ai-app/docs/CLIENT_CORE.md

# `app-rust`'s `client` module

**Renamed 2026-09-08.** This was the `client-core` crate; it is now
`app-rust/src/client/`, a module of the one app crate rather than a crate
of its own (docs/RUST.md's "One app crate"). Nothing about what it *is*
changed: it is still the app's pure logic held once instead of twice, per
RUST.md's recommendation item 1, and still has **no UI framework
dependency of any kind** -- the `iris` dependency sits behind the `screens`
feature and nothing under `src/client` may reach it. That independence is
what lets it outlive whichever framework the app draws with, and it is now
an invariant of a module rather than of a manifest, so it is worth stating
plainly: a `use iris::` under `src/client/` is a defect.

`event-model/` stayed a crate, and is the one split in the port that was
never optional: it is the wire shape both this app and `server/` depend on,
extracted from `server/src/session/driver.rs` and `session/transcript.rs`
on 2026-09-04, so a crate is what makes the two agree by construction.

Paths below are written as `src/client/…`, relative to `app-rust/`.

## What's here, and what Kotlin file it replaces

| `src/client/…`                            | Kotlin original                          | Status |
|------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------|--------|
| `event-model/src/lib.rs` (shared crate)   | `Events.kt` (the enum mirror)             | Done   |
| `ansi.rs`                                 | `Ansi.kt`                                 | Done, ported test-for-test |
| `highlight/mod.rs`, `languages.rs`        | `Highlighter.kt`, `Languages.kt`          | Done, ported test-for-test |
| `highlight/markdown.rs`                   | `MarkdownSyntax.kt`                       | Done, ported test-for-test |
| `transcript_cache.rs`                     | `TranscriptCache.kt`                      | Done, ported test-for-test |
| `sse.rs`                                  | `Sse.kt` (the framing half)               | Done, new tests (Kotlin had none of its own beyond integration) |
| `api.rs`                                  | `Api.kt`                                  | Partial -- see below |
| `event_stream.rs`                         | `EventStream.kt`                          | Done |
| `transcript_fold.rs`                      | `TranscriptItems.kt`, `ToolRows.kt`       | Done -- see below |
| `config.rs`                                | `ServerConfig.kt`'s `handleEnrollment`   | New, desktop-only so far -- see below |
| `transcript_source.rs`                    | `TranscriptSource.kt`                     | Done -- see below |
| *(not ported, and may never be)*          | `TranscriptUnits.kt`                      | Out of scope -- see below |

Every file above whose Kotlin counterpart had a JVM unit test (`AnsiTest`,
`HighlighterTest`, `TranscriptCacheTest`) has had every one of those test
cases ported alongside it, plus new tests for the pieces that had none
(`sse.rs`, `api.rs`, `event_stream.rs`, `transcript_fold.rs`,
`transcript_source.rs` -- the Kotlin `TranscriptSource.kt`/`TranscriptItems.kt`
had no JVM unit tests of their own, so these were written fresh against the
Kotlin source and AGENTS.md's paging incidents as the spec). Test count by
crate as of this writing: **109 in `client-core`**, 0 in `event-model` (its
types carry no logic of their own to test -- `server/`'s own tests exercise
them via `session::transcript`'s round-trip coverage).

## Correspondence notes worth knowing before touching either side

- **`ansi.rs`'s `StyledText`/`Style`/`Rgb`** stand in for Compose's
  `AnnotatedString`/`SpanStyle`/`Color`, since this crate has no Compose.
  `StyledText` is plain text plus a `Vec<(Range<usize>, Style)>` of
  non-overlapping spans. Whatever UI framework ends up consuming this
  crate maps `Style` onto its own text-styling type; nothing here should
  change to accommodate a particular one.
- **`highlight`'s `Span`/`Kind`** use **char indices, not byte offsets**
  (`Vec<char>` internally), mirroring the Kotlin original's `Char`-indexed
  strings. `highlight::span_text` turns a `Span` back into text for a
  caller working the same way; a caller that wants byte offsets into a
  `&str` has to convert.
- **`transcript_cache.rs`'s `SessionCache::guard`** found a real
  translation bug while it was being written: an early draft let a
  *damaged* chunk (one file unreadable, discard just this session) and a
  genuine I/O failure (disk gone, disable the whole cache) both surface as
  the same `Err` from one closure, which would have disabled every
  session's cache over a single corrupt chunk. Fixed by checking a
  thread-local "was this damage" flag before deciding which failure mode
  it was -- see the comment on `guard` and the commit message for
  `transcript_cache.rs`.

## What `api.rs` covers, and what it does not yet

`ApiClient` wraps a `Transport` trait (network I/O kept out from behind, so
`ApiClient` and `event_stream::follow_session_events` are tested with a
fake transport and no server). `UreqTransport` is the only real
implementation, backed by `ureq` -- see its Cargo.toml comment for why
(blocking, already a project dependency, no extra TLS crate needed since
`ureq::tls::Certificate::from_pem` reads the pinned CA directly).

Covered: session list/read, message send, unqueue, answer, interrupt,
stop, start, rename, cwd, model, permission-mode, notify, command,
compact, delete, and one transcript page.

**Not covered, and each is real work rather than a stub to fill in:**
setups (`/setups*`, machine and provider discovery), the file explorer
(`/setups/{id}/dir|file`), usage (`/usage`), models
(`/models*`, HuggingFace browsing and downloads), attachments
(`/sessions/{id}/attachments`), importing (`/setups/{id}/importable*`),
and the `/notifications` stream. `server/src/routes.rs`'s module doc is
the full table to work from when one of these is next.

## What `transcript_fold.rs` covers, and what it does not yet

`fold_event` covers every `Event` variant server/ can produce today,
including tool-call/question/image attachment and peer-message placement.
`group_tool_runs` groups adjacent calls into `TranscriptRow::Tools`.

`join_pages` (with `heal_split_message` and `adopt_run`, both private) is
now ported too, 2026-09-06 -- the page-boundary healing that merges a tool
call split across two fetched pages, rejoins a message a boundary cut
through, and renames a run of tool calls onto whichever name is already on
screen. Ported with AGENTS.md's "things that have bitten" incidents as the
spec rather than a JVM test file (`TranscriptItems.kt` had none of its
own): `a_clean_boundary_between_two_finished_runs_is_still_healed_into_one_run`
is the regression test for the bug that shipped -- `adopt_run` must run on
*every* join, not only the one where a split call was found, or a boundary
landing cleanly between two already-finished calls (most of them) leaves
one run drawn as two. `a_call_split_across_the_boundary_merges_into_one_row`,
`a_message_split_across_the_boundary_is_rejoined_with_the_newer_halfs_identity`,
and `adopt_run_never_renames_into_a_question_row` cover the other three
edges the Kotlin doc calls out. `join_pages` ends in a `debug_assert!`
that no tool id survives in both halves -- the duplicate row it exists to
prevent, checked rather than assumed. What it deliberately does *not*
assert is seq ordering across the boundary: a peer note carries the seq
its turn began at (`place_peer_note`), which can be older than the page
it arrived in, so the two pages' seqs legitimately interleave there. An
earlier draft asserted it and would have panicked in debug builds on an
ordinary transcript.

**Known gap, and a decision for whoever closes it:** `event_model::Event`
has no `Unknown`/catch-all variant, unlike `Events.kt`'s hand-kept mirror.
A server newer than this build that adds an event type will fail to parse
that line rather than degrading to a placeholder row. Closing this means
deciding how `event_model` itself represents "a shape I don't recognise"
-- a shared-model decision affecting `server/` too, not a `client`-only
fix, so it is recorded here rather than silently worked around.

## `config.rs`: `EnrolledServer`

`EnrolledServer` (host, port, bearer token) plus `parse_link`, which reads
the exact `aiapp://enroll?host=H&port=P&token=T` deep link
`wg-app-link`'s `enroll` mints and `ServerConfig.kt`'s `handleEnrollment`
parses on the phone -- so any Rust client enrols from the same text a
phone would scan as a QR, with no second format invented for it (RUST.md's
E4, DECISIONS.md 2026-09-05). Deliberately does not decide where it is
persisted or under what file permissions -- a phone seals its token in the
Android Keystore, `src/desktop/config.rs` writes it to
`$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/ai-app-desktop/enrollment.json` at 0600 -- since that is
caller-specific (the code rules' "ask for the least you need"). Its only
caller today is `src/desktop`; the Android entry point is a second one, not
a reason to move the type.

## What `transcript_source.rs` covers, and what it does not

`TranscriptSource<T: Transport>` is the seam a session screen asks for a
page, ported test-for-test against the Kotlin doc rather than a JVM test
file (there wasn't one): `cached_opening`, `probe`, `fetch_opening`,
`page` and `follow`, each matching its Kotlin namesake's contract --
including `probe`'s three-way outcome (matches / cache purged /
unreachable, told apart so a caller never treats "couldn't ask" as "was
wrong") and `page`'s cache-vs-server split bounded by `covered_up_to`.

Two additions beyond a literal port, both load-bearing:

- **`page(before, ..)` refuses `before == 0` before touching the cache or
  the network**, answering `OlderPage::NothingLoaded`. This is AGENTS.md's
  `loadOlderPage` incident (`before = 0` is "no event before the first
  one," indistinguishable from "reached the start of history" if a caller
  ever asks it) moved out of the Kotlin screen and into this layer, so
  every future caller gets the guard rather than having to remember it.
  **The return type is `OlderPage`, not a `Vec`, and that is the guard.**
  The Kotlin's two falses are different answers -- `oldestSeq == 0`
  returns without touching `moreHistory`, an empty page latches it false
  -- so a port that answered both with an empty list would have moved the
  bug rather than fixed it, one layer down and out of sight of the screen
  that used to hold the check. `OlderPage::Events(vec![])` means the start
  of the conversation; `OlderPage::NothingLoaded` is not an answer about
  the conversation at all. Reviewed 2026-09-06.
  `paging_before_the_first_event_makes_no_request_at_all` asserts zero
  transport calls, not just the variant, since a request that happens to
  answer empty is exactly what caused the original bug, and
  `a_failing_server_page_is_an_error_rather_than_an_empty_one` plus
  `an_unreadable_cached_page_is_a_parse_error_rather_than_an_empty_one`
  are the same rule for the two ways a page can fail.
- **`fetch_transcript_lines`** (new in `api.rs`) hands back each line
  paired with the exact server bytes it came from, via
  `serde_json::value::RawValue` rather than re-serializing a parsed
  `Value` -- the cache and a live SSE frame for the same event have to
  agree byte-for-byte, which is exactly what the `serde_json`
  float-rounding bug (AGENTS.md) was about. The existing
  `fetch_transcript_page` is untouched (other callers under `iris/`
  depend on its signature); the two share a `transcript_path` helper so
  the query string is written in one place.

**Not ported:** `EventStream.kt`'s reconnect-with-backoff loop, and
`TranscriptSource.close`'s ability to cancel a live stream from another
thread. Both are wall-clock/thread-lifetime policy that belongs to
whichever runtime embeds this crate (iris's own timers, a Tokio task, a
Kotlin coroutine scope), not to this pure logic -- `follow` is the same
"write to the cache, then hand the frame to the caller" decorator
`src/desktop/app.rs` and `src/android/transcript_client.rs`
already hand-wrote around `event_stream::follow_session_events` before this
existed; the cache write moved into one shared place so a third caller
does not repeat it again by hand.

## What is not started at all

- **A full markdown AST.** `markdown_blocks` (2026-09-06) splits a message
  into its *top-level* blocks -- heading, paragraph, fence, list, table,
  quote -- with each block's own source, which is what a renderer needs to
  lay out prose versus code and what lets a streamed delta re-lay out one
  block instead of the message (docs/RUST.md's Task B). What it
  deliberately does **not** build is the tree below that: nested list
  items, table cells, inline spans. Inline styling is still the renderer's
  own job per block (`src/ui/markdown.rs`), and nothing
  has needed the rest yet. `CodeFence.kt`'s use of `org.intellij.markdown`
  for a full CommonMark AST is Compose rendering plumbing, not something
  to port as-is.
- **`TranscriptUnits.kt`** (see above) -- deliberately out of scope, since
  it flattens a row into bounded units for a *specific* lazy-list
  framework's composition cost, which is a fact about that framework
  rather than about the transcript.

## Verifying

`./run-tests.sh` from the repo root runs `event-model`, `server` and
`app-rust` in that order (each `cargo test`, forwarding arguments the same
way it always has). From `app-rust/` directly: `cargo test`, `cargo clippy
--all-targets`, `cargo fmt` -- all clean as of 2026-09-08, 229 tests across
the crate and its headless harness suites.