EditLess Service

Multi-process .NET service with a Brain-centric architecture for AI-powered editing workflows.

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                     Ringleader                          │
│                  (User Autostart)                      │
│           Spawns & monitors all processes                │
└─────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────────┘
          │          │          │          │
          ▼          ▼          ▼          ▼
    ┌──────────┐ ┌────────┐ ┌─────────┐ ┌──────────────┐
    │  Brain   │ │  Web   │ │Desktop  │ │ Channel Host │
    │ :4000    │ │  :3000 │ │(Avalonia│ │  (Teams)     │
    │ TLS/TCP  │ │ SignalR │ │  app)   │ │              │
    │ JSON-RPC │ │        │ │         │ │              │
    │ :4001 ♥  │ │        │ │         │ │              │
    └──────────┘ └───┬────┘ └────┬────┘ └──────┬───────┘
          ▲          │           │              │
          │          └───────────┴──────────────┘
          │                      │
          └──── BrainClient ─────┘
                (TLS/TCP JSON-RPC)

Brain (:4000) — Central server. Owns the Copilot SDK, MCP servers, and all AI logic. Exposes a JSON-RPC API over TLS/TCP. Health endpoint on :4001.

Web UI (:3000) — ASP.NET Core + SignalR. Thin client that forwards everything to Brain via BrainClient.

Desktop — Avalonia app. Same thin-client pattern via BrainClient.

Channel Host — Background process for Teams channel monitoring. Connects to Brain.

Ringleader — Process manager that spawns and monitors all child processes. Runs as a user autostart process.

Shared — BrainClient, protocol types, config schema. Used by all client processes.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• .NET 9 SDK
• Windows (for Ringleader autostart; other components are cross-platform)
• Dev Tunnels CLI (optional, for remote access)

Build

dotnet build

Run (development)

Start Brain and Web separately:

# Terminal 1: Brain
dotnet run --project src/EditLess.Brain

# Terminal 2: Web UI
dotnet run --project src/EditLess.Web

Then open http://localhost:3000 in your browser.

Remote Access (Dev Tunnel)

# Start with Dev Tunnel (requires devtunnel CLI)
./scripts/dev.ps1 -WithTunnel

Run Tests

dotnet test

TLS Setup (optional)

./scripts/setup-tls.ps1

Project Structure

Project	Type	Description
EditLess.Brain	Console App	JSON-RPC server, Copilot SDK, health endpoint
EditLess.Shared	Class Library	BrainClient, protocol types, config schema
EditLess.Web	ASP.NET Core	SignalR hub, static chat UI
EditLess.Desktop	Avalonia App	Native desktop chat client
EditLess.ChannelHost	Console App	Teams channel monitoring
EditLess.Ringleader	Worker Service	Process manager (autostart)
EditLess.Brain.Tests	xUnit	Brain unit tests
EditLess.Shared.Tests	xUnit	Shared library tests
EditLess.Ringleader.Tests	xUnit	Ringleader/tunnel unit tests

Tech Stack

Component	Technology
Runtime	.NET 9
RPC	StreamJsonRpc (JSON-RPC 2.0 over TCP)
Web	ASP.NET Core + SignalR
Desktop	Avalonia 11 + Fluent Theme
AI	GitHub Copilot SDK (Phase 1)
Database	SQLite (via Microsoft.Data.Sqlite)
TLS	OpenSSL / .NET self-signed certs
CI	GitHub Actions

Configuration

Edit editless.config.json at the repo root. See src/EditLess.Shared/Config/EditLessConfig.cs for the full schema.