Bard

A schema-driven web and desktop UI for the Katalyst taxonomy: kata tax bard serve and kata tax bard desktop. It renders every kind the connected taxonomy has from the kind's own definition, edits your configuration in Settings, and loads the views other installed packages contribute.

Documentation is on the docs site:

• Bard: running it, the API and its token, configuration writes, Settings and product sections.
• Writing a contribution: adding a view to Bard from your own package.
• Composition architecture: the host contract, runtime loading, flags, slots and the desktop shell.

Install

Bard is discovered through the katalyst_taxonomy.plugins and katalyst_taxonomy.cli entry points, so installing it beside kata is enough. It needs Node.js 20 or newer.

pip install katalyst-plugin-bard
kata tax bard serve      # in the browser
kata tax bard desktop    # in a desktop window, settings editable

From a checkout

just build               # npm install + build + stage assets in src/katalyst_plugin_bard/web_dist/
just desktop-build       # also bundle the desktop shell
just serve               # == kata tax bard serve
just dev                 # Express on 5273, Vite on 5173 proxying to it
just check               # everything CI runs (lint, types, pytest, vitest)

Without the plugin

Bard's server is plain Node and reads everything over HTTP, so it runs without Python, a taxonomy checkout or kata:

just docker
docker run -p 5273:5273 -e TAXONOMY_API_URL=https://taxonomy.example.com \
  -e KATALYST_API_TOKEN=<its token> katalyst-bard:dev

app.yaml is a Databricks Apps manifest. The server reads DATABRICKS_APP_PORT and binds 0.0.0.0 when it is set; set TAXONOMY_API_URL to an API reachable from the workspace and KATALYST_API_TOKEN to its token.

GET /health is liveness and does not touch the API; GET /api/ready reports whether the API is reachable. Bard has no authentication of its own: do not expose it without putting authentication in front of it.

Layout

src/katalyst_plugin_bard/   the plugin: `kata tax bard`, the launcher, contribution discovery
  web_dist/                 built SPA, the bundled server (index.cjs) and desktop shell, in the wheel
web/server/                 Express server and the transport-agnostic API handler
web/src/                    React: the schema-driven renderer, views, Settings, host contract
apps/desktop/               Electron shell over the same API handler
schemas/                    bard.manifest.schema.json, the contribution manifest schema
xspec/, layer/              the plugin's black-box contract and fixtures

The server ships as one esbuild bundle because web_dist/ sits in the wheel with no node_modules above it.