ngit-grasp/docs/learnings/grasp-01-implementation.md

GRASP-01 Implementation Learnings

Purpose: Document learnings from the GRASP-01 implementation
Date: December 4, 2025

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What Was Built

Core Relay Implementation (src/)

Single Rust Binary serving:

• Nostr Relay at / (WebSocket + HTTP for NIP-11)
• Git Smart HTTP at /<npub>/<identifier>.git/*
• Landing Pages at /<npub>/<identifier>.git and /

Key Technical Choices:

Component	Choice	Rationale
HTTP Server	Hyper (not actix-web)	Better control over WebSocket upgrade handling
Nostr Relay	nostr-relay-builder	Mature, well-tested, supports custom policies
Database	LMDB (default), NostrDB, Memory	LMDB for production, Memory for testing
Configuration	clap + dotenvy	CLI flags > env vars > .env > defaults

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GRASP-01 Compliance Features

Nostr Relay Requirements:

• ✅ NIP-01 compliant relay at /
• ✅ Accepts repository announcements listing this service
• ✅ Accepts repository state announcements
• ✅ Accepts events tagging/tagged by accepted repos
• ✅ Recursive maintainer announcement support
• ✅ NIP-11 document with supported_grasps field
• ✅ CORS headers on all endpoints

Git HTTP Service:

• ✅ Serves git at /<npub>/<identifier>.git
• ✅ Push validation against state events
• ✅ Recursive maintainer chain support
• ✅ HEAD set from state events
• ✅ refs/nostr/<event-id> support for PRs
• ✅ allow-tip-sha1-in-want and allow-reachable-sha1-in-want

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Audit Tool (grasp-audit/)

Reusable Compliance Testing:

• Separate crate with own Cargo.toml and flake.nix
• Spec-mirrored test structure matching GRASP-01 sections
• Automatic cleanup tags for production-safe testing
• Can audit any GRASP implementation (not just ngit-grasp)

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Key Implementation Patterns

1. Event Acceptance Flow

flowchart TD
    E[Incoming Event] --> K{Kind?}
    K -->|30617| A[Repository Announcement]
    K -->|30618| S[Repository State]
    K -->|Other| R[Related Event Check]
    
    A --> AC{Lists our service in clone AND relays?}
    AC -->|Yes| ACCEPT1[Accept + Create Repo]
    AC -->|No| RM{Is recursive maintainer?}
    RM -->|Yes| ACCEPT2[Accept - for discovery]
    RM -->|No| REJECT1[Reject]
    
    S --> SA{Author authorized?}
    SA -->|Yes| SL{Is latest state?}
    SL -->|Yes| ACCEPT3[Accept + Align Refs]
    SL -->|No| ACCEPT4[Accept - not latest]
    SA -->|No| REJECT2[Reject]
    
    R --> RF{References accepted event OR referenced by accepted?}
    RF -->|Yes| ACCEPT5[Accept]
    RF -->|No| REJECT3[Reject]

2. State Event to Git Alignment

When a valid state event arrives:

1. Find all announcements where author is authorized
2. For each matching announcement, check if this is the latest state
3. If latest AND git data exists, align refs:
   • Create refs that exist in state but not in repo
   • Update refs pointing to wrong commits
   • Delete refs not in state (for refs/heads/ and refs/tags/)
   • Set HEAD if HEAD branch commit is available

3. Push Authorization

flowchart LR
    P[Push Request] --> PA[Parse Ref Updates]
    PA --> QS[Query State Event]
    QS --> GM[Build Maintainer Set]
    GM --> VR[Validate Each Ref]
    VR -->|Valid| FWD[Forward to Git]
    VR -->|Invalid| ERR[HTTP 403]

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What Worked Well

1. Inline Authorization

The decision to validate pushes before spawning git-receive-pack worked extremely well:

• Better error messages (HTTP responses vs git hook stderr)
• No hook management complexity
• Shared state between Nostr and Git components
• Easy Rust-native testing

2. nostr-relay-builder Integration

Using rust-nostr's relay builder was the right call:

• Handles NIP-01 protocol correctly
• Custom WritePolicy trait for our validation
• Database abstraction (LMDB, NostrDB, Memory)
• Active maintenance and updates

3. Separate Audit Tool

Building grasp-audit as a separate crate enabled:

• Test development in parallel with implementation
• Reusable by other GRASP implementations
• Production-safe auditing with cleanup tags
• Spec-mirrored test organization

4. Test Isolation Strategy

Automatic cleanup tags on audit events:

["t", "grasp-audit-test-event"]              // Marker
["t", "audit-{run_id}"]                      // Run isolation
["t", "audit-cleanup-after-{unix_timestamp}"] // Cleanup time

This enables parallel CI runs without interference.

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What I'd Do Differently

1. Keep Architecture Docs Updated ✅ FIXED

What happened: Architecture design docs were essential to start - they guided the implementation. But as we made decisions (e.g., hyper instead of actix-web), the docs weren't updated to reflect reality.

Better approach: Treat architecture docs as living documents. When implementation diverges from the plan, update the doc immediately. The initial design document was valuable and should remain, but it should reflect what was built.

Resolution: Added prominent warning to AGENTS.md with explicit guidance to keep architecture docs updated as living documents.

2. Smaller Nip34WritePolicy ✅ DONE

What happened: The Nip34WritePolicy grew to ~900 lines handling all event types.

Resolution: Split into focused sub-policies in src/nostr/policy/:

• AnnouncementPolicy - Repository announcement validation
• StatePolicy - State event validation + ref alignment
• RelatedEventPolicy - Forward/backward reference checking
• PrEventPolicy - PR/PR Update validation

The main Nip34WritePolicy now delegates to these sub-policies, improving testability and readability.

3. Git Operations Module Organization

What happened: Many git operations are in src/git/mod.rs (500+ lines).

Better approach: Split into:

• refs.rs - Ref manipulation (create, update, delete, list)
• head.rs - HEAD management
• objects.rs - Object verification (commit_exists)
• repository.rs - Repository lifecycle (create, configure)

4. Unit Tests for Policy Logic

What happened: Event acceptance policy testing relies on integration tests in grasp-audit and the main project's test suite.

Better approach: Also have unit tests for Nip34WritePolicy that mock the database queries. This provides faster feedback during development without needing a running relay.

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Technical Debt to Address

High Priority

1. Split Nip34WritePolicy ✅ DONE - Split into sub-policies in src/nostr/policy/
2. Add unit tests for policy logic - Currently relies on integration tests
3. Document actual architecture ✅ FIXED - Added guidance to AGENTS.md to keep docs updated as living documents

Medium Priority

1. Error types cleanup - Some places use String errors, should use proper error types
2. Tracing improvements - Add structured logging for better debugging
3. Configuration validation - Validate domain format, paths, etc.

Low Priority

1. Git protocol parsing - Could be more efficient with zero-copy
2. Connection pooling - For future GRASP-02 relay connections
3. Metrics/observability - Prometheus integration

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Lessons for GRASP-02

Based on GRASP-01 experience:

1. Define sync policies early - Which events to sync, from where
2. Plan connection lifecycle - Backoff, reconnection, health tracking
3. Consider filter efficiency - Negentropy vs regular subscriptions
4. Test sync scenarios - Network partitions, out-of-order events
5. Measure sync gaps - Track when catchup finds events that live sync missed

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Quick Reference: What's Where

Feature	Location
Event acceptance policy	src/nostr/builder.rs:51 - Nip34WritePolicy
Repo/State parsing	src/nostr/events.rs
Git HTTP handlers	src/git/handlers.rs
Push authorization	src/git/authorization.rs
HTTP server	src/http/mod.rs
NIP-11 document	src/http/nip11.rs
Audit test specs	grasp-audit/src/specs/grasp01/
Integration tests	tests/

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Created: December 4, 2025