vitaImmich/CLAUDE.md

CLAUDE.md — vitaImmich

PS Vita Immich client (PoC). C sources in src/ (main.c, vendored jsmn.h). Built with the VitaSDK toolchain into a .vpk, run in the Vita3K emulator, and driven headlessly through the kwin-mcp server. This file is the end-to-end loop: build → install → launch → drive → read logs. For the narrative version see AgenticLoop.md; full key map is in controls.MD.

App title id: VIMM00001.

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1. Build the changes → a .vpk

After editing anything in src/ (or CMakeLists.txt), rebuild.

Preferred — Docker (reproducible), writes build/vitaImmich.vpk:

./build.sh

build/ ends up root-owned. If the Docker runtime is broken (containerd shim readlink /proc/self/exe: no such file or directory), use the native fallback.

Fallback — native host SDK, also writes build/vitaImmich.vpk:

export VITASDK="$HOME/vitasdk"
export PATH="$VITASDK/bin:$PATH"
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
      -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE="$VITASDK/share/vita.toolchain.cmake" .
cmake --build build --parallel "$(nproc)"

If a prior Docker build left build/ root-owned, clear it first (sudo rm -rf build) so the native build can write there.

Whichever path you use, the next step installs that .vpk.

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2. Install the rebuilt VPK into Vita3K

Installing = launch Vita3K once with the .vpk as an argument; it extracts and auto-boots. deploy.sh does install-then-launch in one shot:

./deploy.sh    # installs ./build/vitaImmich.vpk, then launches VIMM00001 detached

Gotchas (these are why it must run from a script, not inline):

• Background it from a script file with a sleep/wait then pkill. Inline backgrounding from the agent's shell does not persist.

• Guard pkill with || true — a no-match exit code aborts the chain.

• Vita3K preserves the zip's internal mtime on extract. To confirm a fresh install, compare the installed eboot.bin mtime against the vpk entry, not wall-clock:

  unzip -l build/vitaImmich.vpk | grep eboot
  stat -c 'eboot: %y' ~/.local/share/Vita3K/Vita3K/ux0/app/VIMM00001/eboot.bin
  

• Wipe a stale install: vita3k -d VIMM00001.

deploy.sh launches detached on the live desktop. For agent-driven verification with screenshots, skip deploy.sh's launch and instead launch inside the MCP's isolated session (step 3) — only do the install half first (vita3k ./build/vitaImmich.vpk for ~4s, then pkill).

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3. Launch + drive via kwin-mcp (screenshots + keystrokes)

Launch the app inside kwin-mcp's own isolated KWin session — its screenshot tool only works there. session_connect to the live desktop does not capture (spectacle can't save non-interactively; KWin's ScreenShot2 DBus rejects unauthorized callers). The isolated session is headless: the human cannot watch it live, which is exactly why we capture every frame to disk.

0. Wipe the per-session frame folder first: rm -rf agent-run/frames && mkdir -p agent-run/frames. (agent-run/ is git-ignored; frames/ is the throwaway capture folder — your curated keepers stay in agent-run/ proper and are never touched.)

1. session_start with app_command: "vita3k -r VIMM00001", keep_screenshots: true, and env: {"SDL_VIDEODRIVER": "wayland", "DISPLAY": ""} — starts the isolated session, launches the app, and keeps every captured frame after session_stop. Give it ~12s to boot.

   The env is mandatory. The session inherits the host's DISPLAY=:1, so without it Vita3K's SDL backend picks X11 and renders to the host display — the captured frames come back blank white, focus_window "Vita3K" fails ("no application matching"), and keystrokes never reach the app. Forcing SDL_VIDEODRIVER=wayland and clearing DISPLAY makes Vita3K render into the MCP's Wayland session, where capture and input both work. Sanity check: list_windows should show a Vita3K window and frames should be ~300–500 KB, not ~8 KB.

2. focus_window with app_name: "Vita3K" BEFORE every key. Without focus, keypresses are dropped. They also drop intermittently — re-focus and re-press. One key per call; rapid bursts get coalesced/dropped.

3. keyboard_key with screenshot_after_ms: <ms> after every command, so the frame folder is a complete visual record.

4. session_stop when done, then pkill -9 -f vita3k. kwin-mcp always writes frames to /tmp/kwin-mcp-screenshots-*/ (not configurable) — move them into the repo and clear tmp, then tell the human where they are:

   cp /tmp/kwin-mcp-screenshots-*/*.png agent-run/frames/ 2>/dev/null
   rm -rf /tmp/kwin-mcp-screenshots-*
   

Key map (this app's actions; full list in controls.MD)

Vita button	host key (kwin-mcp)	in-app action
D-pad	Right Left Up Down	move grid / browse
Cross (X)	x	view / play / replay
Circle (O)	c	back
Select	Shift_R	sync
Start	Return	exit

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4. Read the logs — verify from TEXT, not frames

Capturing a frame is free (PNGs on disk are not in context). Reading a PNG back into context is the expensive part. So capture every command, but do not Read frames back during the loop. Verify progress from the app's own text log instead:

~/.local/share/Vita3K/Vita3K/ux0/data/vitaimmich/log.txt

This is the app's own log — it records page fetches, video open/play, scans, and errors. Also available:

• MCP read_app_log with the launched PID.
• /tmp/vita3k-runtime.log (Vita3K runtime stdout/stderr from deploy.sh).
• /tmp/vita3k-install.log (install output).

Only Read a frame when a screenshot is genuinely the only way to resolve an ambiguity (rare). Reading every frame is what bloats context — that's what this rule avoids.

Typical verify loop

1. Build (step 1) → install half of step 2.
2. rm -rf agent-run/frames && mkdir -p agent-run/frames, then session_start (keep_screenshots: true, env forcing Wayland) → wait ~12s.
3. focus_window "Vita3K".
4. keyboard_key "Right" (+ screenshot_after_ms), stepping to the target tile, one key per call; x to open, x again to play.
5. Confirm what happened from log.txt — not the frames.
6. session_stop + pkill; move frames into the repo and clear tmp (cp /tmp/kwin-mcp-screenshots-*/*.png agent-run/frames/ 2>/dev/null && rm -rf /tmp/kwin-mcp-screenshots-*), then hand agent-run/frames/ to the human as the visual record.

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