vh
d3569904bc
Operator: "Why does the thinking scroll a little section at the
bottom of the thinking pane instead of scrolling the whole pane?"
Root cause: v0.6.1's thinking-current Static was docked to the
bottom of the Thinking pane and rendered the last 200 chars of
streaming content. As deltas arrived, the displayed 200-char tail
shifted — old text fell off the left, new text appeared on the
right — visually reading as "a little section scrolling at the
bottom" while the larger thinking-log RichLog above showed only
the previous run's closed content (or nothing on first turn).
## Fix: stream directly into thinking-log
The Static is gone. Thinking deltas now write straight to the
`thinking-log` RichLog (one delta = one line in the scrollable
log). The whole pane scrolls naturally as content arrives —
operator can switch to Ctrl+3 and see streaming content fill
the pane top-to-bottom.
Routing pattern:
First Thinking delta of run:
→ write Rule(title="turn N · thinking #K start") to thinking_log
→ write delta content as a line
→ set thinking_open = True
Subsequent Thinking deltas:
→ write delta content as a line
Non-thinking event (closes the run):
→ write Rule(title="turn N · thinking #K end") to thinking_log
→ reset thinking_open
The Rule(start) at the top of an in-progress run is now the
"thinking is happening" indicator. No more separate live-preview
widget required.
## Trade-off: no markdown re-render
Pre-v0.6.5 closed runs got a Markdown(full_content) render between
the start/end Rules. v0.6.5 drops that — the streamed deltas ARE
the content; re-rendering as Markdown would either need to wait
for run-end (no streaming) OR re-render incrementally per delta
(bad UX). Streaming wins for "live observability" framing.
The downside: if model thinking has Markdown structure (lists,
code), it renders as raw text. Acceptable per operator's "stream
in line" framing.
## Removed widgets
- `Static#thinking-current` (right column / Thinking pane bottom)
- `TuiPresenterState.render` no longer takes a `thinking_widget` param
- `TuiPresenterState.thinking_buffer` field dropped (no accumulation)
- `_stream_turn_worker` no longer queries `#thinking-current`
- `on_mount` no longer hides `#thinking-current`
- DEFAULT_CSS `#thinking-current` block removed
## Contract amendment
INV-022 amended: thinking now streams as raw delta lines, not
Markdown-rendered on close. INV-024 amended: thinking-current
Static removed entirely (was relocated v0.6.1, removed v0.6.5).
Drift-check clean.
## Tests
238/238 GREEN (was 241 — 3 obsolete widget tests deleted:
test_thinking_widget_truncation, test_thinking_widget_visibility_lifecycle,
test_terminal_events_belt_and_braces_widget_cleanup). 5 routing tests
rewritten for the new streaming shape (test_thinking_streams_into_thinking_log,
test_thinking_closes_to_thinking_log, test_multiple_thinking_runs_...,
test_render_exception_fallback, test_cancelled_mid_thinking_closes,
test_left_column_content_only).
ruff clean. Manual injection test confirms routing: Rule(start) +
delta lines write to thinking_log; transcript untouched.
Patch bump (v0.6.4 → v0.6.5) — internal restructure within Thinking
pane; presenter signature narrowed; no caller-visible public API
change (RatatoskrApp + AgentPickerApp surfaces identical).
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)