@thincoder/core

The shared core of the ThinCoder products — the mechanisms and the prompt content behind the ThinCoder CLI and the ThinCoder VS Code extension.

Both products are thin shells: this package owns everything they have in common — the agent loop and subagent scheduling, the advisor review system, the provider layer (SSE streaming, thinking-mode mapping, retries, rate gating), the three-layer memory with its code and document indexes, the built-in tool system, session storage, the MCP client, git and checkpoint integration, the ledger — plus the prompt texts and tool descriptions the two products assemble their model context from.

The core has zero third-party dependencies: Node.js standard library only, pure ESM (.mjs), no build step.

Requirements

• Node.js >= 22.13.0 — the floor comes from the built-in node:sqlite module (usable without a flag since 22.13.0), which the memory and ledger modules use.

Install

npm install @thincoder/core

The package is a library — it ships no CLI of its own. Most users never install it directly: the two products declare it as a dependency (thincoder, the CLI, and thincoder-vscode, the VS Code extension). Install it directly when you build your own tooling on the shared core.

Importing

There is no bare-root entry point — import "@thincoder/core" does not resolve (ERR_PACKAGE_PATH_NOT_EXPORTED). Every import is a subpath, and subpaths map 1:1 onto files in the package (exports is { "./*": "./*" }), so include the .mjs extension:

import { loadConfig } from "@thincoder/core/config.mjs"
import { createAgent } from "@thincoder/core/agent.mjs"
import { chat } from "@thincoder/core/provider/index.mjs"
import { put, putMarkdown } from "@thincoder/core/memory.mjs"
import { runAdvisorReview } from "@thincoder/core/advisor/run.mjs"

Nested paths work the same way (@thincoder/core/git/checkpoint.mjs, @thincoder/core/mcp/transport-stdio.mjs).

What's inside

| Area | Modules | |---|---| | Agent loop, subagents | agent.mjs · agent/ · agent-tools/ | | Advisor review, consultation, escalate | advisor/ · agent-tools/consult.mjs · agent-tools/escalate-async.mjs | | Provider layer (streaming, thinking mapping, retries, rate gate) | provider/ | | Memory, embedding, code/doc indexes | memory.mjs · memory/ · embedding.mjs | | Built-in tools | tools/ | | Sessions | session.mjs · session-*.mjs | | MCP client | mcp.mjs · mcp/ | | Git, checkpoints, team-memory sync | git/ | | Ledger, traces | ledger.mjs · traces/ |

Shared prompt content

The two products author no slot prompts or tool-description bodies of their own: both assemble their model context from the texts in this package. prompt-files.mjs resolves them relative to the package itself, so the same files are loaded in every delivery state (local link, npm install, packaged extension).

• prompts/ — the slot-based prompt texts: personas, the common layer, the discipline layers, and the advisor and consultation modules.
• tool-docs/ — one file per static built-in tool; these texts are what the model reads as tool descriptions.

A prompt rule or a tool-description body is edited in exactly one place, and both products pick it up with the next release. The exception is two tool-face anchors — the bash terminal face in tool-docs/bash.md and the question-panel availability line in tool-docs/question.md: each product supplies those two values from its own src/prompt-injections.mjs, because they describe behavior that differs between the CLI and the extension.

Versioning

Version numbers are calendar-based (CalVer): year.month.monthly-count, where the year segment counts from 2026 (0 = 2026). 0.9.1 is therefore the first core release of September 2026.

The number marks release time, not API compatibility — read CHANGELOG.md for what changed. Per-release notes and artifacts: CHANGELOG.md in this package and the GitHub Releases page.

Contributing

The core lives in thincoder-core/ of the ThinCoder repository; bug reports and questions go to the repository issue tracker. Two conventions shape every change: pure ESM .mjs with no build step, and zero third-party dependencies — if the Node.js standard library can do it, no third-party package is allowed. npm test runs the test entry (node test/run.mjs); after the 2026-09-28 full reset the test manifest is empty (zero tests = green — collection self-checks still run). Unit tests live as batch-local files under docs/batches/ in the repository — current state: docs/core/design/TESTING.md §2.3. It runs again on release through prepublishOnly. Mechanism design documents live in the repository under docs/core/design/.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.