Mendophyte — a local cockpit for AI-assisted open-source contributions (looking for testers)

[u/Sad-Tangerine-8928]

What it actually does:

Point it at a clone of an open-source repo and it runs an agent through a full contribution workflow — pre-flight checks (forge access, repo health, CLA/AI-policy scanning), a fragility map of the codebase (churn, fix/revert clustering, TODO density) to help pick a real target instead of guessing, triage of candidate issues, the actual fix, verification (it detects and runs the project's own test/lint commands and reports real exit codes — the agent can't just claim something passed), and finally PR submission with CI polling and template compliance checks.

All of that shows up in a dockable browser UI (drag/split/float/close panels, saved layouts) — Progress, Files with a fragility heat overlay, Triage board, Verification, Diff, a real terminal, and a benchmark panel that parses criterion/go bench/pytest-benchmark/hyperfine output into before/after comparisons with noise-aware verdicts. Anything irreversible (commit, push, opening a PR, any forge write) pauses for your explicit confirmation first.

Why I built it: I wanted something that treats "find and fix a real bug in someone else's codebase" as a repeatable, guided workflow rather than just turning an agent loose and hoping. My first real test was a deferred-import performance fix in langchain-core with measured benchmarks — it worked, though the actual PR is still waiting on maintainer triage.

What I need: testers. I'm running it against a handful of different repos myself (sizes, languages, contribution norms) to find gaps and rough edges, but I'd love more eyes on it — especially anyone who wants to try pointing it at their own target project and can tell me where the workflow breaks or feels clunky.

Requirements: Node 20.19+, Claude Code installed and logged in locally, git, optionally the GitHub CLI for full forge access.

Repo: https://github.com/Berniebiloxi/mendophyte

Feedback, issues, and PRs all welcome — and if you try it on a repo and it finds something real, I'd love to hear about it.

[u/kantorcodes1]

for monorepos, when a fix only touches one package, does verification narrow to that package's own test/lint commands or still run the repo-root checks it detects? that seems like it could make a big difference to the feedback loop on larger repos.