Development Setup

Set up a development environment for contributing to Ash.

Prerequisites

Python 3.12+
uv package manager
Docker
Git

Setup

Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/dcramer/ash.git
cd ash

Install dependencies
Terminal window
```
uv sync --all-groups
```
This installs all dependencies including dev tools.

Install prek hooks

# Install prek (if not already installed)
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/j178/prek/releases/download/v0.2.28/prek-installer.sh | sh

# Install hooks
prek install

Create config file
Terminal window
```
uv run ash init
```
This creates ~/.ash/config.toml. Edit it to add your API keys (Anthropic + OpenAI).
Run database migrations
Terminal window
```
uv run ash upgrade
```
Build the sandbox
Terminal window
```
uv run ash sandbox build
```

Development Tools

Tool	Purpose	Command
ruff	Linting + formatting	`uv run ruff check --fix .`
pytest	Testing	`uv run pytest`
prek	Git hooks	`prek run --all-files`

Running Locally

Interactive chat:

uv run ash chat

Start server:

uv run ash serve

Code Quality

Run linter:

uv run ruff check --fix .

Format code:

uv run ruff format .

Both run automatically via prek hooks.

Adding Dependencies

Add runtime dependency:

uv add <package>

Add dev dependency:

uv add --dev <package>

IDE Setup

VS Code

Recommended extensions:

Python
Ruff
Even Better TOML

Settings:

{
  "python.defaultInterpreterPath": ".venv/bin/python",
  "editor.formatOnSave": true,
  "[python]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "charliermarsh.ruff"
  }
}