twin

Reproduce a bug in the environment where it was reported, find the difference that causes it, and check the fix there.

Try it without capturing anything

The repo holds capsules and recorded runs for real cases. Replay one (needs a Solari key):

pnpm install
export SOLARI_API_KEY=slr_live_...
pnpm dev replay examples/lru-cache-397/bad.json

capture, inspect and diff work without a key. The other commands stop at once with a clear message when it is missing.

Website and docs: twincli.vercel.app

Why

"Works on my machine" is usually not a code bug. The commit is the same. What differs is a runtime version, a dependency the lockfile resolved differently, an environment variable, the time zone. The maintainer gets a pasted list of versions nobody can run, and the issue sits at "cannot reproduce".

twin makes the reporter's environment runnable:

1. The reporter runs the failing command through twin capture. twin writes a small scrubbed file, a capsule, to attach to the issue.
2. The maintainer runs twin replay. twin rebuilds that environment on a clean Solari sandbox and runs the command three times.
3. twin bisect finds the smallest set of differences between a failing and a passing capsule that turns the pass into a fail.
4. twin verify applies a fix in the reporter's environment, so "fixed" means fixed where the bug happened.

Install

Node 22 or newer.

npm install -g @crypticsaiyan/twincli

Or prefix any command with npx @crypticsaiyan/twincli.

Quickstart

Reporter, in the project where the command fails. No account needed, nothing is uploaded:

twin capture -- npm test

twin runs the command as usual, shows what it recorded, and writes twin-capsule.json after you confirm. Attach the file to the issue.

Maintainer, with a Solari key:

export SOLARI_API_KEY=slr_live_...
twin replay twin-capsule.json
twin bisect twin-capsule.json --good mine.json
twin verify twin-capsule.json --patch fix.patch

replay ends in REPRODUCED when every attempt fails the way the capsule recorded. Add --keep to leave the machine running, then twin shell for a terminal on it or twin shell --web for a browser terminal you can share with the reporter.

Examples

Each example has the capsules, the recorded Solari runs and a write-up in examples/.

Case	Cause	Replay	Bisect	Verify
lru-cache 11.3.0, through DOMPurify	one broken package among 32 that differ from the lockfile	REPRODUCED 28 s	lru-cache@11.3.0 245 s	FIXED
apache/echarts#21538	TZ=America/New_York	REPRODUCED 72 s	69 s	FIXED 71 s
date-fns#2068	TZ=America/New_York	REPRODUCED	found	FIXED
dayjs localizedFormat test, found in the wild	TZ=America/New_York	REPRODUCED	found	FIXED
click test_custom_parser, found in the wild	COLUMNS=40	REPRODUCED	found	FIXED

Commands

Command	What it does
twin capture -- <cmd>	Run <cmd>, record its environment, write a capsule after review
twin inspect <capsule>	Summarize a capsule
twin diff <a> <b>	List every environment difference between two capsules
twin replay <capsule>	Rebuild the environment on Solari and run the command three times
twin bisect <bad> --good <good>	Find the smallest failing set of differences
twin verify <capsule> --patch <file>	Check a fix in the reporter's environment
twin shell [machine] [--web]	Terminal on a kept machine, or a shareable browser terminal
twin list	Machines twin has running
twin stop [machine]	Stop one machine, or all of them
twin mcp	Serve the commands to coding agents over MCP

Every command has --help. Capsules can be paths or https URLs, such as issue attachments. replay, bisect and verify take --json. Full reference: twincli.vercel.app/reference/cli.

Coding agents

twin mcp gives an agent the reporter's machine: replay the failure, run commands there, write a file, verify a diff on a fresh machine, release the machine.

claude mcp add twin -e SOLARI_API_KEY=slr_live_... -- npx -y @crypticsaiyan/twincli mcp

The GitHub Action runs twin verify on a pull request that says Fixes #123 when issue 123 has a capsule attached, and fails the check unless the verdict is FIXED:

on: pull_request
permissions: { contents: read, issues: read, pull-requests: write }
jobs:
  verify:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: crypticsaiyan/twin@main
        with:
          solari-api-key: ${{ secrets.SOLARI_API_KEY }}

What a capsule records

OS and libc, runtimes, package managers and lockfile hashes, installed package versions, git remote, commit and git diff HEAD, time zone and locale, and the exit status with a fingerprint of the failure.

Environment variables are recorded by name only. Values are kept for a short allowlist (NODE_ENV, TZ, LANG, CI, and a few more) or for names you pass to --include-env. The output tail, diff and arguments pass through secret rules, home paths become ~, and untracked files are recorded by name only. twin shows a summary and lets you read the full JSON before anything is written. Redaction is pattern based, so read the capsule before posting it publicly. Details: privacy.

How it uses Solari

• One clean Linux sandbox per run, labelled so twin list and twin stop can find it.
• Setup and the command stream through commands.start with twin's own timeout.
• pty.create for twin shell, and previewUrl in front of a password-protected web terminal for --web.
• sandboxes.connect to re-attach from any computer, and to give an agent a kept machine.
• Every kill() is confirmed with get() before it counts, and Ctrl-C releases live machines before exiting.

A replay costs a fraction of a cent. Platform behavior measured while building twin is in DESIGN.md.

Development

pnpm install
pnpm check                      # typecheck, lint and tests
pnpm dev capture -- npm test    # run from source
pnpm build                      # compile to dist/
pnpm e2e:docker <capsule.json>  # replay in a local Docker container, no key needed

Every Solari call goes through a small Backend interface, so the unit tests run against an in-memory fake. The website source is in site/.

License

MIT