Aider Configuration for Heat-Tree Development

This skill configures Aider for developing the heattree R package - a wrapper for the javascript `heat-tree` package that creates interactive phylogenetic tree visualization widgets.

Configuration Overview

This setup optimizes Aider for package development work with:

Instructions for AI Agent

When setting up this Aider configuration, follow these steps:

1. **Create Configuration File**

- Save as `.aider.conf.yml` in the project root directory

- This file configures Aider's behavior for the entire project

2. **Model Configuration**

```yaml

model: claude-sonnet-4-5

weak-model: claude-3-5-haiku-latest

editor-model: claude-3-5-haiku-latest

```

- Main model (Sonnet 4.5): Primary coding and complex tasks

- Weak model (Haiku): Commit messages and summarization

- Editor model (Haiku): Quick edits and refactoring

3. **Git Settings**

```yaml

auto-commits: false

watch-files: true

```

- Disable auto-commits so developers can review changes before committing

- Enable file watching to detect AI coding comment triggers in files

4. **Read-Only Context**

```yaml

read:

- DESCRIPTION

```

- Add the R package DESCRIPTION file as read-only context

- This ensures Aider understands package metadata without modifying it accidentally

5. **Key Features Enabled**

- **Model warnings**: Validates model compatibility (default: true)

- **Pretty output**: Colorized terminal output (default: true)

- **Streaming**: Real-time response streaming (default: true)

- **Auto-lint**: Automatic linting after changes (default: true)

- **Git integration**: Full git repo awareness (default: true)

- **URL detection**: Automatically offers to add URLs to chat (default: true)

- **Shell suggestions**: Suggests relevant shell commands (default: true)

6. **Customization Points**

For API keys, create a `.env` file instead of putting keys in this config:

```bash

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=your_key_here

```

To add linting for specific languages:

```yaml

lint-cmd:

- "javascript: eslint --fix"

- "r: lintr::lint_package()"

```

To enable testing:

```yaml

test-cmd: "Rscript -e 'devtools::test()'"

auto-test: true

```

7. **Usage Pattern**

- Launch Aider from project root: `aider`

- Add files to edit: `/add src/widget.js`

- Read additional context: `/read R/heattree.R`

- The DESCRIPTION file is automatically loaded as context

- Changes are not auto-committed; review diffs with `/diff`

8. **Best Practices**

- Keep `.aider.conf.yml` in version control

- Keep `.env` file gitignored (contains secrets)

- Add `.aider*` to `.gitignore` (handled automatically)

- Use `/help` in Aider to see all available commands

Constraints

Example Usage

```bash

Install Aider

pip install aider-chat

Set up API key

echo "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=your_key" > .env

Create the config file with this configuration

(Save the YAML content to .aider.conf.yml)

Launch Aider

aider

In Aider session:

> /add src/visualization.js

> Help me refactor the tree rendering function

```