Nesti — autonomous developer

Goal

A self-contained orchestrator that reads Redmine issues, generates code through a cascading LLM pipeline, validates it in a Docker sandbox, and opens GitLab Merge Requests

---

How it works

Redmine issue
  → fetch skill docs from URLs in issue (optional)
  → generate plan       [Hermes-3 → DeepSeek → Claude Sonnet]
  → generate code       [Qwen3 → DeepSeek → Claude Sonnet]
  → unit tests          [in Docker container]
  → pass: commit + push + GitLab MR + close issue
  → fail: escalate provider, retry (up to MAX_CODE_RETRIES)
  → all retries exhausted: reopen issue with failure note

Conversation history is stored in Redis per issue. When tests fail and the pipeline retries, the model sees its previous attempt and the failure output.

---

Example Topology

Service	Addr	Role
GitLab	https://gitlab.yourdomain.com	Repository + merge requests
Redmine	192.168.100.1:3000	Issue intake
Qwen3:30b	192.168.100.2:11434	Primary coder (optional, local)
MariaDB	192.168.100.3:3306	Schema reference (read-only)
Hermes-3	192.168.100.4:11434	Primary planner (optional, local)
Redis	nesti-redis:6379	Conversation history
Nesti MCP	stdio via docker exec	Tools for Claude Code / IDEs
DeepSeek API	api.deepseek.com	Mid-tier paid fallback
Claude (Sonnet)	api.anthropic.com	Last-resort fallback

Local LLM providers (Hermes-3, Qwen3) are disable by default (HERMES3_LLM_ENABLED=false, LOCAL_LLM_ENABLED=false) as they require dedicated strong GPU/hardware.

---

Installation

1. Clone and configure

cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env — at minimum: ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, REDMINE_*, GITLAB_*

2. Build the app sandbox image

docker build -t hello-world-sandbox -f Dockerfile.sandbox .

3. Start

docker-compose up --build -d
docker-compose logs -f nesti-orchestrator

This starts three containers: nesti-orchestrator, nesti-redis, and nesti-mcp. Redis starts automatically as a dependency and persists conversation history across restarts via the named nesti_redis_data volume.

4. Connect the MCP server (optional)

# Claude Code CLI:
claude mcp add nesti docker exec -i nesti-mcp python -m mcp_server.server

# Verify:
claude mcp list

VS Code users: the bundled .vscode/mcp.json registers the same server for the Claude extension automatically.

---

Skill Documentation

Any HTTP/HTTPS URL in a Redmine issue subject or description is fetched automatically and injected into the planning prompt as context.

See ISSUE_GUIDELINE.md for full issue format and examples.

---

Architecture

main.py                    ← CLI entry point (--loop / single-run)
task_engine.py             ← invokes the LangGraph pipeline
graph/
  state.py                 ← IssueState TypedDict
  tools.py                 ← atomic tool functions (Redmine, GitLab, Docker)
  nodes.py                 ← LangGraph nodes
  edges.py                 ← conditional routing
  builder.py               ← compiled StateGraph
mcp_server/
  server.py                ← MCP stdio server (FastMCP), Phase 3
  tools/                   ← Redmine, GitLab, Docker, skill MCP tools
  Dockerfile               ← standalone nesti-mcp container
conversation_store.py      ← Redis-backed per-issue message history
llm_client.py              ← provider cascade with multi-turn support
prompt_builder.py          ← system + user prompt construction
skill_loader.py            ← URL extraction + markdown fetching
redmine_client.py          ← issue intake and status management
gitlab_client.py           ← clone, branch, commit, push, MR
docker_runner.py           ← Unit test sandbox execution
telegram_notifier.py       ← failure alerts (optional)

---

MCP Server (Phase 3)

nesti-mcp exposes all nine graph/tools.py functions plus two skill tools over the Model Context Protocol (stdio transport). Any MCP-compatible client — Claude Code CLI, VS Code Claude extension, Cursor — can drive the same Redmine/GitLab/Docker toolchain the orchestrator uses, e.g.:

@nesti redmine_list_pending
@nesti docker_run_tests /tmp/ai-dev-241-xyz/repo

The MCP server runs alongside the orchestrator; it does not replace it. Every tool returns the uniform {"success": bool, ...} shape.

---

Configuration

See .env.example for all variables. Key ones:

Variable	Required	Default
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	Yes	—
DEEPSEEK_API_KEY	Recommended	—
REDMINE_URL + REDMINE_API_KEY	Yes	—
GITLAB_URL + GITLAB_TOKEN	Yes	—
REDIS_URL	No	redis://nesti-redis:6379/0
HERMES3_LLM_URL	No	—
LOCAL_LLM_URL	No	—
MAX_CODE_RETRIES	No	2
TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN + TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID	No	—

---

License

MIT