khive 0.2.8

Autonomous software engineering department

Khive: Autonomous software engineering department with github/roo

Khive is an opinionated toolbox that keeps multi-language agent projects fast, consistent, and boring-in-a-good-way. One command - khive - wraps all the little scripts you inevitably write for formatting, CI gating, Git hygiene and doc scaffolding, then gives them a coherent UX that works the same on your laptop and inside CI.

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Table of Contents

1. Core Philosophy
2. Quick Start
3. Setup
4. Command Catalogue
5. Usage Examples
6. Configuration
7. Prerequisites
8. Project Layout
9. Contributing

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Core Philosophy

• Single entry-point → khive <command>
• Convention over config → sensible defaults, TOML for the rest
• CI/local parity → the CLI and the GH workflow run the same code
• Idempotent helpers → safe to run repeatedly; exit 0 on "nothing to do"
• No lock-in → wraps existing ecosystem tools instead of reinventing them

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Quick Start

# 1 · clone & install
$ git clone https://github.com/khive-ai/khive.d.git
$ cd khive
$ uv pip install -e .        # editable install - puts `khive` on your PATH

# 2 · bootstrap repo (node deps, rust fmt, git hooks, …)
$ khive init -v

# 3 · hack happily
$ khive fmt --check           # smoke-test formatting
$ khive ci --check            # quick pre-commit gate

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Setup

API Keys

To use the information retrieval and LLM consultation features, you'll need to set up the following API keys:

• PERPLEXITY_API_KEY and EXA_API_KEY for khive info search to work
• OPENROUTER_API_KEY for khive info consult to work

You can set these as environment variables or add them to a .env file in your project root.

Additional Dependencies

For document reading capabilities:

# Install reader dependencies
$ pip install "khive[reader]"

# Or install all optional dependencies
$ pip install "khive[all]"

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Command Catalogue

Command	What it does (TL;DR)
khive init	Verifies toolchain, installs JS & Python deps, runs cargo check, wires Husky hooks.
khive fmt	Opinionated multi-stack formatter (ruff + black, cargo fmt, deno fmt, markdown).
khive commit	Stages → (optional patch-select) → conventional commit → (optional) push.
khive pr	Pushes branch & opens/creates GitHub PR (uses gh).
khive ci	Local CI gate - lints, tests, coverage, template checks. Mirrors GH Actions.
khive clean	Deletes a finished branch locally & remotely - never nukes default branch.
khive new-doc	Scaffolds markdown docs (ADR, RFC, IP…) from templates with front-matter placeholders.
khive reader	Opens/reads arbitrary docs via docling; returns JSON over stdout.
khive info	Information service for web search (info search) and LLM consultation (info consult).

Run khive <command> --help for full flag reference.

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Usage Examples

# format *everything*, fixing files in-place
khive fmt

# format only Rust & docs, check-only
khive fmt --stack rust,docs --check

# staged patch commit, no push (good for WIP)
khive commit "feat(ui): dark-mode toggle" --patch --no-push

# open PR in browser as draft
khive pr --draft --web

# run the same CI suite GH will run
khive ci

# delete old feature branch safely
khive clean feature/old-experiment --dry-run

# spin up a new RFC doc: docs/rfcs/RFC-001-streaming-api.md
khive new-doc RFC 001-streaming-api

# open a PDF & read slice 0-500 chars
DOC=$(khive reader open --source paper.pdf | jq -r .doc_id)
khive reader read --doc "$DOC" --end 500

# search the web using Exa
khive info search --provider exa --query "Latest developments in rust programming language"

# consult multiple LLMs
khive info consult --question "Compare Python vs Rust for system programming" --models openai/gpt-o4-mini,anthropic/claude-3.7-sonnet

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Configuration

Khive reads TOML from your project root. All keys are optional - keep the file minimal and override only what you need.

pyproject.toml snippets

[tool.khive fmt]
# enable/disable stacks globally
enable = ["python", "rust", "docs", "deno"]

[tool.khive fmt.stacks.python]
cmd = "ruff format {files}"   # custom formatter
check_cmd = "ruff format --check {files}"
include = ["*.py"]
exclude = ["*_generated.py"]

[tool.khive-init]
# selective steps
steps = ["check_tools", "install_python", "install_js", "cargo_check"]

# extra custom step - runs after built-ins
[[tool.khive-init.extra]]
name = "docs-build"
cmd  = "pnpm run docs:build"

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Prerequisites

Khive helps you install tooling but cannot conjure it from thin air. Make sure these binaries are reachable via PATH:

• Python 3.11+ & uv
• Rust toolchain - cargo, rustc, rustfmt, optional cargo-tarpaulin
• Node + pnpm - for JS/TS stacks & Husky hooks
• Deno ≥ 1.42 - used for Markdown & TS fmt
• Git + GitHub CLI gh - Git ops & PR automation
• jq - report post-processing, coverage merging

Run khive init --check to verify everything at once.

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Project Layout

The khive project is organized into several key directories:

khive/
├── src/khive/                # Main source code
│   ├── cli/                  # CLI entry points and command implementations
│   ├── commands/             # Command adapters and business logic
│   ├── services/             # Core services (info, reader, etc.)
│   │   ├── info/             # Information service (search, consult)
│   │   └── reader/           # Document reader service
│   ├── connections/          # API connection handling
│   ├── providers/            # Provider-specific implementations
│   ├── protocols/            # Interface definitions
│   ├── prompts/              # Templates and prompts
│   └── third_party/          # Third-party integrations
├── docs/                     # Documentation
│   ├── commands/             # Command-specific documentation
│   └── ...                   # General documentation
├── tests/                    # Test suite
└── ...                       # Configuration files, etc.

The architecture follows a modular design where:

• cli/ contains the command-line interfaces
• commands/ contains the business logic for each command
• services/ contains the core services that power the commands
• Each command exposes a cli_entry() function that serves as its entry point

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Contributing

1. Fork → branch (feat/…) → hack
2. khive fmt && khive ci --check until green
3. khive commit "feat(x): …" + khive pr
4. Address review comments → squash-merge ☑️

We follow Conventional Commits and semantic-release tagging.

For more detailed contribution guidelines, see CONTRIBUTING.md.