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Development of FineCode

Documentation Structure

The FineCode documentation is organized into the following sections:

User-Facing Documentation

  • Home (index.md): Landing page highlighting main benefits and quick start
  • Getting Started (getting-started.md): Installation and basic usage
  • IDE and MCP Setup (getting-started-ide-mcp.md): VSCode and MCP-client integration setup
  • Concepts (concepts.md): Core concepts and architecture overview
  • Configuration (configuration.md): Detailed configuration options
  • CLI Reference (cli.md): Command-line interface documentation

Extension Development

  • Guides:
  • Creating an Extension (guides/creating-extension.md)
  • Creating a Preset (guides/creating-preset.md)
  • Multi-Project Workspace (guides/workspace.md)

Reference

  • Built-in Actions (reference/actions.md)
  • Extensions (reference/extensions.md)
  • LSP and MCP Architecture (reference/lsp-mcp-architecture.md): Protocol and server lifecycle internals
  • LSP Client Protocol (reference/lsp-protocol.md): LSP client/server protocol details and custom commands

Developer Documentation

  • Overview (development.md): Contributing to FineCode core development
  • WM Protocol (wm-protocol.md): Technical protocol and endpoint reference
  • WM-ER Protocol (wm-er-protocol.md): WM and Extension Runner protocol details
  • Developing FineCode (guides/developing-finecode.md): Monorepo workflows and conventions

Potential Additions

  • F.A.Q.: Common questions and troubleshooting
  • Changelog/Release Notes: Version history and migration guides

Development Environment Setup

FineCode is a monorepo containing multiple Python packages. To set up the development environment:

Prerequisites

  • Python 3.11 - 3.14
  • Git

Clone and Setup

git clone https://github.com/finecode-dev/finecode.git
cd finecode

# Create development virtual environment
python -m venv .venvs/dev_workspace
source .venvs/dev_workspace/bin/activate

# Install development dependencies
pip install --group=dev_workspace

Prepare Development Environments

# Prepare virtual environments for all packages
python -m finecode prepare-envs

Project Architecture

FineCode follows a modular architecture with clear separation of concerns:

Core Components

Workspace Manager (finecode/)

The main package that: - Discovers projects in the workspace - Resolves configuration from multiple sources - Manages virtual environments per tool - Provides CLI interface - Exposes LSP API for IDE integration - Delegates tool execution to Extension Runners

Extension Runner (finecode_extension_runner/)

Executes tool handlers in isolated virtual environments: - Runs inside isolated venv per tool - Imports and executes handler code - Communicates with Workspace Manager via JSON-RPC/LSP

Extension API (finecode_extension_api/)

Public API for extension authors: - Defines action interfaces and base classes - Provides built-in action definitions (lint, format, build, etc.) - Protocol definitions for handlers and services

Architecture Constraints

The Workspace Manager follows strict layered architecture enforced by import-linter:

finecode.lsp_server.lsp_server   ← top layer (IDE-facing)
        ↓
finecode.lsp_server.services     ← service layer
        ↓
finecode.domain                  ← domain models (no upward imports)

LSP protocol types may only be used in finecode.runner.runner_client and finecode.lsp_server.lsp_server.

Building and Testing

Running Tests

# Run all tests
pytest tests/

# Run tests for specific package
pytest finecode_extension_api/tests/

Building Packages

# Build all packages
python -m build

# Or use the finecode build action
python -m finecode run build_artifact

Development Workflow

# Run linting
python -m finecode run lint

# Check formatting
python -m finecode run check_formatting

# Format code
python -m finecode run format

Running in Development Mode

# Start LSP server for IDE integration testing
python -m finecode start-lsp --stdio

Contributing Guidelines

Code Style

  • Follow PEP 8 style guidelines
  • Use type hints for all function parameters and return values
  • Write docstrings in Google format
  • Keep line length under 88 characters (Black default)

Pull Request Process

  1. Fork the repository
  2. Create a feature branch from main
  3. Make your changes
  4. Run tests and linting: python -m finecode run lint check_formatting
  5. Submit a pull request with a clear description

Commit Messages

Use conventional commit format: - feat: for new features - fix: for bug fixes - docs: for documentation changes - refactor: for code refactoring - test: for test additions/modifications

Testing Requirements

  • All new code must include unit tests
  • Maintain or improve code coverage
  • Test both success and error paths
  • Use descriptive test names

Release Process

Version Management

FineCode uses setuptools-scm for automatic versioning from git tags.

Release Steps

  1. Update version in git tag: git tag v0.4.0
  2. Push tag: git push origin v0.4.0
  3. CI/CD will automatically build and publish packages

Package Dependencies

The monorepo contains interdependent packages that must be released in order: 1. finecode_jsonrpc 2. finecode_httpclient 3. finecode_extension_api 4. finecode_extension_runner 5. finecode_builtin_handlers 6. finecode (main package)

Pre-release Versions

Use alpha/beta/rc suffixes for pre-releases: - v0.4.0a1 (alpha 1) - v0.4.0b2 (beta 2) - v0.4.0rc1 (release candidate 1)