Atuin

Shell history tool. Replaces your shell's built-in history with a SQLite database, adds context (cwd, exit code, duration, hostname), and optionally syncs across machines with end-to-end encryption.

Workspace crates

atuin                  CLI binary + TUI (clap, ratatui, crossterm)
atuin-client           Client library: local DB, encryption, sync, settings, client-facing domain types
atuin-common           Low-level cross-crate utilities and API models (not a home for client-facing domain types)
atuin-daemon           Background gRPC daemon (tonic) for shell hooks
atuin-dotfiles         Legacy read-only alias/var listing via record store
atuin-history          Sorting algorithms, stats
atuin-kv               Key-value store (synced)
atuin-scripts          Script management (minijinja)
atuin-server           HTTP sync server (axum) - lib + standalone binary
atuin-server-database  Database trait for server
atuin-server-postgres  Postgres implementation (sqlx)
atuin-server-sqlite    SQLite implementation (sqlx)

Two sync protocols

V1 (legacy): Syncs history entries directly. Being phased out. Toggleable via sync_v1_enabled.
V2 (current): Record store abstraction. All data types (history, KV, aliases, vars, scripts) share the same sync infrastructure using tagged records. Envelope-encrypted with PASETO V4 and per-record CEKs.

Encryption

V1: XSalsa20Poly1305 (secretbox). Key at ~/.local/share/atuin/key.
V2: PASETO V4 Local (XChaCha20-Poly1305 + Blake2b). Envelope encryption: each record gets a random CEK wrapped with the master key. Record metadata (id, idx, version, tag, host) is authenticated as implicit assertions.

Databases

Client: SQLite everywhere. Separate DBs for history, record store, KV, scripts. All use sqlx + WAL mode.
Server: Postgres (primary) or SQLite. Auto-detected from URI prefix.
Migrations live alongside each crate. Never modify existing migrations, only add new ones.
- Exception: the AI session sidecar's migrations (atuin-client/src/ai_session/migrations) were squashed into one 0001_init.sql before release, and the sidecar file was renamed (ai_harness_sessions.db → ai_session_sidecar.db) so no old sidecar meets the new history. Don't add back compatibility with the old migrations; from here on, add new ones as usual.

Hot paths

history start, history end, and init skip database initialization for latency. Don't add DB calls to these without good reason.

Conventions

Crate placement: anything client-facing -- domain types users' code touches and the stores over them -- lives in atuin-client. atuin-common is for low-level, cross-crate utilities only; do not put client-facing domain types there.
Rust 2024 edition, toolchain 1.98.0.
Errors: eyre::Result in binaries, thiserror for typed errors in libraries.
Derive boilerplate: derive_more (workspace dep) for Display, From, Into, AsRef, Deref, Debug on newtypes and simple enums. Prefer derive_more over manual impl when the formatting/conversion is a straight delegation. Use thiserror (not derive_more) for error types. Use #[as_ref(str)] on string newtypes for AsRef<str>.
Async: tokio. Client uses current_thread; server uses multi_thread.
#![deny(unsafe_code)] on client/common, #![forbid(unsafe_code)] on server.
Clippy: pedantic + nursery on main crate. CI enforces -D warnings, on both the default targets and --tests.
Rustdoc: CI runs cargo doc --document-private-items --no-deps --workspace with RUSTDOCFLAGS=-D warnings. Broken intra-doc links fail the build.
Format: cargo +nightly fmt. .rustfmt.toml uses nightly-only options, so formatting requires the nightly toolchain even though the project builds on stable 1.97.0.
IDs: UUIDv7 (time-ordered), newtype wrappers (HistoryId, RecordId, HostId).
Serialization: MessagePack for encrypted payloads, JSON for API, TOML for config.
Storage traits: Database (client), Store (record store), Database (server) -- all async_trait.
History builders: HistoryImported, HistoryCaptured, HistoryFromDb with compile-time field validation.
Feature flags: client, sync, daemon, clipboard, check-update.

Testing

Unit tests inline with #[cfg(test)]. Use rstest for every test — #[rstest], never a bare #[test] (async: #[rstest] + #[tokio::test]); migrate plain #[test]s in files you touch.
Lean on #[fixture]s for shared setup and compose them; when a test needs teardown, return an RAII guard from the fixture (e.g. a temp dir removed on Drop) rather than cleaning up by hand.
Parametrize with #[case(...)] (input/expected tables) and #[values(...)] (cross-products of independent parameters) instead of near-duplicate tests.
Reach for proptest when a property holds across many inputs — round-trips (encode/decode, serde, parse/display), invariants, idempotence; keep targeted #[case]s for known edge cases and regressions.
Server integration tests in crates/atuin-server/tests/ need Postgres (ATUIN_DB_URI env var).
E2e tests use temporary homes and private daemon sockets. Add shell setups in crates/atuin/tests/shells/*.toml. See crates/atuin/tests/README.md for dependencies and how to run them.
Use rstest for tests, especially when they can be made simpler using cases and fixtures.
Use ":memory:" SQLite for unit tests needing a database.
Runner: cargo nextest.
Benchmarks: divan in atuin-client and atuin-history, tracked in CI by CodSpeed. Run them locally with cargo codspeed build && cargo codspeed run, or with plain cargo bench.

Build and check

cargo build
cargo test
cargo clippy -- -D warnings
cargo clippy --tests -- -D warnings
cargo +nightly fmt --check
RUSTDOCFLAGS="-D warnings" cargo doc --document-private-items --no-deps --workspace

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