popmechanic/loom-local

Loom Local: Applications on the Claude Code Runtime (Bun)

Build local web applications where Claude Code CLI (claude -p) is the runtime — not a helper writing React components, but the actual engine powering the application's intelligence. The interface talks to a Bun server that spawns claude -p processes, streaming results back to the browser.

No authentication, no deployment, no multi-tenancy. The user's machine already has Claude Code authenticated — the server is just a bridge between browser and CLI.

Why This Matters

Most "AI-powered" web apps just wrap a chat API. They put a text box on screen, send messages to an LLM, and show the response. That's a chat replica.

Claude Code is not a chat API. It's an agentic runtime with filesystem access, tool use, multi-turn sessions, structured output, and streaming. Building an interface on top of it means designing something that exposes these capabilities in ways that make sense — not just conversations, but whatever interaction paradigm fits the task.

The question to explore: what would you build if your backend could read files, run code, search the web, coordinate multiple agents, and stream its reasoning to the browser in real time?

The Architecture

Every app has the same basic shape:

┌──────────────┐     HTTP/WS      ┌──────────────┐    stdio     ┌──────────────┐
│   Interface  │ ◄──────────────► │  Bun Server   │ ◄──────────► │  claude -p   │
│  (HTML/React)│                  │ (Bun.serve()) │              │              │
└──────────────┘                  └──────────────┘              └──────────────┘
     UI layer                      Bridge layer                  Runtime layer

Interface: The custom UI. Whatever makes sense for what's being built.

Bun Server: The bridge. Receives requests from the interface, spawns Claude processes, parses output, streams results back. Handles routing, session management, and the mapping between web concepts and Claude invocations.

Claude Runtime: The intelligence. claude -p with the right flags. Reading files, running commands, generating structured output. Running locally, Claude inherits the machine's credentials automatically — no token injection needed.

Communication Patterns

| Pattern | When to Use | How | |---------|-------------|-----| | REST + JSON | One-shot requests, data extraction | POST → claude -p --output-format json → JSON response | | SSE (Server-Sent Events) | Streaming text to browser | claude -p --output-format stream-json --verbose → SSE stream | | WebSocket | Bidirectional, multi-turn sessions | WS connection → claude -p --input-format stream-json | | Background job | Long-running tasks | Queue → claude -p process → poll for result | | Parallel | Batch analysis of multiple items | Concurrent claude -p spawns → aggregate results |

For most apps, start with REST + SSE: REST for triggering tasks, SSE for streaming progress and results. Add WebSockets only when true bidirectional communication is needed (e.g., the user can interrupt or steer while Claude is working). If the run can outlive the page, stream from an event log — not the request — so reloading re-attaches rather than losing the run.

The Conversation

Walk through these design questions before building. Cover them naturally — don't dump them all at once.

1. What does the person see and do?

Get concrete about the interface, not the AI. What's the layout? What does someone click? What appears when Claude is working? What does the final output look like?

Ask: "Walk me through the screen. What does someone see when they open this? What do they do first? What happens next?"

2. What's the interaction model?

How does the person's action translate to a Claude invocation?

| Interaction | Claude Pattern | |-------------|----------------| | Click a button, get a result | One-shot claude -p, REST response | | Watch progress in real-time | Stream-JSON → SSE to browser | | Multi-step workflow with state | Session-based (--session-id first turn, --resume <id> after) | | Concurrent analysis of multiple items | Parallel claude -p processes | | Person steers while Claude works | Bidirectional streaming via WebSocket |

3. What does Claude actually do?

Map each action to what Claude needs behind the scenes:

• What tools? Read-only analysis (Read,Glob,Grep) vs. modification (Write,Edit,Bash) vs. no tools at all (--tools "" for pure reasoning)
• What persona? --system-prompt "You are..." replaces the default system prompt entirely — for character personas, branded assistants, or apps where Claude should NOT inherit the user's CLAUDE.md settings. --append-system-prompt adds to the default prompt (preserving user settings, skills, etc.) — for when Claude should still act as a general assistant with extra instructions.
• What data? Files on disk? User-uploaded content? Piped from other services? Claude's Read tool natively handles images and PDFs — save uploaded binary files to a temp directory and pass the path.
• What output shape? Free text for display? Structured JSON for rendering UI components? Both (use --json-schema for structured + result for narrative)?

4. How should the output render?

This is where custom interfaces shine over CLIs. Render Claude's structured output as rich UI:

• JSON schema with typed arrays → cards, lists, timelines, visualizations
• Schema with nodes and edges → interactive graph
• Schema with sections and status → progress view
• Stream-JSON events → animated progress indicator or live log

Design the JSON schema to match the UI components to render. The schema IS the API contract between Claude and the frontend.

5. What are the safety boundaries?

Local apps simplify security but don't eliminate it:

• Sandboxing: Claude has filesystem access — scope the working directory. Use --add-dir to expand access when needed.
• Permissions: Use the tightest --permission-mode and --allowedTools that work. Prefer dontAsk over bypassPermissions.
• Turn limits: Set --max-turns to prevent runaway loops. 5 for one-shot, 10-15 for streaming, 20 for multi-turn.
• Cost control: Use --max-budget-usd to cap spending on expensive tasks.

6. Model and performance

| Need | Flag | Why | |------|------|-----| | Fast responses (<3s) | --model haiku | Classification, extraction, routing (Haiku 4.5) | | Good quality, reasonable speed | --model sonnet | Default for most apps (Sonnet 4.6) | | Best reasoning | --model opus | Complex analysis, code generation (Opus 4.8) | | Hardest agentic work | --model fable | Most capable (Fable 5) — enable when available on your plan | | Reliability | --fallback-model sonnet,haiku | Auto-fallback on overload (comma-separated, tried in order) | | Control reasoning depth | --effort low\|medium\|high\|xhigh\|max | xhigh = Claude Code's coding/agentic default |

For web UIs, perceived speed matters. Use streaming to show partial results immediately, even when using slower models.

Building It

Default to Bun with TypeScript for the server and plain HTML/CSS/JS or React for the frontend. Zero external dependencies — Bun.serve() handles HTTP, static files, and WebSockets natively.

Read references/server-patterns.md for the complete server setup, shared utilities (cleanEnv(), createStreamParser()), and all five communication pattern implementations with full code.

Safety Defaults

Every pattern runs Claude from a server — no human at a terminal to approve tool use. Two flags are non-negotiable:

--permission-mode dontAsk — Nobody to click "approve." Without this flag, Claude hangs forever waiting for interactive input.

Critical: Pair --permission-mode dontAsk with --allowedTools or --tools. Without allowed tools, dontAsk gives Claude no tools at all — it can reason but can't act, and the failure is silent (no error, just missing results).

--max-turns — Prevents conversational loops where Claude keeps trying approaches that won't work.

Every pattern also handles three failure modes:

• stderr — Warnings, errors, diagnostics. Always capture it.
• Non-zero exit codes — Model overloaded, permission denied, timeout hit.
• Malformed output — A killed process may emit partial JSON. Always wrap JSON.parse in try/catch and check is_error before using structured_output.

Patterns at a Glance

| Pattern | When to Use | Reference | |---------|-------------|-----------| | REST + JSON | One-shot requests, data extraction | references/server-patterns.md#pattern-rest-endpoint | | SSE Streaming | Streaming text to browser | references/server-patterns.md#pattern-sse-streaming | | WebSocket | Bidirectional, multi-turn | references/server-patterns.md#pattern-websocket-session | | Reconnect-Safe Streaming | Runs that outlive a page reload | references/server-patterns.md#pattern-reconnect-safe-streaming | | Interrupt | Stop button for active runs | references/server-patterns.md#pattern-interrupting-a-run | | Background Job | Long-running tasks | references/server-patterns.md#pattern-background-job-with-progress | | Parallel | Batch analysis | references/server-patterns.md#pattern-parallel-analysis |

Read references/server-patterns.md when implementing a specific server endpoint or wiring up the frontend.

Stream-JSON Event Types

When using --output-format stream-json --verbose --include-partial-messages, Claude emits newline-delimited JSON events:

| Event Type | Shape | Forward? | |------------|-------|----------| | system | {type:"system", subtype:"init", session_id, model, tools} | Optional (extract session_id) | | stream_event | {type:"stream_event", event:{delta:{text:"..."}}} | Yes (live text) | | assistant | {type:"assistant", message:{content:[...]}} | Tool use only (text already streamed) | | tool_result | {type:"tool_result", tool_name, content, is_error} | Optional | | result | {type:"result", subtype:"success"|"error_max_turns", is_error} | Yes (done signal) |

Max-turns detection: The result event has subtype: "error_max_turns" with is_error: true (verified on CLI v2.1.x). Check subtype before is_error — otherwise the generic is_error branch catches max-turns and the "incomplete" branch never runs.

Extended thinking models work correctly. Thinking tokens have delta.thinking instead of delta.text — the event?.delta?.text check naturally skips them.

What to Generate

When building the app, produce:

1. server.ts — Bun server using the Bun.serve() baseline from references/server-patterns.md#server-setup, with static file serving, endpoint pattern(s), and WebSocket handlers if needed.
2. public/index.html — The frontend UI. Use the streaming or structured rendering patterns from references/server-patterns.md#frontend-integration.
3. A one-liner to run it — bun run server.ts — so the person can verify it works immediately.

For simple apps, a single server.ts serving a static index.html is ideal. For complex UIs, scaffold a React frontend with a separate server.

After generating, offer to start the server and open it in the browser. Then iterate based on what the person sees.

First-Run Reliability Checklist

These are silent-failure modes — things that break with NO error message:

• [ ] --include-partial-messages is on every streaming spawn — without it, text dumps as a single block
• [ ] Text is forwarded from stream_event only, NOT from assistant text blocks — otherwise every token appears twice
• [ ] cleanEnv() is called on every Bun.spawn/Bun.spawnSync — without it, Claude refuses to start inside a Claude Code session
• [ ] --permission-mode dontAsk is paired with --allowedTools or --tools — without allowed tools, Claude produces an empty result with NO error
• [ ] subtype === "error_max_turns" is checked on result events — this fires with is_error: true (verified on CLI v2.1.x); check subtype before is_error or the generic error branch swallows it
• [ ] Request body is parsed with await req.json() before accessing fields — without it, the spawn gets an empty prompt
• [ ] stdout chunks are buffered into complete JSON lines before parsing — TCP delivers arbitrary chunk boundaries

Read references/cli-runtime-reference.md for the full claude -p flag reference — input methods, output formats, structured output, tool configuration, session management, and gotchas.

The Possibility Space

The most interesting apps built this way are not chat interfaces in a browser. They're things that couldn't exist without an agentic runtime — applications where the backend can read, reason, and act on context that traditional APIs can't access.

The question isn't "how do I put a chat box in a browser?" but "what would this look like if there were an intelligence behind it?"