git:20260918.5d475e0 to git:20260923.d400c5d

# Reticle

Reticle embeds a dev-only SDK in the user's running app and exposes it to you as `reticle_*` MCP tools. You look, act, observe, and assert against the real app. No screenshots, and no browser download for the verify loop: it drives the tab the user already has open.

This file is the whole critical path and nothing else. Everything it leaves out is at `https://docs.reticle.sh`, one page at a time.

## Your first action, before you read the rest

Do not spend a turn working out which path you are on.

**`reticle_*` tools visible?** The machine is set up. Go straight to the project:

```bash

RETICLE_INSTALL_SOURCE=skill_file npx @reticlehq/server@latest init

```

**Not visible?** Hand the user one line to run in a terminal, outside this client, and stop there:

```bash

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/reticlehq/reticle/main/install/install.sh | sh

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/reticlehq/reticle/main/install/install.ps1 | iex # Windows

```

It registers the MCP server with every agent it can reach; they reopen this client and the tools are there. Do not instead register it yourself and then work around your client not having reloaded: that is the sequence that breaks.

```

reticle_verify { action: "explore", persona: "<the journey worth proving>" }

```

Name the journey: Reticle can list the buttons, not which one matters. `explore` SAVES what it drove, so later runs replay with no model.

Everything between here and there is a rule the steps assume. Read it as you go, not before you act.

## Installed means a verdict was produced

**Setup is not complete until you have driven one real flow in the user's app and produced a verdict.** Writing config files is not installed. Every earlier point looks like success and is not:

- `init` exited 0. Wired, and connected. Nothing is PROVED: that is the first run.

- The `reticle_*` tools appeared. Your client can reach a daemon. The app is very likely still uninstrumented.

- A session is listed. The app dialled in. The user has still seen nothing happen.

**Do not tell the user Reticle is set up until a verdict exists.** The common failure is an agent that writes the config, reports success, and leaves somebody with an uninstrumented page. The command exits non-zero when that happens: believe the exit code over the report.

## Setup runs to the end without you

**Do not stop, and do not ask the user anything, until their app is running with Reticle inside it and a session is connected.** Everything between here and that point is yours to do: run `init`, fix the wiring it could not, start the dev server, open the browser. Not one of those needs a human, and every one of them has been the place an onboarding turn died with nothing to show.

Questions you must not ask, because the repo you are sitting in already answers them: which framework, which package manager, which port, which editor or MCP client, whether to start the dev server, whether to open the browser, whether to carry on. Decide, act, and say what you did in one line.

There are exactly two places you may stop, and neither is a question about a preference:

1. **No recognisable dev script in `package.json`.** Say so; do not invent one.

2. **Your host asks the human to approve a command.** That prompt belongs to the host. Never bypass or suppress it, and take a refusal as the answer. `init` writing a pre-approval rule for the `reticle` server is not that: it is a scoped, announced config change the human asked for by running the command, and it covers only Reticle's own tools.

**A client restart is not one of them, and that is the point.** Registering the MCP server from inside a client that has already read its server list means the tools cannot appear until it comes back, which ends your turn mid-setup. The machine step happens in a terminal first, so: tools missing, ask for the installer and stop; tools present, you never restart anything. If your client did register mid-session, `npx @reticlehq/server init --relaunch` prints the resume command to run yourself.

## Feedback is first-class

Reticle is built for agents. You are its user, and your experience is the only signal that decides what gets built or fixed. It disappears when your context does.

The moment Reticle breaks, lies, cannot see something you needed, costs too many calls, or gives you trouble during setup:

```

reticle_session { action: "feedback", kind, text }

```

`kind` is one of `bug`, `gap`, `ambiguity`, `feature_request`, `improvement`. One call, then carry on with the task. If the tools are unreachable (setup unfinished, daemon down), file the same report from the shell:

```bash

npx @reticlehq/server feedback --agent --kind <bug|gap|ambiguity|feature_request|improvement> "what happened"

```

Nothing is too minor. Report defects in **Reticle**; a bug you find in the app under test is Reticle working, and belongs in your answer to the user. Never put app source, secrets, or user data in a report.

## Do not re-read this file to look something up

Fetch the one page that answers the question instead. **Appending `.md` to any docs URL returns its source with no site chrome.**

```bash

curl https://docs.reticle.sh/llms.txt # every page title and URL; read this first

curl https://docs.reticle.sh/frameworks.md # per-framework SDK wiring

curl https://docs.reticle.sh/troubleshooting.md # nothing connected, click did nothing, verdict unknown

curl https://docs.reticle.sh/agent-cheatsheet.md # the verify loop on one screen

```

## Which path am I on

You do not have to decide. `init` is idempotent and reports what is already wired, so running it is the cheapest way to find out. It never drives; the first run is yours to start.

---

# SETUP

**Both stages are at the top of this file.** A connected app proves the SDK is in the page and nothing more: do not report Reticle as set up until the first run has produced a verdict.

Read **[Setting Reticle up](https://docs.reticle.sh/skill-setup)** when it cannot. It ships on disk beside this file, at `docs/skill-setup.md`, so you can open it without a network call: what to pass `reticle init`, how to read its report, what to do when it cannot finish on its own, who starts the dev server, and license keys.

You need it once, while setting a project up. If `reticle_session` already lists a session, skip straight to **VERIFY** below and never open it.

# VERIFY

**Only `reticle_act_and_wait` and `reticle_assert` produce a verdict.** Everything else (`act`, `snapshot`, `query`, `navigate`, `observe`, `network`, `console`) moves or reads the app and proves nothing. A drive that ends without one of those two has no result, however many tools it used.

A verdict of `verified: "unknown"` is not a pass. It means Reticle drove the app and could not tell what happened. Report it as unknown. `verified: "no-fault"` is not a pass either. It means the page settled and no channel reported a problem, but nothing was declared to prove, so assert a consequence the action CHANGES. **Never weaken a check to make it pass.**

## Take the cheapest path that answers the question

Work down this list and stop at the first row that fits. Do not hand-drive a flow you could replay, and never pay one call per field.

| The question | The call | Calls |

| --- | --- | --- |

| "Did my edit break anything?" | `reticle_verify({ action: "change", files: ["src/App.tsx"] })` | 1 |

| "Does every saved journey still work?" | `reticle_verify({ action: "flows" })` | 1 |

| "Does this new behaviour work?" | ONE `reticle_act_and_wait` with `until` | 1 |

| No MCP available at all | `npx @reticlehq/server verify <url>` in the shell | 1, no MCP |

Replay before you drive. A covered journey re-verifies for a few hundred tokens; driving it costs tens of thousands, because driving spends turns and replay spends none.

`{action:"change"}` answers `unknown` when no saved flow covers your files. Nothing ran, so nothing was proved: drive it yourself, and never read it as a pass. `"no"` names the step that broke and what it found instead, so a regression arrives located. If a locator was RENAMED rather than broken, `{action:"heal"}` rebinds it, re-asserting the saved consequence first and refusing if that stops firing, so it repairs a locator and never an intent.

## Two more you have to be told about

**Context compacted, a turn starting, or a sub-agent taking over?** Ask what this run already established, instead of re-snapshotting to rediscover what you already knew:

```

reticle_run({ tool: "reticle_context", args: {} })

```

```

reticle_act_and_wait({ ref: "e42", action: "click", until: { kind: "signal", name: "checkin:sent" }, intent: "clicking Send check-in makes the badge read 'checked in'" })

```

## Record once, replay cheaply

The first drive is expensive; the rest should not be, and you need not ask: **what you drive by hand is saved as a flow automatically**. From then on that journey re-verifies in one deterministic call, and `{action:"change"}` answers `yes` or `no` for those files instead of `unknown`.

Whether that flow is worth anything depends on how you drove it. A step keeps a consequence only if you declared one, so `reticle_act_and_wait({ ref, action, until })` replays as a test while a bare `reticle_act` replays as a click that passes even when the feature is broken. Declare the consequence and the ratchet works.

## When you do have to drive by hand

Three calls, and the last one is the only one that counts:

```

reticle_session() // connected? if empty, read `why` — it names the fix

reticle_look({ sessionId, action: "page" }) // just the controls, with refs

reticle_act_and_wait({ sessionId, ref, action: "click", until: { kind: "allOf", predicates: [

{ kind: "net", urlContains: "/api/...", status: 200 },

{ kind: "element", query: { testid: "..." } },

{ kind: "console", level: "error", absent: true },

]}}) // ← the verdict

```

Prefer `reticle_act_and_wait({ ref, action, until })`. It names the expected consequence **before** the action, which is the difference between a check and a rationalisation.

Then report what you drove, what it produced, and the `file:line` for anything broken.

- Batching, regression suites, reading a verdict: `https://docs.reticle.sh/agent-cheatsheet.md`

- Every predicate and action: `https://docs.reticle.sh/predicates.md`, `https://docs.reticle.sh/actions.md`

- The complete tool surface: `https://docs.reticle.sh/usage.md`