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Setup

Status: Current Last modified: 2026-06-21 21:33 EDT

Development is supported on Windows, macOS, and Linux. The instructions below use Unix shell syntax; on Windows, use PowerShell or Git Bash equivalently.

Prerequisites

  • Rust (stable) via rustup (all platforms)
  • Node.js for tree-sitter grammar generation and symbol validation
  • tree-sitter CLI: cargo install tree-sitter-cli
  • just (optional but recommended) for the repo’s top-level helper recipes

Clone Repository

mkdir -p ~/talkbank && cd ~/talkbank
git clone https://github.com/TalkBank/chatter.git
cd chatter

Build

From your chatter checkout root:

cargo build --workspace --locked
cargo build --workspace --all-targets --locked

# Optional helpers from the root justfile
just build
just test
just book-install-tools
just book

Two Cargo Workspaces

The repository has two independent Cargo workspaces:

1. Root workspace (Cargo.toml)

Contains all Rust crates for parsing, model, validation, and transform:

cargo build
cargo test

2. Spec workspace (spec/Cargo.toml)

Contains two sibling crates for spec-driven artifacts. Invoke with --manifest-path relative to the chatter repo root:

cargo build --manifest-path spec/tools/Cargo.toml
cargo build --manifest-path spec/runtime-tools/Cargo.toml
cargo run --manifest-path spec/tools/Cargo.toml --bin gen_tree_sitter_tests -- --help
cargo run --manifest-path spec/runtime-tools/Cargo.toml --bin validate_error_specs -- --help

Root justfile recipes

just build        # Build the Rust workspace
just build-release
just test         # cargo test --workspace
just clippy
just fmt
just fmt-check

Verification

This repo does not currently have the old monorepo-wide make verify wrapper ported into the root checkout. Until that lands, use the concrete verification commands from the repo guidance:

cargo fmt
cargo check --workspace --all-targets
cargo build --workspace --all-targets --locked
cargo nextest run --workspace
cargo test --doc

Add grammar/spec commands when your change touches those surfaces:

cd grammar && tree-sitter generate && tree-sitter test
cargo build --manifest-path spec/tools/Cargo.toml
cargo build --manifest-path spec/runtime-tools/Cargo.toml

CI green on the pushed commit remains the authoritative pre-push gate for this repo.

Editor Setup

rust-analyzer

The workspace should work out of the box with rust-analyzer. The root Cargo.toml workspace configuration is standard.