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Development Guide

This guide covers development workflows and tools for the HumanLayer repository.

Parallel Development Environments

Why parallel environments? When developing daemon (hld) or WUI features, restarting the daemon breaks active Claude sessions. This feature lets you maintain a stable "nightly" environment for regular work while testing changes in an isolated "dev" environment.

How It Works

┌─────────────────────┐     ┌─────────────────────┐
│   Nightly (Stable)  │     │   Dev (Testing)     │
├─────────────────────┤     ├─────────────────────┤
│ daemon.sock         │     │ daemon-dev.sock     │
│ daemon.db           │     │ daemon-{timestamp}.db│
│ Production WUI      │     │ Dev WUI             │
└─────────────────────┘     └─────────────────────┘
         │                           │
         └──── Your Work ────────────┘

The development setup provides complete isolation between environments, allowing you to:

  • Keep Claude sessions running in "nightly" while developing in "dev"
  • Test breaking changes without fear
  • Maintain different database states for testing

Quick Start

# Start nightly (stable) environment
make daemon-nightly
make wui-nightly

# Start dev environment (in another terminal)
make daemon-dev
make wui-dev

# Launch Claude Code with specific daemon
npx humanlayer launch "implement feature X" --daemon-socket ~/.humanlayer/daemon-dev.sock

Environment Overview

Component Nightly (Stable) Dev (Testing)
Daemon Binary hld/hld-nightly hld/hld-dev
Socket Path ~/.humanlayer/daemon.sock ~/.humanlayer/daemon-dev.sock
Database ~/.humanlayer/daemon.db ~/.humanlayer/dev/daemon-TIMESTAMP.db
Daemon Logs daemon-nightly-*.log daemon-dev-*.log
WUI Logs Platform-specific ~/.humanlayer/logs/wui-{branch}/codelayer.log
WUI Installed in ~/Applications Running in dev mode

Available Commands

Nightly (Stable) Environment

make daemon-nightly-build  # Build nightly daemon binary
make daemon-nightly        # Build and run nightly daemon
make wui-nightly-build     # Build nightly WUI
make wui-nightly          # Build, install, and open nightly WUI

Dev Environment

make daemon-dev-build     # Build dev daemon binary
make daemon-dev          # Build and run dev daemon with fresh DB copy
make daemon              # Alias for make daemon-dev
make wui-dev            # Run WUI in dev mode connected to dev daemon
make wui                # Alias for make wui-dev
make copy-db-to-dev     # Manually copy production DB to timestamped dev DB
make cleanup-dev        # Clean up dev DBs and logs older than 10 days

Status and Utilities

make dev-status         # Show current dev environment status

Claude Code Integration

MCP servers launched by Claude Code sessions automatically connect to the correct daemon instance. The daemon passes the HUMANLAYER_DAEMON_SOCKET environment variable to MCP servers, ensuring they connect to the same daemon that launched them.

The npx humanlayer launch command supports custom daemon sockets through multiple methods:

1. Command-line Flag

npx humanlayer launch "test my implementation" --daemon-socket ~/.humanlayer/daemon-dev.sock

2. Environment Variable

HUMANLAYER_DAEMON_SOCKET=~/.humanlayer/daemon-dev.sock npx humanlayer launch "test feature"

3. Configuration File

Add to your humanlayer.json:

{
  "daemon_socket": "~/.humanlayer/daemon-dev.sock"
}

Typical Development Workflow

  1. Morning setup - Start your stable environment:

    make daemon-nightly  # Runs in background
make wui-nightly     # Opens installed WUI

    This is your "production" environment for regular Claude work.

  2. Development time - Work on daemon/WUI features:

    git checkout -b feature/my-feature
# Make your changes to hld/ or humanlayer-wui/

  3. Testing - Use dev environment without disrupting your work:

    # Terminal 1: Start dev daemon (auto-copies current DB)
make daemon-dev

# Terminal 2: Test with Claude Code using dev daemon
npx humanlayer launch "test my feature" --daemon-socket ~/.humanlayer/daemon-dev.sock

# Or test with dev WUI
make wui-dev

    Your nightly Claude sessions remain unaffected!

  4. Maintenance - Clean up old dev artifacts (weekly):

    make cleanup-dev  # Removes DBs and logs >10 days old

Key Benefits

  • Zero Disruption: Keep working in nightly while testing in dev
  • Fresh State: Each make daemon-dev starts with a clean database copy
  • Clear Separation: Different sockets prevent accidental cross-connections
  • Easy Identification: Dev daemon shows "dev" version in WUI
  • Automatic Cleanup: Old dev databases cleaned up with one command

Environment Variables

Both daemon and WUI respect these environment variables:

  • HUMANLAYER_DAEMON_SOCKET: Path to daemon socket (default: ~/.humanlayer/daemon.sock)
    • This variable is automatically passed to MCP servers launched by Claude Code sessions
  • HUMANLAYER_DATABASE_PATH: Path to SQLite database (daemon only)
  • HUMANLAYER_DAEMON_VERSION_OVERRIDE: Custom version string (daemon only)

Troubleshooting

Q: Both daemons won't start Check for existing processes:

ps aux | grep hld | grep -v grep
# Kill if needed: kill <PID>

Q: WUI shows "connection failed" Verify socket paths match:

ls -la ~/.humanlayer/*.sock
# Should see daemon.sock and/or daemon-dev.sock

Q: Want to use a specific dev database

# List available dev databases
ls -la ~/.humanlayer/dev/
# Run daemon with specific DB
HUMANLAYER_DATABASE_PATH=~/.humanlayer/dev/daemon-20240717-143022.db make daemon-dev

Q: How do I know which environment I'm in?

  • Check WUI title bar: shows "dev" for dev daemon
  • Check daemon logs: tail -f ~/.humanlayer/logs/daemon-*.log
  • Check WUI logs: tail -f ~/.humanlayer/logs/wui-*/codelayer.log

Other Development Commands

Building and Testing

make setup              # Resolve dependencies across monorepo
make check-test        # Run all checks and tests
make check             # Run linting and type checking
make test              # Run all test suites

Python Development

make check-py          # Python linting and type checking
make test-py           # Python tests

TypeScript Development

Check individual package.json files for specific commands, as package managers and test frameworks vary across projects.

Go Development

Check go.mod for Go version requirements and look for Makefile in each Go project directory.