# AGENTS.md

This file provides guidance to AI coding assistants when working with code in this repository.

## What this is

A dora-rs Python node that displays a video stream with overlays: it keeps a current frame, bbox set and text string, and every `image` event redraws all three into an OpenCV window. It is a display sink — it produces no outputs. [README.md](README.md) documents the inputs, the encodings and the environment variables; this file covers only what the code and the README do not say.

Everything the example dataflow needs is in this checkout. Do not reintroduce a dependency on another repository — the example must keep running with no camera, no detector and no network.

**It is Python on purpose.** The node was first written in Rust against the `opencv` crate; that crate generates its bindings from the OpenCV headers installed on the build machine, so it needs `libopencv-dev` and `libclang-dev` on every machine and every architecture and does not cross-compile. Every dependency here ships prebuilt wheels for linux-x86_64, linux-aarch64 and macos-arm64, so `uv sync` is the whole install. Do not reintroduce a dependency that has to be compiled from source.

## Commands

```bash
uv sync --group dev                      # deps plus pytest and ruff
uv run pytest && uv run ruff check .     # no camera/dataflow/display needed
dora run dataflow.yml --uv               # the example, in a window
CI=true SOURCE_FRAMES=30 dora run dataflow.yml --uv   # the same, headless
```

`dora build --uv` / `dora run --uv` rewrites each manifest's `build: pip install .` to `uv pip install .` and gives the node its own managed venv under `.dora/python-envs/<node-id>/`, so what it imports at runtime is what was installed at build time.

## Architecture

- **`dora_plot/main.py`** — Argument parsing and the dora event loop, nothing else. The env var wins over the CLI flag for `PLOT_WIDTH`/`PLOT_HEIGHT`, matching the upstream node. `Node(args.name)` rather than `Node()` so the node also runs standalone as a dynamic node.
- **`dora_plot/decode.py`** — `to_bgr()`: every supported encoding to a writable BGR array. Two behaviours are deliberate, not bugs: `bgr8` **copies** (the payload may be a read-only view on shared memory, and the frame is annotated in place), and `yuv420` converts with `COLOR_YUV420p2RGB` rather than `...2BGR` — the upstream node converts to RGB and then displays it as BGR, and that channel swap is part of the behaviour callers already see.
- **`dora_plot/plot.py`** — `Plot` (the overlay state and the window) and `Bboxes`. `headless` (from `CI=true`) skips only the window: every input is still decoded, which is what makes the node safe in a pipeline test.
- **`dora_plot/bbox.py`** — Parses the `bbox` struct into xyxy corners. `xywh` is centre-based (x, y are the box centre). `_flat()` unwraps the single-element list that `pa.array([{...}])` produces around each field, and reads a field stored flat as-is.
- **`examples/source.py`** — The synthetic source node: an animated frame, the box around the square in it, and a caption. It exists so the example dataflow exercises all three inputs without a camera or a detector, and so CI can run the dataflow rather than only validate it. `SOURCE_FRAMES` bounds the run, which is what lets CI wait for a clean exit instead of killing it on a timeout.
- **`dora-node.yml`** — Node manifest (`apiVersion: 1`). `dora validate` injects these types into any dataflow that reaches the node by `path:`; a `git:`-sourced node does **not** pick it up, which is why the example builds from the checkout. `image` and `text` carry type URNs naming the element type because each payload is a raw buffer described by its metadata, not an Arrow struct. `bbox` is deliberately **untyped**: senders disagree on whether its numeric fields are 32- or 64-bit, and the node reads either.
- **`dataflow.yml`** — The example and the CI gate, with `strict_types: true`. `source` carries `output_types:` because it has no manifest of its own; `bbox` is annotated on neither side, matching the manifest.
- **`.gitea/workflows/validate.yml`** — CI: validates and runs the dataflow headless, and runs the unit tests. Needs no camera and no display.

## A caveat on typed optional inputs

`dora validate --strict` injects a contract type for *every* typed manifest input and then warns `input_types key "..." not found in inputs list` for any the dataflow does not wire. So a typed optional input forces the example dataflow to wire it. If a typed input is added to the manifest, either wire it in `dataflow.yml` or leave it untyped.

## Rules

- Do not mention AI tools in commit messages or documentation.