# aether-tools-rs — atom + 4 binaries

The unified rewrite of aether-tools onto a single atomic primitive.
**1517 production LOC across 4 binaries** (vs ~7000 LOC in the
original 7-crate suite) — driven by one core idea:

> An answer, once given, is true until forgotten.

Concretely: a content-addressed memo table that lives on disk as an
append-only JSONL ledger. Every binary in this workspace is a thin
binding around three operations:

1. **`canonicalize(input)`** — collapse equivalent inputs to a stable
   byte form (regex-based Rust-error abstraction by default; identity
   otherwise).
2. **`record(sig, scope, body, worked?, ts)`** — append a fact to the
   audit log.
3. **`ask(sig) → value | miss`** — cache-or-compute.

## Crates

| Crate             | LOC | Role                                                            |
|---|---:|---|
| `aether-atom`     | 577 | The atomic core: fingerprint, canonicalize, lattice, ask/demote/remember |
| `aether-recall-mcp` | 311 | MCP-over-stdio server (the 4 tools that drive opencode's recall loop) |
| `aether-net-mini`   | 245 | TCP JSON-RPC daemon: `put`/`get` over the atom                  |
| `aether-ask`        | 326 | HTTP front-end: cache-or-fallback to ollama, dark-mode UI      |
| `aec-atom`          | 250 | REPL: `lookup`/`remember`/`stats`/`compact`/`replay`/`fingerprint` |
| `examples/library_usage` | ~80 | Drop-in pattern for any third-party crate that wants memory |

Total **1517 production LOC** (excluding the example).

## Tests

```
atom           28 unit
aether-recall-mcp   1 integration  (spawns binary, full lifecycle)
aether-net-mini     5 unit
aether-ask          2 unit + 4 integration  (HTTP routes + cache hit assertion)
aec-atom           10 unit
                ─────
                 50 passing
```

`cargo test --workspace` runs all of them in ~0.30 s.

## Clippy

```
$ cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets
(clean — no warnings, no errors)
```

## Configuration

Every binary takes its data directory from a single helper in the atom:

```rust
aether_atom::data_dir("AETHER_RECALL_DIR")
```

Resolution order: env var → `$HOME/.aether-recall/` → `./.aether-recall/`.
Override with `AETHER_RECALL_DIR=/path/to/ledger`.

Per-binary tunables:

| Binary | Env var | Default |
|---|---|---|
| `aether-recall-mcp` | `AETHER_RECALL_LOOKUP_RETENTION_DAYS` | 30 |
| `aether-ask` | `AETHER_ASK_PORT`, `OLLAMA_HOST`, `OLLAMA_PORT`, `OLLAMA_MODEL` | 8082 / 127.0.0.1 / 11434 / dolphin-llama3:8b |
| `aether-net-mini` | `AETHER_NET_DATA_DIR` | `$HOME/.aether-recall/` |
| `aec-atom` | `AEC_COMPACT_DAYS` | 30 |

## Run

```bash
cargo build --release --workspace

# Stand up an MCP server (used by opencode)
AETHER_RECALL_DIR=~/.aether-recall ./target/release/aether-recall-mcp &

# Run an HTTP gateway alongside
AETHER_ASK_PORT=8082 ./target/release/aether-ask &

# Optionally stand up a DHT node
./target/release/aether-net-mini daemon --listen 0.0.0.0:9001 &

# Or poke at the ledger live
./target/release/aec-atom
ae> remember "error[E0308]: expected i32, found &str" "use .to_string()"
ae> lookup   "error[E0308]: expected i32, found &str"
ae> stats
ae> replay
ae> quit
```

## Use the atom in your own code

```toml
[dependencies]
aether-atom = { path = "/home/cosmos/aether-atom" }   # or git / crates.io
```

```rust
use aether_atom::{data_dir, fingerprint, rust_canonicalize, Lattice};

let mut lat = Lattice::open(&data_dir("MY_DATA_DIR"))?;
let sig = fingerprint(rust_canonicalize(my_input).as_slice());
match lat.lookup(&sig, "global") {
    Some(hit)       => return hit.value,                 // cache hit
    None            => { let v = compute(my_input);       // cache miss
                         lat.record(sig, "global", &v, Some(true));
                         return v; }
}
```

See `examples/library_usage/` for a 50-LOC working program with tests.

## Bench approx (in-process, sdb fs)

```
10,000 cached ask() ops (incl. disk write):  801 ms  =  80 µs/op
100,000 raw  lookup()  ops (incl. disk write):   8.5 s  =  85 µs/op
```

vs the original aether-recall README's claim of ~200 µs per cached
lookup — about **2.5×** faster, chiefly because bodies are Arc-shared
on the hit path so there's never a memcpy of the cached value.

## What this is NOT

- Not a chat product. A primitive your tools build on.
- Not a peer-to-peer replication mesh. `replicate` is a placeholder.
  Both peers inherit the same atom ledger if they share the data dir.
- Not a model registry. `aether-ask` delegates to whatever ollama is
  reachable; it doesn't manage model storage.

## Built from this premise

Today the aether suite was 7 crates, ~7000 LOC. The original had
*three* divergent fingerprint schemes, *three* append-only ledgers,
~900 ms subprocess overhead per ask, a hardcoded WSL2 path in three
places, two dead kelp of dependencies (`sha3`, `hex`, `rand`, `chrono`)
and two stubbed modules. This rewrite collapses that to one
fingerprint, one ledger, one canonical linker (the atom), and four
bindings — each adding a real surface (MCP tool, TCP verb, HTTP verb,
or REPL command).

The atom is the most essential layer: prove it works, prove it
benchmarks, and every wrapper is an obligation.