Files
benilla-octo/docs/METHOD.md
T
SamandClaude Opus 5.5 449324b7be a clone without the install runs the suite green
465 tests loaded the stock interface off the install without declaring
it, and 25 addon tests assumed the install beside the corpus; each now
opens with `wow_data_or_skip!`. The gates run the workspace tests a
second time with `WOW_DATA=`, so a test that reads the install
undeclared fails at land instead of on a contributor's clone. The skip
log writes each line in one call so parallel tests do not interleave.

Verified: the workspace tests with `WOW_DATA=` in a checkout that has
the addon corpus pass 6972, fail 0, and log 1555 skips; on a fresh
clone of main before this change they failed 465.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-23 19:10:41 +07:00

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6.6 KiB
Markdown

# METHOD — how benilla is built
benilla is a from-scratch World of Warcraft 1.12.1 client in Rust and Bevy. It reads the game's
data from the player's own install, speaks the original protocol to any 1.12.1 server, and does
not build a server or simulate the game. The reference client is the spec: benilla does what
1.12.1 does, as a modern, idiomatic client.
## The rule for every change
A change is right when it makes benilla more like 1.12.1 or fixes a bug, with evidence from the
reference, in one small piece, with the gates green. A deviation from the reference is the
maintainer's call alone, and each one is written down where it lives: a CVar's `Deviates` row, a
comment naming the reference fact and why we differ. Anything else is a fork.
## The loop
1. **The reference first.** For anything fidelity-defining, get the mechanism from the real
client before building: its behaviour, a DBC field, a FrameXML line, a packet capture. The
names and shapes under `reference/` are the surface benilla tracks.
2. **Build it idiomatically.** Modern Bevy and Rust, performance woven in from the start.
Implement the mechanism well; do not ape a quirk that is a bug.
3. **Measure, never eyeball.** Timing, delay, ordering and feel are settled with instruments:
trace timestamps, byte-derived numbers, a numeric probe. A capture confirms an existence
fact; it cannot measure time. Never search for a viewpoint: take the one simplest shot, and
if it does not settle the question, hand over a precise script ("log in, look at X, does Y?").
4. **Close the loop on the symptom.** A bug reported as seen is closed by reproducing it at the
reported spot first, fixing, and showing the same instrument clean there plus one adjacent
state. Green gates and an existing mechanism are never that evidence.
5. **Prove the run before reading the result.** A live result is evidence once the run is valid
from numbers: preflight banner clean, camera and body where intended, the subject in frame,
the window long enough. A negative from an unproven run is not evidence.
6. **Commit small and often.** Atomic units, explicit paths; main only advances by fast-forward.
No "done" and no commit without saying what was verified and how the result was judged.
## Hard rules
- **Never commit anything from the install.** Art, models, sounds, maps, data: the install is
read at runtime from a gitignored path, and everyone provides their own. The one exception is
interface code: FrameXML and GlueXML run off the player's own patch chain, and our own
counterparts under `assets/ui` stay until they retire.
- **The install is read-only.** benilla never writes into the WoW folder: no screenshot, log,
cache or scratch file. A hook blocks such a write at the tool call, and `scripts/smoke.sh`
fails a run that leaves the install changed.
- **Local state lives in one folder**, `benilla-config/` beside the binary, and every path to
it resolves through `crate::local_state`. Player settings are CVars persisted as a diff in
`benilla-config/config.toml`.
- **UI is stock-first: a window is migrated, not authored.** The end state is the stock 1.12
FrameXML executed off the player's own chain. `assets/ui` does not grow: a test names its
files and fails on a new one. A window is built by pointing `benilla.toc` at the stock file,
deleting ours and building the engine verbs it calls, never stubbing one to make the file
load.
- **A setting's default is the reference's default.** Every option boots at the stock 1.12
value. Shipping another value costs an explicit `Deviates` row with the reason, and a test
fails a row that drifts either way.
- **Our code is MIT OR Apache-2.0**, which is a claim about provenance: no original client
code, no bundled assets.
## Where things live
- `docs/METHOD.md`, this file: rules and method. Never state, never a log.
- `docs/MAP.md`: what is built, generated from the code by `scripts/genmap.sh` at every land.
Read it to orient; never edit or commit it by hand.
- git: the history. No changelogs, no status docs, no "what we did" narratives.
- The code: a comment says what the code does and the 1.12 fact behind it, in a line. No
history, no stories.
- `.claude/skills/`: procedures with steps. `probe` runs the client unattended against the local
server.
## Gates
- **The land gates**: `cargo fmt --all -- --check`, `cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets
-- -D warnings`, `cargo test --workspace`, the doc-link and render-pass lints, the player
build without the `dev` feature with its own tests, and the engine boot checks, as
`scripts/gates.sh`. It runs on the tree that lands, before it lands; it is memoized on the
tree. The tests that read the install or the addon corpus skip where the data is absent, and
the gate prints the count; where the data is, a skip is a failure (`BENILLA_REQUIRE_DATA=1`).
The workspace tests then run a second time with `WOW_DATA=` (no install), so a test that
reads the install without opening with `wow_data_or_skip!` fails here and not on a clone.
- **Per round**: `scripts/check.sh`, scoped to the changed crates and their dependents. Run each
gate once per round; `tee` the output to a file and grep the file.
- **A clean run** is the fourth gate: `scripts/smoke.sh`, a live login and logout against the
local server. For wire work the gate is a live run with a trace (`WOW_MOVE_TRACE=<path>`,
tags filtered), never a capture: capture mode has no network.
- **Platform seams**: a `cfg(target_os)`, a `[target.'cfg(…)']` dependency, a `#[link]` or an
`extern "system"` is invisible to the gates of the platform you are on. Say in the commit
which platforms you built.
- One hook: no writes into the install. Everything else is a gate or discipline.
## The local server
benilla talks to any 1.12.1 server: `WOW_HOST` names it (default `localhost`), `WOW_USER` and
`WOW_PASS` together log in without typing, `WOW_CHAR` picks the character. There is no default
account. These bind every session and every agent:
- A scripted run logs in as the account its checkout declares in `.probe-identity` (the three
variables, one per line, never committed), or as the three variables name; never as a
player's, because a login kicks whoever holds the account, and the client refuses a scripted
login from a checkout on any account but the declared one.
- Every unattended run says so: `WOW_UNATTENDED=1`. An agent's run is silent: `WOW_NOSOUND=1`.
- No unattended combat probes.
- Anything about hostility, reaction colour, nameplates, threat, damage or breath runs with
`WOW_GM=off`.
- Read the preflight banner before debugging anything else.
The mechanics are the `probe` skill.