Contributing to Tactus

Thanks for your interest. Tactus is a small, focused project with a deliberately narrow scope. Please read this before opening a PR.

Scope and principles

Tactus is a content-agnostic hardware control layer. These principles are not negotiable and shape what we will and won't accept:

• Tools only, zero content. Tactus forwards hardware control commands. It does not generate, host, or store any content. PRs that add content features are out of scope and will be declined.
• Safety is a feature, not an option. The safety layer (intensity clamp, watchdog auto-stop, fail-safe stop, rate limiting, stop-preemptible patterns) is core. Driving features must go through it. PRs that weaken or bypass safety by default will not be merged.
• We do not reverse-engineer devices or break encryption. Tactus only uses device protocols already supported upstream by Buttplug. See "Adding device support" below.

Adding device support

We do not add per-device or per-brand code here — Tactus wraps Buttplug, so the device matrix comes from Buttplug. If a device isn't recognized:

• Add it upstream in buttplugio/buttplug (the device configuration), not here. That benefits the whole ecosystem.
• Only contribute support that uses a device's existing, upstream-known protocol. Do not submit reverse-engineered protocols or decryption of access controls.

Development

npm ci
npm run typecheck
npm run build
npm test

To exercise the real Buttplug wire path, run Intiface Central, click Start Server, add a simulated device under Devices → Manage Simulated Devices, then:

npm run m0   # connect → scan → vibrate → stop against the simulator

Pull requests

• Keep modules focused; prefer small, single-purpose files.
• Add or update tests for behavior changes — the safety layer especially.
• Describe what you changed and how you verified it (simulator and/or real device).
• Be honest about capabilities. Don't claim device support that isn't verified.

Releases

Publishing to npm and the MCP registry, tagging releases, and changing repository visibility are maintainer decisions and are not performed automatically.