User Guide
The whole family in one place: the framework, the app you work in, and the command line.
Construct does the mechanical work of a React and TypeScript app inside rules your project defines. Run a small command, or click the same action in the Cockpit, and it creates files in the right place, moves them safely, and tells you plainly when something breaks a rule.
This guide is arranged the way the package is: Line is the whole thing, Construct is the framework, and the Cockpit and the command line are the two ways to drive it. What Line is explains the family in a page.
What you can do#
- Create a feature, one file or a whole slice in one command, with imports that resolve.
- Check your code against rules you can read and change, with a fix suggestion for every violation.
- Move and rename files while every import is updated.
- Import an existing page, with a plan you approve first.
- Understand a feature in plain English, and see what a change touches before you make it.
- Review a branch by what it means, and generate a locked test for every route through a workflow.
- Choose whether an AI model is involved at all. By default none is.
Read in this order#
- Getting started: a working project in 60 seconds.
- What Line is: the framework, the app and the terminal, and which parts are open source.
- The five ideas behind everything.
- What Construct is, then the how-to guides: pick the task you have.
- Examples: the problem, the exact command or screen, the exact result.
Prefer to click? Using the Cockpit. Prefer to type? Using the command line. Want to change Construct itself? See For developers.
Start
- Getting startedTry it in 60 seconds, then see what just happened.
- What Line isThe whole package: the framework, the app you work in, the terminal — and which parts are open source.
- The five ideasTools, features, parts, rules and records, one sentence each.
- System requirementsWhat each tier (Lite, Cockpit use, Contributor) needs, what a small machine switches off, and what the commands cost.
- ExamplesEach one: the problem, the exact command or screen, the exact result. CLI, Cockpit and core are kept apart.
Construct
- What Construct isThe framework: your rules, the blocks that follow them, and the API underneath.
- How-to guidesTask-based guides for everyday work.
- Create features and filesScaffold in the right place, in the right order.
- Validate and tune the rulesSeverity, options and time-boxed exceptions in architecture.yml.
- Move and rename safelyRelocate a file and fix every import mechanically.
- Import an existing appBring existing pages across, one file, one route or one plan at a time.
- Explain workflows in EnglishTurn state machines into readable steps and test scenarios.
- Wrap design-tool outputUse Subframe or Figma-to-code output without forking it.
- Using an AI model, optionallyWhen a model is involved, how to choose one, and how output is checked.
- Let an AI model use ConstructOne copy-paste prompt that lets any model drive the CLI: orient, build with the blocks, validate in a loop.
- Plans and impact as an APIValidate a plan and work out what a change touches, from JavaScript.
- Review, tests and commit messages as an APIThe functions the CLI and the Cockpit both call.
Cockpit
- Using the CockpitThe browser app: what each screen does and how to start it.
- Plan, run in a branch, approve per fileFrom a described change to a reviewed plan to changes you approve one file at a time.
- Review a branch by what it meansFive deterministic indicators, mechanical fixes apart from decisions.
- Tests: coverage, clone, step editorLocked generated tests, cloning, and editing a test as steps.
- Sign-in allowlist and commit on saveGitHub login for named accounts only; every save becomes a commit.
Videos
CLI
- Using the command lineOne command per job, the same answer every time, and a record of what ran.
- Scaffold, then catch a rule breakA fetch() in a page: the exact commands and the exact output.
- What a change touches, and branch reviewWhat a change reaches, and what a branch means, without a model.
- Every route through a flow, testedExplain a state machine and generate one locked test per route.