// Guidelines for creating high-quality Freenet pull requests. This skill should be used when creating PRs for freenet-core, freenet-stdlib, or related repositories. Emphasizes quality over speed, thorough testing, and proper review process.
Build decentralized applications on Freenet using river as a template. Guides through designing contracts (shared state), delegates (private state), and UI. Use when user wants to create a new Freenet dApp, design contract state, implement delegates, or build a Freenet-connected UI.
Set up and manage local Freenet development environments and interact with a running node. Use when the user wants to test contract changes locally, debug UI issues, run a local node, query connections/diagnostics, inspect the dashboard, use the WebSocket API, or iterate on a Freenet application without deploying to the live network.
Methodology for debugging non-trivial problems systematically. This skill should be used automatically when investigating bugs, test failures, or unexpected behavior that isn't immediately obvious. Emphasizes hypothesis formation, parallel investigation with subagents, and avoiding common anti-patterns like jumping to conclusions or weakening tests.
Orchestrate a new Freenet release. Determines next version, shows changelog, confirms with user, and triggers the release pipeline via GitHub Actions. Use when the user says "do a release", "new release", "release", or "/release".
Executes a risk-tiered, multi-perspective PR review — triages the change, runs specialist subagents in parallel (code-first, testing, skeptical, big-picture) plus an external model pass scaled to risk, then posts a consolidated review to the PR.
Run integration tests that require Linux (full loopback range 127.x.x.x) via Docker. Use when a test fails on macOS with "Can't assign requested address" or when the user says "/linux-test".
| name | pr-creation |
| description | Guidelines for creating high-quality Freenet pull requests. This skill should be used when creating PRs for freenet-core, freenet-stdlib, or related repositories. Emphasizes quality over speed, thorough testing, and proper review process. |
| license | LGPL-3.0 |
Our goal is high-quality code that won't require future fixes. Don't cut corners, be a perfectionist, don't increase tech debt. A quick fix that causes problems later wastes more time than doing it right the first time.
If your PR fixes a GitHub issue, verify the issue is unassigned before starting work. If someone else is already assigned, check with them or the user before proceeding — don't duplicate effort. If the issue is unassigned, assign it to yourself immediately so others know it's being worked on:
gh issue edit <ISSUE> --repo freenet/<REPO> --add-assignee @me
CRITICAL: Always ensure you're working from the latest main branch from GitHub, not a stale local copy:
cd ~/code/freenet/freenet-core/main
git fetch origin
git log --oneline -1 origin/main # Check what's latest on GitHub
git pull origin main # Update local main
git log --oneline -1 # Verify you have the latest
This prevents:
If you're working on a GitHub issue, assign it to yourself so others know it's being worked on:
gh issue edit <ISSUE> --repo freenet/<REPO> --add-assignee @me
Never work directly in the main worktree. Create a dedicated worktree for your branch:
cd ~/code/freenet/freenet-core/main
git worktree add ../fix-<issue-number> -b fix-<issue-number>
cd ../fix-<issue-number>
# CRITICAL: Verify you're in a worktree, not the main directory
pwd # Should be .../freenet-core/<branch-name>, NOT .../freenet-core/main
git branch --show-current # Should be your feature branch
cargo fmt
cargo clippy --all-targets --all-features
cargo test
Fix all warnings and errors before pushing.
Simulation tests (primary): For logic errors in routing, topology, subscriptions, operations, or any behavioral change. Use the direct simulation runner (run_simulation_direct) in crates/core — it's deterministic, fast, runs in CI, and has zero external dependencies. This should be the default for validating that changes don't regress subscribe rates, GET rates, tree formation, etc.
Docker NAT simulation: Only for transport-layer issues that require real network namespaces — firewall hole-punching, NAT traversal, UDP behavior behind iptables rules. In-memory sockets can't reproduce these. Don't use this for testing routing logic or subscription behavior.
Manual multi-machine testing: For issues that require real geographic distribution, actual internet latency, or cross-architecture validation (nova/vega/technic).
PR titles must follow Conventional Commits - CI fails non-conforming titles:
feat: - New featurefix: - Bug fixdocs: - Documentation onlyrefactor: - Code change that neither fixes a bug nor adds a featuretest: - Adding or correcting testschore: - Maintenance tasksExplain WHY, not just WHAT. Structure your PR description:
## Problem
[What's broken? What's the user impact? Why does it matter?]
## Approach
[Why this solution over alternatives? What's the key insight?]
## Testing
[New tests added and what scenarios they validate]
[Local validation steps performed]
[E2E testing results if applicable]
## Fixes
Closes #XXXX
Bad: "Add observed_addr field to ConnectRequest" Good: "The joiner can't know its public address until observed externally. Previous approach rewrote addresses at transport boundary, but that's a hack. This lets the gateway fill in the observed socket naturally since it already sees the real UDP source."
The test harness should be growing faster than the core code. Quick fixes without test coverage create an illusion of speed — we end up in a patch → break → patch cycle where each fix introduces new regressions. Almost every logical bug can be reproduced in a synthetic test with zero external dependencies. The work to build those tests is harder than a quick fix, but it's the only way to stop the cycle.
Every PR that changes behavior must include tests that would have caught the problem before merge. Not just tests that verify the fix works — tests that would have prevented the bug from shipping in the first place. If you're changing routing logic, test that routing actually makes correct decisions under realistic data conditions. If you're changing topology, test that subscribe/GET success rates don't regress. If you're changing subscription handling, test that subscription trees form and survive peer churn.
CI gap tests go in the same PR, not a follow-up issue. The pattern of filing "add missing test" issues that never get done is how we end up with 17 bug-fix PRs in 4 days and none of them caught by CI. If the fix PR doesn't include the test that closes the gap, it is not ready to merge.
When fixing a bug, always ask: "Why didn't CI catch this?"
Investigate which test layer should have caught it:
Document the gap in your PR description. Then close the gap. The fix PR should include the missing test that would have caught this bug class, not just a narrow regression test for the specific symptom.
For PRs that touch routing, topology, operations, or subscription handling, the PR must include simulation tests that assert key health metrics. This is not optional — discovering regressions through production telemetry days later means CI failed:
| Metric | What it catches |
|---|---|
| Subscribe success rate | Topology regressions, interest TTL issues |
| GET success rate | Routing regressions |
| Subscription tree formation | Tree building/maintenance bugs |
| Interest renewal rate | TTL/renewal bugs |
| Time to first successful operation | Bootstrap/convergence issues |
These should be measured in simulation tests and asserted against thresholds. Discovering regressions days later through production telemetry is a test infrastructure failure.
Use the direct simulation runner (run_simulation_direct) for these — it supports multi-peer networks with contract operations and is deterministic.
If a bug is a logic error (wrong threshold, missing data path, incorrect fallback), it should be reproducible in a unit or integration test. Don't settle for "we'll monitor it in production." Examples:
Reserve production telemetry analysis for genuinely environment-specific issues (OOM under specific conditions, real NAT traversal, etc.), not for catching logic errors that a test should find.
This ensures the test actually catches the bug, not just the happy path.
When improving tests, make the new test as general as possible while still catching the specific problem found. A test that catches a class of bugs is better than one that only catches the exact scenario you hit.
If a pattern caused a bug, search for similar patterns elsewhere in the codebase. Fix them all, or file separate issues for each.
Before running review agents, use the code-simplifier agent to clean up, simplify code, and verify documentation:
Task tool with subagent_type="general-purpose", prompt includes agents/code-simplifier.md instructions:
"Simplify PR #<NUMBER> (branch-name) at /path/to/worktree
Modified files:
- [list modified files]"
Commit any simplifications before running reviews — reviewers should see the cleanest version of the code.
Once the PR is complete, code is simplified, and CI is passing, run four parallel review agents (code-first, testing, skeptical, big-picture) using the Task tool with subagent_type="general-purpose". Each agent should focus on one perspective and report findings without making edits.
After the internal review agents complete, ask Codex to do a skeptical review of the PR. Codex uses a different model and catches different classes of issues — having an independent perspective reduces blind spots. Share the PR number and ask it to look for bugs, race conditions, edge cases, and failure modes.
Take all feedback seriously. Freenet is complex code and we need to be perfectionists. Don't cherrypick easy wins and ignore harder issues. For each point raised:
The bar for ignoring feedback is HIGH. Only dismiss a suggestion if it would dramatically increase complexity (like doubling the size of an already large PR). If a suggestion would improve the PR and can reasonably be done, do it.
Use common sense — if a reviewer suggests building a massive test framework for a small change, that's obviously overkill. But don't dismiss feedback just because it's inconvenient or would require more work.
Never ignore tests to make them pass. Flaky tests are broken tests — fix the root cause, don't hide the symptom.
Never remove existing tests or fix code. If tests are failing, understand why and fix the underlying issue. Removing tests that catch bugs is how regressions happen.
CI typically takes ~20 minutes. Use:
gh pr checks <PR-NUMBER> --watch
The Claude PR Rule Review GitHub Action automatically reviews PRs against .claude/rules/ and posts a comment with findings. The rule-review/findings status check blocks merge until all Critical and Warning findings are acknowledged.
To resolve:
thiserror for error types, remove stale doc comments/ack to dismiss all findings for the current revision (use sparingly — only when the finding is genuinely inapplicable)Common findings:
Display/Error impls → use thiserror::Error deriveAlways fix findings rather than /ack-ing them unless you have a clear reason.
/freenet:pr-review on the updated HEAD if findings were significant — the prior review is per-CODE-CONTENT, not per-PR, and is stale once fixes are pushed. See the "Re-Review After Fixes" section of the pr-review skill for the exact thresholds (any Must Fix, 3+ Should Fix, anything in a high-risk area, or >~30 changed lines).When a PR adds or modifies enum dispatch (operation types, outcome handling, event routing), the test must exhaustively verify all variants produce the expected result. Common gaps: outcome() returning Irrelevant for some operation types, match arms with _ => {} catch-alls that silently discard new variants, commented-out enum arms.
For any PR that touches data structures which accumulate entries (HashMaps, Vecs, channels, caches), include assertions that sizes stay bounded after sustained operation. Every insert path must have a corresponding cleanup path that runs on both success and failure/timeout. If the cleanup path isn't obvious, document it in a code comment.
#[ignore] - fix the test or don't mergeTODO comments for things you could fix nowEnd all GitHub content (PR descriptions, comments, issues) with:
[AI-assisted - Claude]
These 5 patterns caused ALL 25 bugs in releases 0.1.147–0.1.150. When your PR introduces or modifies code matching these patterns, apply the corresponding rule:
| Pattern | Rule | Audit |
|---|---|---|
biased; select | Per-iteration caps on high-throughput arms, document cancellation safety | grep "biased;" crates/core/src/ |
GlobalExecutor::spawn | Register JoinHandle with monitor; use send() not try_send() for critical paths; no catch-all _ => in metrics | grep "GlobalExecutor::spawn" crates/core/src/ |
| Connection removal / cleanup | Clean ALL related maps; filter peer lists to live connections; GC exemptions must have TTL | grep "prune_connection|drop_connection|retain(" crates/core/src/ |
| Retry / backoff | Jitter ±20%; sleep interruptible via select!; zero-connection re-bootstrap; retry critical control msgs | grep "tokio::time::sleep" crates/core/src/ |
| Deployment | Declare exit codes to service manager; gate auto-update on release; test security against app needs; remove unused deps | cargo machete |
Full rules: .claude/rules/code-style.md, .claude/rules/ring.md, .claude/rules/transport.md, .claude/rules/deployment.md
Clean up your worktree to free disk space (each worktree has its own target/ directory):
cd ~/code/freenet/freenet-core/main
git worktree remove ../fix-<issue-number>
git branch -d fix-<issue-number> # Delete local branch