go-cli

Arbiter Go Client

Experimental native Arbiter client.

The goal of this subproject is a small, portable client binary that agents can run without a Python environment. The Python server remains the source of truth for Arbiter runtime behavior, plugin loading, configuration composition, and deployment tooling.

Current scope:

• one native executable, with build dependencies pinned in go.mod and go.sum
• CLI shell for the native arbiter client
• URL resolution from command-line override, environment, or client config
• native HTTP transport
• info, op, and explicit artifact commands
• independent connection and API response timeouts, plugin/operation response budgets, and artifact download inactivity limits (no total transfer deadline)

See the client reference for the timeout configuration and command-line override contract.

Build

From the repository root, build the default cross-platform binary matrix with:

tools/build_go_client --clean

This writes stripped binaries under client/go-cli/dist/<goos>-<goarch>/ for Linux, macOS, and Windows on amd64 and arm64. Limit the matrix with one or more --target GOOS-GOARCH arguments; pass --debug to keep debug symbols.

For a local single-platform build from this directory:

go generate ./internal/cli
go build -buildvcs=false ./cmd/arbiter

The Go client version is generated from ../../server/pyproject.toml, so it stays aligned with the arbiter-server package version.

PyPI client wheels

The native client can be published as the arbiter-client PyPI project. Build its platform-tagged wheels from the repo root with:

tools/build_release_dists --packages client

The generated wheels contain no Python wrapper. Each wheel places the matching native executable in the standard wheel script location:

arbiter_client-<version>.data/scripts/arbiter
arbiter_client-<version>.data/scripts/arbiter.exe

Test

go test ./...

The Linux and macOS terminal regression harness requires Python 3. Windows tests create a private console. These tests check actual expiry, private-state cleanup and lock reacquisition; CI requires them on all six native platform targets. Python is a test dependency here, not a dependency of the installed client binary.

When running in a sandbox where the default Go build cache is not writable, set GOCACHE to a writable directory:

GOCACHE=/tmp/arbiter-go-cache go test ./...
GOCACHE=/tmp/arbiter-go-cache go build -buildvcs=false ./cmd/arbiter

Intended Distribution Shape

The native client is published as the arbiter-client Python package. It emits one platform-tagged wheel per supported target, each containing:

arbiter_client-<version>.data/scripts/arbiter
arbiter_client/bin/arbiter

The wheel script installs the normal arbiter executable onto PATH. The stable arbiter_client/bin/arbiter copy is for Agent Skill Installer, which copies it into the installed arbiter skill from the external companion wheel.

Package the platform-neutral skill wheel from the repo root:

tools/build_release_dists --packages skill

This writes the arbiter-skill wheel under dist/. The skill package declares arbiter-client==${package.version} in agent-skill-installer.yaml, so ASI lets pip select the correct native client wheel for the installing platform.