Mailpit, and HTTPS origin.
• Preview CI runs pnpm test -- --target-full against that origin. The sticky pull request comment links the origin and its /_tests/ HTML report.
• A preview head change deletes the sandbox and removes the stale preview label. Unlabel, close, and scheduled reconciliation also delete the sandbox.
• Preview warm images contain dependencies and Docker layers only. They never contain a database or runtime secret.
• Preview Mailpit handles authentication and invite email. The dedicated preview GitHub App runs the managed repository and CLI push flows. OAuth initiation is the only allowed preview browser exclusion.

Product flow source of truth

• tests/spec/end-to-end.md contains the natural-language contract and stable flow IDs.
• tests/src/flows/*.flow.ts implements the contracts through HTTP and real CLI processes. Do not import API handlers.
• Write each ctx.step() as a complete action and observable result. Cover setup, authentication, action, read-back proof, negative paths, and cleanup.
• Keep every flow's meta.routes synchronized with tests/spec/routes.generated.json. Regenerate the manifest with bun run apps/api/scripts/dump-routes.ts after route changes.
• The local profile uses local Supabase, PostgreSQL, API, gateway, and bare Git repositories. It excludes Stripe, cloud sandboxes, managed GitHub repositories, and external email delivery explicitly.
• Use Playwright only for browser-visible behavior. API-only assertions belong in REST flows. SDK tests remain in packages/sdk.
• Do not add another cross-cutting test harness, Makefile lane, contract suite, Testcontainers suite, load suite, mutation suite, visual suite, accessibility suite, or ad hoc smoke script under tests/.
• Read tests/README.md and the repository testing skill before changing the test system.

Release topology — dev, staging, prod

• main = dev trunk. It is the repo default branch and deploys to dev.kortix.com / dev-api.kortix.com. Direct pushes are allowed; breaking or incomplete development can live here while it is being shaken out.
• staging = release-candidate branch. Nothing should land on staging unless it is intended to be production-ready. Human/code changes enter staging by PR: main -> staging for the full dev candidate, or a targeted branch -> staging for a selective release candidate. Staging deploys to staging.kortix.com / staging-api.kortix.com and must use the staging data plane, not dev or prod.
• Staging deploys must apply pending DB migrations against STAGING_DATABASE_URL before the staging EKS rollout. If that secret is missing or points at dev/prod, treat the deploy as broken; staging must never fall back to dev, KE2E, or prod DBs.
• prod = production. Production moves only through Promote to Production, which uses staging as the source, opens a reviewed release PR into prod, publishes the release artifacts, and rolls production after merge.
• If a staging runtime check points at dev.kortix.com or dev-api.kortix.com, treat that as a broken staging setup, not a passing staging gate.

Driving the real UI (chrome-devtools MCP)

• Routes are auth-gated (/dashboard, /projects/* → redirect to /auth unauthenticated); sign in first (seed a user as above, then log in via the /auth form, or inject the Supabase session).
• The MCP uses a dedicated Chrome profile at ~/.cache/chrome-devtools-mcp/chrome-profile (separate from your normal browser). If launch fails with "browser is already running for … profile", kill the orphaned Chrome using that profile and remove chrome-profile/Singleton{Lock,Cookie,Socket}, then retry.
• Next.js dev compiles routes on first hit — first navigation to a cold route can take 30–60s; warm it with curl or use a generous navigation timeout.

Frontend type/lint gate

• apps/web tsc --noEmit is clean apart from ~15 known @types/bun test.each errors in 3 test files (app/(system)/api/og/template/template-url.test.ts, features/file-viewer/preview-fit.test.tsx, features/session/action-panel/easy/easy-panel-logic.test.ts). The old ~1500 TS2786 / IntrinsicAttributes noise from a React 19↔18 types mismatch (two copies of @types/react in one program — packages/sdk had its own) is gone as of the Next 16 upgrade. If TS2786 appears again, treat it as a genuine duplicate-@types/react regression and investigate — do not wave it through.
• npx eslint <files> should be clean of errors. eslint . across the whole app currently reports ~455 warnings, mostly react-hooks/* React Compiler rules pending a dedicated audit — expected until that audit lands.

Frontend design standard — Jay/Kortix bar

When touching any visual surface in apps/web, treat brand fit as a release gate, not polish:

• Read .claude/skills/kortix-brand-guidelines/SKILL.md before writing the first className. It is the value law: the complete allowlist of every color, spacing step, type rung, radius, elevation, and duration you may use. Note --spacing: 0.23rem — Tailwind's scale is 8% tighter here, so a 16px mockup padding is p-4, never p-[16px]. Run its audit.sh over your changed paths before opening the PR; it must be clean on files you touched.
• Read .claude/skills/kortix-design-system/SKILL.md next and compose existing primitives from @/components/ui/* before inventing local chrome.
• Match the current Jay Suthar / Kortix product aesthetic: calm neutral surfaces, dense-but-legible UI, black/white plus one earned accent, token-driven spacing, and no decorative color, glow, or one-off rounded boxes.
• Use recent product surfaces as references before editing: /design-system, apps/web/src/features/workspace/project-layout/project-home.tsx, apps/web/src/components/ui/wallpaper-background.tsx, and the account/IAM screens called out by the design-system skill.
• Verify visual work in the browser and include the exact lint/typecheck commands you ran in the PR. If it does not look native beside Jay-authored UI, keep iterating before shipping.