Daniele
902f47ecd8
CLAUDE.md had grown to 152 KB (~21k words, ~40k tokens) and is loaded into
every coding-agent session. The cost is not the cache read, it is attention:
the rules that are genuinely invariant were drowning in the mechanics of
subsystems that most tasks never touch.
The split criterion is blast radius, not importance. A rule a change anywhere
could violate stays in CLAUDE.md — the commit rule, the production/schema
constraint, domain neutrality, the event-bus rule, the crate boundaries, and
the module map. The mechanism of one subsystem moves to dev-docs/, opened on
entry to that subsystem via a routing table at the top of CLAUDE.md.
Nothing was rewritten: every section was moved verbatim by line range and
verified line-by-line against the original. The only edits are cross-reference
repairs ("see the DB section" -> a link), the promotion of headings in the
extracted files, and a condensed "Current state" whose full text now lives in
dev-docs/users-auth-and-boot.md.
CLAUDE.md: 152 KB -> 31 KB. Twelve subsystem files plus an index under
dev-docs/, which now carries the same standing rule as docs/ and CHANGELOG.md:
a change to a subsystem updates its dev-doc in the same change.
No CHANGELOG entry: this is documentation for coding agents with no observable
effect on the application.
3.0 KiB
Skald dev-docs — architectural reference for coding agents. Entry point: ../CLAUDE.md
dev-docs — index
These files hold the design rationale of one subsystem each. They are not loaded into an agent's context automatically: ../CLAUDE.md is, and it names the file to open before touching a given area.
The split criterion is not importance. Everything here is load-bearing — most paragraphs exist to record a trap somebody already fell into ("the obvious alternative is X, and it is wrong because Y"). The criterion is blast radius: a rule a change anywhere can violate stays in CLAUDE.md; the mechanism of one subsystem lives here and is read on entry to that subsystem.
When you change one of these areas, update its file in the same change — same standing rule as docs/ and CHANGELOG.md. A doc written later is written from the diff, which is the version nobody can use.
| File | Read it before touching |
|---|---|
| users-auth-and-boot.md | login, sessions, UserManager, UserContext, per-user DB encryption, what boot unlocks and spawns |
| database.md | any table or accessor under db/, the registry/owner bucket split, memory notes, reports, prompt substitutions |
| filesystem-and-containers.md | container/, the fs-tools, mounts, path routing, skills, the memory signposts, built-in tools |
| projects-and-files.md | projects, shared folders, <file-explorer>, the #files page |
| agent-loop.md | crates/agent-loop/, loop_adapters/, session/handler/, sub-agents, cancellation, restart recovery, the approval gate |
| context-and-compaction.md | compaction, the history window, the cached system-prompt prefix |
| llm-stack.md | LLM clients, providers.yaml, retriability, request logging, token streaming, multimodal attachments |
| mcp-connectors.md | MCP runtimes, connectors, marketplace installs, OAuth, device/QR login |
| plugins.md | plugin visibility, per-user config, HTTP routers, plugin-contributed web pages |
| default-access.md | anything grantable (plugin, connector) and who receives it by default |
| system-agents.md | event triage, the memory lints, the conversation review, their scheduler and settings |
| frontend.md | anything under web/ — components, chat tabs, routing, i18n, theme, the security-group picker |
Two sources of truth sit outside this directory and outrank it:
blueprint/project-family.md— the design document, gitignored and not under version control. Referenced by section number (§0.1, §5.1, §6, §7, §9, §11, §12, §14, §15, §16, §17, §19). Never assume a section says what you remember; open it.../CLAUDE.md— the always-loaded rules: the commit rule, the production/schema constraint, domain neutrality, the event-bus rule, the crate boundaries.