house-style

name	house-style
description	Code conventions for tix — duck/feature layout, file-size limits, blank-line groups, strict TypeScript, fast tests. Use when writing or refactoring code in this repo, splitting large files, planning a package refactor, or whenever code structure decisions come up.

tix house style

The repo enforces formatting, lint, and types automatically — see automation. This skill documents what mechanical tools don't check: structure, sizing, test discipline.

When refactoring a package, work it end-to-end with the refactor checklist.

Structure: duck / feature, no barrels

Co-locate by feature, not by type. A feature directory contains its components, hooks, and utils side by side:

orders/src/
├── reservation/
│   ├── reserve-handler.ts        # POST /orders → reserve + persist
│   ├── tickets-client.ts         # @orpc/client wrapper for tickets.reserve
│   └── reservation-conflict.ts   # 409 → retry-once mapping
├── cancel/
│   ├── cancel-handler.ts         # POST /orders/:id/cancel
│   └── cancel-publisher.ts       # outbox emit of order.cancelled.v1
├── expire/
│   ├── expire-listener.ts        # consumes expiration.due.v1
│   └── expire-publisher.ts       # outbox emit of order.expired.v1
├── state-machine.ts              # pure FSM — keep cohesive even if long
├── outbox.ts
├── inbox.ts
├── schema.ts                     # drizzle tables for this service's schema
└── index.ts                      # Hono composition root

No index.ts barrel files. Every import goes to the exact file that defines the symbol. Barrels defeat tree-shaking and force bundlers to walk dependency graphs they shouldn't have to. Import @tix/contracts/subjects, not @tix/contracts.

One concern per file. A .tsx file may contain one main component plus tightly-coupled sub-components. It should not also export hooks or generic utils — those move to their own file.

File-size guidance

Size	Action
≤ 200 lines	Fine as-is
200–400 lines	Acceptable if one concern (pure domain module, single complex component tree). Otherwise split.
> 400 lines	Split, unless it's a single cohesive algorithm (e.g. engine.ts).

Cohesion beats size. A 600-line state machine with 30 small pure transitions is fine; a 400-line handler file that mixes 5 routes, 3 helpers, and 6 utils is not. The rule isn't line count — it's "if I rename this file, do all its contents move together?"

Style: blank-line groups

Separate logical groups within a file with a single blank line. Read top-to-bottom, each chunk is a "paragraph":

const BOT_PASS_MS = 250;
const BOT_PLAY_MS = 500;

export type Seat = 0 | 1 | 2 | 3;
export type Card = { rank: Rank; suit: Suit };

export function compareCards(a: Card, b: Card): number {
  const r = rankIndex(a.rank) - rankIndex(b.rank);
  if (r !== 0) return r;
  return suitIndex(a.suit) - suitIndex(b.suit);
}

Import grouping is handled by oxfmt (.oxfmtrc.json): side-effects → react → external → workspace → internal → relative. Don't hand-edit import order.

Inside function bodies

Each blank-separated chunk is one "phase" — a small group of statements that together extract / compute / guard one concept. Phase boundaries get a blank line; statements that together resolve one concept stay packed.

Default to a blank line between top-level statements; pack only the explicit exceptions below. When in doubt, add the blank — the formatter / reviewers will push you that direction, so writing it that way first saves a round-trip.

Rules:

• A const and the guard that immediately validates it stay together (no blank between them).
• Consecutive guard returns of the same flavor stay packed (multiple precondition checks on the same scope read as one group).
• Parallel facts of the same shape stay packed — two next*Streak lines that compute the same kind of value for sibling cases, or a destructure + a one-line derivation off it. If you can't honestly call them "the same fact restated for a sibling case," put a blank above the second one.
• A new const/let that begins a different computation gets a blank line above it. This applies to every useState / useMemo / useCallback call too — each hook is its own statement and starts its own phase. Don't bundle three useCallbacks together because they're "all action handlers"; give each its own blank above.
• After a multi-line statement (object/array literal const x = { ... };, multi-line function call, block-bodied if/for/try), insert a blank line before the next statement unless that next statement is a closing return of the immediate result.
• Blank line before the function's final return when meaningful setup precedes it; trivial one- or two-line bodies don't need it.
• try { } catch { } blocks get a blank line above and below when surrounding code exists.
• Inside for / while bodies: a guard + the const it validates stay packed; a side effect on the accumulator (array.push, map.set) on the following line gets a blank above it.

Example (onPlay reducer body) — phases: initial guard → seat extract + preconditions → hand classification → state transition → emit:

setState((s) => {
  if (s.session === null) return s;

  const seat = s.session.humanSeat;
  if (seat === null) return s;
  if (s.session.tribute !== null) return s;
  if (gameIsOver(s.session.game)) return s;
  if (s.session.game.turn !== seat) return s;

  const hand = classifyHand(cards);
  if (hand === null) return s;

  const next = applyPlay(s.session.game, seat, { kind: "play", hand });
  if (next === s.session.game) return s;

  return { ...s, session: { ...s.session, game: next } };
});

Example (recordGameOver) — phases: extract title → compute session counts → compute streaks → return:

const title = titles[humanSeat];

const nextSessionCounts: RoleCounts = {
  /* ... */
};

const nextKingStreak = title === "king" ? lifetime.currentKingStreak + 1 : 0;
const nextJokerStreak = title === "joker" ? lifetime.currentJokerStreak + 1 : 0;

return {
  /* ... */
};

nextKingStreak and nextJokerStreak are parallel facts about the same thing — no blank between them. But nextSessionCounts is a different concern, so it gets its own group.

Inside JSX

Default: distinct JSX siblings get a blank line between them — including a pair of buttons, a pair of tabs, two compound-component slots like <DropdownMenuTrigger> + <DropdownMenuContent>, or two semantically different <div> sections of a layout. Treat siblings as statements: each is its own "phase" of the UI.

Pack siblings only when one of these explicit exceptions applies:

• Repeated identical siblings produced by .map() — they're an algorithmic list, not hand-curated UI.
• List-shaped same-tag siblings of a collection container (e.g. consecutive <DropdownMenuItem> rows inside <DropdownMenuContent>, or a small hand-written cluster of <option> rows). The container's role is "render N items"; they read as data, not as distinct sections.
• Label + value / icon + text that visually compose one line (<PlusIcon /> Add set, <Label> immediately followed by its <Input>).
• A single trailing child of an element — there's no sibling to separate from.

<header className="flex items-center justify-between">
  <span className="text-sm font-medium">
    Pick {returnsRemaining} card{returnsRemaining === 1 ? "" : "s"} to return
  </span>

  <Button type="button" size="sm" disabled={!canSubmit} onClick={submit}>
    Return ({selected.length}/{returnsRemaining})
  </Button>
</header>

<div className="flex flex-wrap gap-1">
  {hand.map((c) => (
    <CardButton key={cardKey(c)} card={c} selected={...} onClick={toggleCard} />
  ))}
</div>

The two <header> children are a label and an action — distinct concerns, blank between them. <CardButton> siblings produced by .map() are repeated identical elements — packed.

Two tabs are still distinct siblings, even though they share a component type:

<div role="tablist" className="flex border-b">
  <TabButton selected={kind === "workout"} onClick={goWorkouts}>
    Workouts
  </TabButton>

  <TabButton selected={kind === "set"} onClick={goSets}>
    Sets
  </TabButton>
</div>

But consecutive <DropdownMenuItem> rows inside a menu are list-shaped same-tag siblings and stay packed:

<DropdownMenuContent align="end">
  <DropdownMenuItem onClick={handleEdit}>Edit</DropdownMenuItem>
  <DropdownMenuItem onClick={handleDuplicate}>Duplicate</DropdownMenuItem>
  <DropdownMenuItem variant="destructive" onClick={handleDelete}>
    Delete
  </DropdownMenuItem>
</DropdownMenuContent>

When a .map() callback computes locals before returning JSX, put a blank line before the return, and a blank line between major JSX sub-sections inside the returned element (same rule as function bodies; JSX siblings are statements with markup).

TypeScript

Base config is packages/config/tsconfig.base.json. All strict flags are on:

• strict, exactOptionalPropertyTypes, noUncheckedIndexedAccess
• noUnusedLocals, noUnusedParameters, noImplicitReturns, noImplicitOverride
• noFallthroughCasesInSwitch, noPropertyAccessFromIndexSignature
• noUncheckedSideEffectImports, erasableSyntaxOnly, verbatimModuleSyntax
• allowUnreachableCode: false, allowUnusedLabels: false

isolatedDeclarations is enabled per library package, not on the base config (apps noEmit and can't use it). It's also not enabled everywhere — see the schema-builder caveat. New library packages get it from pnpm turbo gen package. None of tix's current packages have it on (all three — contracts, db-core, messaging — wrap schema/DSL builders). See the recipe for retrofitting a future hand-written lib.

Conventions

• No enums, no namespaces. erasableSyntaxOnly forbids them. Use string-literal union types: type Title = "king" | "queen" | "third" | "joker".
• readonly for collections returned from pure functions. readonly Card[] and ReadonlySet<Seat> are already pervasive in engine.ts — match that.
• Branded primitives over loose strings/numbers when the value has invariants (a seat is 0 | 1 | 2 | 3, not number).
• type over interface unless you need declaration merging. Pre-existing files in the repo all use type.
• No any. Reach for unknown and narrow, or fix the type at the boundary.
• Trust internal code. Validate at system boundaries (HTTP handlers, DB rows, user input via arktype). Don't re-validate values that already passed the type-checker.

Enabling isolatedDeclarations on a library package

isolatedDeclarations makes .d.ts emit a per-file operation with no cross-file inference. That lets bundlers like tsdown emit declarations without running TS, parallelizes the work, and turns accidental public-API drift into a compile error. The repo target is on for every library package that ships types.

Apps (web, server) noEmit and can't use the flag. Don't try.

New packages get the flag automatically from pnpm turbo gen package (see turbo/generators/templates/lib/tsconfig.json.hbs). The recipe below is for retrofitting an existing package whose isolatedDeclarations is currently off:

1. In the package tsconfig.json, add "isolatedDeclarations": true and extend the exclude list to skip test files:

   {
     "include": ["src/**/*.ts", "src/**/*.tsx"],
     "exclude": ["dist", "node_modules", "**/*.test.ts", "**/*.test.tsx"],
     "compilerOptions": {
       "composite": true,
       "declaration": true,
       "isolatedDeclarations": true,
       // ...
     },
   }
   

   Excluding tests is required: tsgo (the @typescript/native-preview build) currently fails to resolve vitest imports when isolatedDeclarations is on. Tests get type-checked by vitest at runtime — no coverage lost. Bonus: no useless *.test.d.ts files emitted to dist/.

2. Run pnpm exec tsgo --build --force from the package directory. The remaining errors are missing return types on exported declarations only. Internal helpers and unexported sub-components are unaffected.

3. Fix each export. For React components, the idiom is:

   import { type JSX, useCallback, useState } from "react";
   
   export function MyComponent(): JSX.Element {
     /* ... */
   }
   

   verbatimModuleSyntax is on, so use the inline type modifier rather than a separate import type line.

4. For pure functions, just annotate the return type. Most engine/util code in this repo already has them.

5. Verify with pnpm check-types (turbo, full repo) and the package's tests (pnpm test from the package, which delegates to its local vitest run script).

Per-package cost for hand-written code is typically 1–3 annotations. For packages built around schema/DSL builders, the flag is impractical — read on.

Schema builders and isolatedDeclarations

The flag fights any library whose value proposition is inferring complex types from a declarative config. There's no per-file escape hatch (TS follows imports; the flag applies project-wide).

Builders in this codebase that block isolatedDeclarations:

Package	Builder	Why it blocks
db-core	drizzle-orm pgTable(...)	Each table's type is inferred from its column definitions; annotating requires writing the full schema twice
contracts	arktype type({...}) schemas	Event payload types are inferred from the arktype schema — annotating means writing the schema twice
messaging	re-exports db-core outbox rows	Inherits the inference chain from db-core; can be flipped on once the outbox helper has a hand-written API

(Future tix packages — e.g. an oRPC client/router lib, or a @t3-oss/env-core wrapper — would join this table for the same reason.)

Rule of thumb: if the package's public surface is "hand-written types and functions" → enable isolatedDeclarations. If it's "a config object passed to a framework builder, with the return value re-exported" → don't.

Forcing it anyway means duplicating the schema in a type annotation — defeats the builder's whole point and creates a sync hazard on every schema edit.

Tests

Fast, focused, non-DOM-first. Vitest runs whatever you give it; the trade-off is yours.

• Don't test what TypeScript or oxlint already enforces. No "rejects invalid input shape" tests when the type signature already rejects it. No "calls function" tests that just restate the implementation.
• Prefer pure-function tests over component tests. engine.test.ts (1315 lines, no React) is the right shape — drives most of the codebase's behavior coverage cheaply. Component tests are for genuine interaction wiring, not logic.
• One behavior per test name. "king receives a card when ask hits", not "works correctly".
• Reach for vitest-playwright only when the test genuinely needs a real browser. A DOM render to assert a className is the wrong tool — extract the logic and test it directly.
• Avoid mocks of internal collaborators. If you need to mock something inside the same package to make a test pass, the seam is probably wrong.

Target shape: data in, behavior out, no fixtures, no setup. Once a service's pure domain modules (e.g. orders/src/state-machine.ts) exist, their test files should look like that.

Creating a new package

Use the generator. Don't hand-write boilerplate.

pnpm turbo gen package

Prompts: kebab-case name (becomes @tix/<name>). Non-interactive: pnpm turbo gen package --args my-pkg.

The generator scaffolds packages/<name>/ with package.json, tsconfig.json (already isolatedDeclarations: true), tsdown.config.ts and vitest.config.ts (both two-line files that delegate to a preset from @tix/config), and a starter duck source + test file. Run pnpm install after.

Tix currently only ships the lib flavor (node vitest, tsdown for node, no React). A ui flavor would need to land alongside a core-ui package — neither exists yet; the web app is the only frontend and lives under apps/.

Adding a new duck-file export

Each new file in src/ (other than tests) needs an entry in package.json#exports. Use:

pnpm turbo gen export

Prompts for the package directory (e.g. contracts) and the duck filename without extension (e.g. subjects). It appends "./<duck>": { "types": "./dist/<duck>.d.ts", "import": "./dist/<duck>.js" } to the exports map.

If a package's exports map drifts from src/, the build will silently skip the missing entry — there's no whole-repo check yet.

Automation

A Stop hook (.claude/hooks/stop-fix-and-check.sh, wired in .claude/settings.local.json) runs automatically when the assistant finishes a turn:

1. pnpm fix — applies oxlint --fix and oxfmt --write across the repo.
2. pnpm check-types — turbo-cached type check.

If either fails, the hook exits 2 and surfaces the error so the assistant must address it before stopping. Don't run these manually mid-task — they fire on stop. Do run them inline if you want fast feedback after a big change.

The hook does not run the full pnpm check (which also runs tests and builds). Before declaring a task done, run:

pnpm check

Fix pre-existing issues you surface, don't just dodge them. If pnpm check (or any other check you run) turns up a format, lint, or type problem that you didn't introduce, fix it in the same branch — typically as a small chore: commit alongside your work. The bar is "the branch leaves the tree clean," not "no worse than I found it." Exceptions: deep refactors of unrelated code, or a real bug rather than a hygiene issue — flag those to the user instead of silently rewriting them.

lefthook separately runs oxlint --fix and oxfmt --write on staged files at pre-commit, so commits are always formatted.

Package refactor checklist

When refactoring a package to match this style:

1. Inventory the largest files. wc -l packages/<pkg>/src/**/*.{ts,tsx} | sort -rn | head.
2. For each file > 200 lines, classify its exports. Group them: components, hooks, pure utils, constants, types. A file that has more than one of these groups is a split candidate.
3. Map features. Sub-components that share props/state cluster into a feature directory. Standalone utilities go to a <thing>-utils.ts sibling.
4. Move, don't rewrite. Cut symbols to new files in a single commit per split. Don't change behavior in the same commit.
5. Delete any index.ts you find. Update imports to point at the concrete file.
6. Tighten test scope. When splitting a file, ask: does the existing test file still match? If a test reaches into newly-private internals, it was testing implementation — rewrite to use the public surface.
7. Flip on isolatedDeclarations if the package's public surface is hand-written code (pure functions, types, simple components) — not if it wraps a schema/DSL builder (see the caveat table). Follow the retrofit recipe. Best done after splitting, since smaller files mean smaller diffs. (Packages created with turbo gen package already have it on.)
8. Run pnpm check (full suite) before declaring the package done.

For the largest current offenders see refactor-targets.md.