Contributing to Hindsight

Thanks for your interest in contributing to Hindsight!

Getting Started

1. Fork and clone the repository

   git clone git@github.com:vectorize-io/hindsight.git
   cd hindsight
   

2. Bootstrap your dev environment in one shot:

   ./scripts/dev/setup.sh
   

   This is idempotent (safe to re-run) and gets you ready to develop, including offline. It:

   • installs the required toolchains if missing (uv/Python, Node/npm, Rust/cargo),
   • creates .env from .env.example (remember to add your LLM API key),
   • configures git hooks,
   • installs all Python and Node workspace dependencies,
   • pre-downloads the local ML models + tokenizer so the API runs offline,
   • builds the TypeScript SDK and the Rust CLI.

   Useful flags: --skip-build (deps only), --skip-models (skip ML model download), --with-docs (also build the docs site), --force (rebuild artifacts). Docker image builds are out of scope. Run ./scripts/dev/setup.sh --help for details.

Manual setup

If you'd rather set things up by hand instead of running the script above:

1. Set up your environment:

   cp .env.example .env
   

   Edit the .env to add LLM API key and config as required

2. Install dependencies:

   # Python dependencies
   uv sync --directory hindsight-api/
   
   # Node dependencies (uses npm workspaces)
   npm install
   

Development

Running the API locally

./scripts/dev/start-api.sh

Running the Control Plane locally

./scripts/dev/start-control-plane.sh

Running the documentation locally

./scripts/dev/start-docs.sh

Running tests

cd hindsight-api
uv run pytest tests/

Code Style

We use Ruff for Python linting and formatting, and ESLint/Prettier for TypeScript.

Setting up git hooks (recommended)

Set up git hooks to automatically lint and format code before each commit:

./scripts/setup-hooks.sh

This configures git to use the hooks in .githooks/, which run all scripts in scripts/hooks/ on commit. The lint hook runs in parallel:

• Python: ruff check --fix, ruff format, ty check
• TypeScript: eslint --fix, prettier

Manual linting and formatting

# Run all lints (same as pre-commit)
./scripts/hooks/lint.sh

# Or run individually for Python:
cd hindsight-api
uv run ruff check --fix .   # Lint and auto-fix
uv run ruff format .        # Format code
uv run ty check hindsight_api  # Type check

Style guidelines

• Use Python type hints
• Follow existing code patterns
• Keep functions focused and well-named

Pull Requests

1. Create a feature branch from main
2. Make your changes
3. Run tests to ensure nothing breaks
4. Submit a PR with a clear description of changes

Release Process

The project uses scripts/release.sh for creating releases. This script automates the entire release workflow:

1. Bumps version in all components (API, clients, CLI, control plane, Helm)
2. Regenerates OpenAPI spec and client SDKs (Python, TypeScript, Rust)
3. Updates documentation versioning
4. Creates a commit and git tag
5. Pushes to GitHub (triggers CI/CD to publish packages)

Usage

./scripts/release.sh <version>

Example:

./scripts/release.sh 0.5.0

Important for Developers

• During development, version bumps in __init__.py do NOT require client regeneration
• Clients are only regenerated during releases
• Do not manually run ./scripts/generate-clients.sh unless testing generation changes
• Client version comments will reflect the API version from the latest release

Reporting Issues

Open an issue on GitHub with:

• Clear description of the problem
• Steps to reproduce
• Expected vs actual behavior
• Environment details (OS, Python version)

Questions?

Open a discussion on GitHub or reach out to the maintainers.