start-os/CLAUDE.md

CLAUDE.md

This file provides guidance to Claude Code (claude.ai/code) when working with code in this repository.

Project Overview

StartOS is an open-source Linux distribution for running personal servers. It manages discovery, installation, network configuration, backups, and health monitoring of self-hosted services.

Tech Stack:

• Backend: Rust (async/Tokio, Axum web framework)
• Frontend: Angular 20 + TypeScript + TaigaUI
• Container runtime: Node.js/TypeScript with LXC
• Database/State: Patch-DB (git submodule) - storage layer with reactive frontend sync
• API: JSON-RPC via rpc-toolkit (see agents/rpc-toolkit.md)
• Auth: Password + session cookie, public/private key signatures, local authcookie (see core/src/middleware/auth/)

Build & Development

See CONTRIBUTING.md for:

• Environment setup and requirements
• Build commands and make targets
• Testing and formatting commands
• Environment variables

Quick reference:

. ./devmode.sh                            # Enable dev mode
make update-startbox REMOTE=start9@<ip>   # Fastest iteration (binary + UI)
make test-core                            # Run Rust tests

Architecture

Core (/core)

The Rust backend daemon. Main binaries:

• startbox - Main daemon (runs as startd)
• start-cli - CLI interface
• start-container - Runs inside LXC containers; communicates with host and manages subcontainers
• registrybox - Registry daemon
• tunnelbox - VPN/tunnel daemon

Key modules:

• src/context/ - Context types (RpcContext, CliContext, InitContext, DiagnosticContext)
• src/service/ - Service lifecycle management with actor pattern (service_actor.rs)
• src/db/model/ - Patch-DB models (public.rs synced to frontend, private.rs backend-only)
• src/net/ - Networking (DNS, ACME, WiFi, Tor via Arti, WireGuard)
• src/s9pk/ - S9PK package format (merkle archive)
• src/registry/ - Package registry management

RPC Pattern: See agents/rpc-toolkit.md

Web (/web)

Angular projects sharing common code:

• projects/ui/ - Main admin interface
• projects/setup-wizard/ - Initial setup
• projects/start-tunnel/ - VPN management UI
• projects/shared/ - Common library (API clients, components)
• projects/marketplace/ - Service discovery

Development:

cd web
npm ci
npm run start:ui        # Dev server with mocks
npm run build:ui        # Production build
npm run check           # Type check all projects

Container Runtime (/container-runtime)

Node.js runtime that manages service containers via RPC. See RPCSpec.md for protocol.

Container Architecture:

LXC Container (uniform base for all services)
└── systemd
    └── container-runtime.service
        └── Loads /usr/lib/startos/package/index.js (from s9pk javascript.squashfs)
            └── Package JS launches subcontainers (from images in s9pk)

The container runtime communicates with the host via JSON-RPC over Unix socket. Package JavaScript must export functions conforming to the ABI type defined in sdk/base/lib/types.ts.

/media/startos/ directory (mounted by host into container):

Path	Description
volumes/<name>/	Package data volumes (id-mapped, persistent)
assets/	Read-only assets from s9pk assets.squashfs
images/<name>/	Container images (squashfs, used for subcontainers)
images/<name>.env	Environment variables for image
images/<name>.json	Image metadata
backup/	Backup mount point (mounted during backup operations)
rpc/service.sock	RPC socket (container runtime listens here)
rpc/host.sock	Host RPC socket (for effects callbacks to host)

S9PK Structure: See agents/s9pk-structure.md

SDK (/sdk)

TypeScript SDK for packaging services (@start9labs/start-sdk).

• base/ - Core types, ABI definitions, effects interface (@start9labs/start-sdk-base)
• package/ - Full SDK for package developers, re-exports base

Patch-DB (/patch-db)

Git submodule providing diff-based state synchronization. Changes to db/model/public.rs automatically sync to the frontend.

Key patterns:

• db.peek().await - Get a read-only snapshot of the database state
• db.mutate(|db| { ... }).await - Apply mutations atomically, returns MutateResult
• #[derive(HasModel)] - Derive macro for types stored in the database, generates typed accessors

Generated accessor types (from HasModel derive):

• as_field() - Immutable reference: &Model<T>
• as_field_mut() - Mutable reference: &mut Model<T>
• into_field() - Owned value: Model<T>

Model<T> APIs (from db/prelude.rs):

• .de() - Deserialize to T
• .ser(&value) - Serialize from T
• .mutate(|v| ...) - Deserialize, mutate, reserialize
• For maps: .keys(), .as_idx(&key), .as_idx_mut(&key), .insert(), .remove(), .contains_key()

Supplementary Documentation

The agents/ directory contains detailed documentation for AI assistants:

• TODO.md - Pending tasks for AI agents (check this first, remove items when completed)
• USER.md - Current user identifier (gitignored, see below)
• rpc-toolkit.md - JSON-RPC patterns and handler configuration
• core-rust-patterns.md - Common utilities and patterns for Rust code in /core (guard pattern, mount guards, etc.)
• s9pk-structure.md - S9PK package format structure
• i18n-patterns.md - Internationalization key conventions and usage in /core

Session Startup

On startup:

1. Check for agents/USER.md - If it doesn't exist, prompt the user for their name/identifier and create it. This file is gitignored since it varies per developer.

2. Check agents/TODO.md for relevant tasks - Show TODOs that either:

   • Have no @username tag (relevant to everyone)
   • Are tagged with the current user's identifier

   Skip TODOs tagged with a different user.

3. Ask "What would you like to do today?" - Offer options for each relevant TODO item, plus "Something else" for other requests.