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Contributing to Headroom

Thank you for your interest in contributing to Headroom! This document provides guidelines and instructions for contributing.

Code of Conduct

By participating in this project, you agree to abide by our Code of Conduct.

How to Contribute

Reporting Bugs

Before creating a bug report, please check existing issues to avoid duplicates. When creating a bug report, include:

  • Clear title describing the issue
  • Steps to reproduce the behavior
  • Expected behavior vs what actually happened
  • Environment details (Python version, OS, Headroom version)
  • Code samples or minimal reproduction if possible

Suggesting Features

Feature requests are welcome! Please:

  • Check existing issues/discussions first
  • Clearly describe the use case and motivation
  • Explain how it fits with Headroom's goals (context optimization, safety, determinism)

Pull Requests

  1. Fork the repository and create your branch from main
  2. Install development dependencies: 
    pip install -e ".[dev]"
  3. Make your changes following our coding standards
  4. Add tests for new functionality
  5. Run the test suite: 
    pytest
  6. Run linting: 
    ruff check .
ruff format .
  7. Update documentation if needed
  8. Submit your PR with a clear description

Development Setup

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/chopratejas/headroom.git
cd headroom

# Create a virtual environment
python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate  # or `.venv\Scripts\activate` on Windows

# Install in development mode with all dependencies
pip install -e ".[dev,relevance,proxy]"

# Run tests
pytest

# Run tests with coverage
pytest --cov=headroom --cov-report=html

Dev Containers

If you use VS Code or GitHub Codespaces, Headroom ships two Dev Container configs:

  • .devcontainer/devcontainer.json - default contributor environment with Python 3.12, uv, Node.js, and GitHub CLI
  • .devcontainer/memory-stack/devcontainer.json - the same environment plus Qdrant and Neo4j sidecars, with the locked memory-stack extra installed for qdrant-neo4j backend work

Inside the memory-stack container, use the sidecar service names instead of localhost:

qdrant:6333
neo4j://neo4j:7687

The default container runs uv sync --frozen --extra dev on creation, so the usual repo commands become:

uv run ruff check .
uv run ruff format --check .
uv run mypy headroom --ignore-missing-imports
uv run pytest -v --tb=short

Coding Standards

Style

  • We use Ruff for linting and formatting
  • Line length: 100 characters
  • Use type hints for all public functions
  • Follow PEP 8 naming conventions

Code Organization

headroom/
├── __init__.py          # Public API exports
├── client.py            # HeadroomClient wrapper
├── config.py            # Configuration dataclasses
├── transforms/          # Context transforms
│   ├── smart_crusher.py # Statistical compression
│   ├── cache_aligner.py # Cache optimization
│   └── rolling_window.py# Context windowing
├── relevance/           # Relevance scoring
├── providers/           # LLM provider adapters
├── proxy/               # Proxy server
└── storage/             # Metrics storage

Testing

  • Write tests for all new functionality
  • Use pytest fixtures for common setup
  • Test edge cases and error conditions
  • Aim for >80% coverage on new code

Example test structure:

class TestSmartCrusher:
    """Tests for SmartCrusher transform."""

    def test_compresses_large_arrays(self):
        """Should compress arrays above token threshold."""
        ...

    def test_preserves_errors(self):
        """Should never drop items containing errors."""
        ...

Documentation

  • Add docstrings to all public classes and functions
  • Use Google-style docstrings
  • Update README.md for user-facing changes
  • Add examples for new features
def compress_tool_output(
    content: str,
    max_items: int = 50,
) -> str:
    """Compress tool output while preserving important items.

    Args:
        content: The tool output content (usually JSON).
        max_items: Maximum items to keep in arrays.

    Returns:
        Compressed content string.

    Raises:
        ValueError: If content is not valid JSON.

    Example:
        >>> compress_tool_output('[{"id": 1}, {"id": 2}]', max_items=1)
        '[{"id": 1}]'
    """

Pull Request Guidelines

PR Title Format

Use conventional commit style:

  • feat: Add semantic caching to proxy
  • fix: Handle empty tool outputs correctly
  • docs: Update proxy documentation
  • test: Add tests for CacheAligner
  • refactor: Simplify rolling window logic

PR Description

Include:

  • What changes were made
  • Why the changes were needed
  • How to test the changes
  • Breaking changes if any

Review Process

  1. All PRs require at least one review
  2. CI must pass (tests, linting, type checking)
  3. Maintain or improve test coverage
  4. Update CHANGELOG.md for notable changes

Architecture Decisions

Safety First

Headroom's core principle is safety. When in doubt:

  • Never drop user/assistant content
  • Never break tool call/response pairing
  • Malformed content passes through unchanged
  • Prefer false negatives over false positives

Performance

  • Transforms should add <50ms latency at P99
  • Use lazy loading for optional dependencies
  • Profile before optimizing

Compatibility

  • Support Python 3.10+
  • Core functionality has minimal dependencies
  • Optional features use extras (e.g., pip install headroom[relevance])

Recognition

Contributors are recognized in:

  • The CHANGELOG for their contributions
  • The GitHub contributors page
  • Release notes for significant features

Thank you for contributing to Headroom!