First manual smoke against personal Worldtree (10.250.50.152:8081) produced httpx.ReadTimeout mid-stream after the worker_phase BuildingPrompt event. Root cause: httpx's default 5s read timeout killed the connection during mimir's thinking phase (LLM streaming has multi-second idle gaps between SSE events). Fix at the caller layer (where the AsyncClient is owned): - cli._amain and tui.on_mount now construct AsyncClient with timeout=httpx.Timeout(connect=10.0, read=None, write=10.0, pool=10.0). read=None disables the SSE-killing timeout; connect/write/pool keep modest timeouts so true network failures still surface promptly. Defense in depth in sse_client.stream_turn: - ERROR_ROUTING now also catches httpx.ReadTimeout (was just ReadError | RemoteProtocolError) and surfaces it as SseConnectionDropped, so if a caller misconfigures their client the failure is at least a named exception the presenters handle. Contract amendments (in-place): - Issue #1: new [compatibility] constraint documents the read=None recommendation; ERROR_ROUTING for stream_turn lists ReadTimeout alongside ReadError/RemoteProtocolError. - Issues #3 + #4: AsyncClient construction step now spells out the timeout shape explicitly. Smoke after fix: SSE stream consumed cleanly, agent responded, [done] turn_id=88 model=qwen3.6-35-a3b duration_ms=2351. Stdout-only (2>/dev/null) returned clean agent text + exit 0 — INV-002 stdout/stderr split holds end-to-end against real wire. Wire-compat envelope (personal v0.16.2 vs ratatoskr's v0.19.0 pin) confirmed. 164/164 tests GREEN; ruff clean; all three drift checks clean. Note: TUI mode not smoke-tested from this CC session (needs a TTY; operator-side check via `source env.sh && uv run ratatoskr --new --agent mimir`).
Ratatoskr
A Worldtree Conversation API debug TUI. Runs up and down Worldtree's API surface — sessions, turns, persona, tools, admin events, Bifrost state — carrying messages between layers. Like the squirrel.
The product is the observability surface; chat is the input mechanism. Devs run Ratatoskr against a local Worldtree to watch a turn flow through every layer of the system, side-by-side, in one terminal.
Status
v0 scaffold. Design locked; implementation hasn't started. The dev team owns the implementation pass.
Read in this order
docs/design-brief.md— the locked design. Read this first. Every architectural decision is recorded with its rationale, the alternatives considered, and (where relevant) the operator's lock-in moment.docs/SPEC-PIN.md— what Worldtree spec version Ratatoskr is built against, where the vendored snapshot lives, and how to bump the pin.docs/conversation-api-spec.md— the vendored Worldtree spec snapshot. Read this to understand the API surface Ratatoskr consumes. Do not import anything from a Worldtree checkout — the boundary is the spec, not the code. Seedocs/design-brief.md§2.CLAUDE.md— Claude Code conventions for this repo (mostly inherited from the Corviduo template).persistent-memory.md— durable intent across context resets. Update as decisions and state evolve.
Quickstart
# 1. Environment
uv venv && source .venv/bin/activate
uv pip install -e ".[dev]"
# 2. Verify the spec pin
cat docs/SPEC-PIN.md # documented Worldtree SHA + bump procedure
# 3. Tests (none yet; scaffold only)
uv run pytest
# 4. Run against a local Worldtree (once implementation lands)
# Worldtree must be running: python -m core.conversation_api
ratatoskr --agent mimir
What this repo is NOT
- NOT a polished consumer for Worldtree's end-users — that's the web app.
- NOT a Worldtree admin tool — admin CLI is separate (
sessions_cli.pylives in Worldtree). - NOT a featuretracking shadow of the web app — when the Conversation API surface grows, Ratatoskr does not necessarily grow with it.
- NOT a remote-Worldtree debug client — file-tail surfaces (persona log, server log) assume local-dev posture.
The full negative-clause list lives in docs/design-brief.md §6.
Boundary rule
Ratatoskr depends on three things only:
httpx+httpx-sse(network layer)textual(TUI framework)- Worldtree's published Conversation API spec at the pinned SHA
Hard rule: no imports from a Worldtree checkout. No core.* imports,
no from worldtree.*, no shared models, no submodule of Worldtree. The
spec is the entire surface. Boundary smoke test at tests/test_no_worldtree_imports.py
enforces this in CI.
Version-skew strategy
The dev team is decoupled from Worldtree's dev team. To detect drift when Worldtree changes the API:
- Spec-version pin in
pyproject.toml(worldtree-spec-rev). Bump explicitly; bumps are a tracked action. - Recorded-SSE snapshot tests at
tests/snapshots/. Captured against a live Worldtree; replayed in CI. Re-record after every pin bump. - Conformance smoke test — boots Worldtree via Docker compose in CI, runs a one-turn happy path. Catches integration-level drift.
See docs/SPEC-PIN.md for the bump procedure.
Consumer-side discoveries
If you find a spec gap, ambiguity, or missing-but-needed endpoint while working on Ratatoskr: route the discovery back to worldtree-dev via althing rather than via PR on Worldtree directly. The separate-team boundary is intentional and helps catch spec gaps that an in-tree consumer would paper over.
Related repos
- Worldtree — the API Ratatoskr consumes
- brokkr-smithy — authored this design brief
- Skaldsong — another Worldtree API consumer (Python; render-and-aggregate pattern)
- mead-hall — another Worldtree API consumer (TypeScript; server-side broker)