Hacktoberfest 2026: the issues maintainers tagged for October, open and beginner-friendly. Browse Hacktoberfest issues

Starter template picker for "New bot"

Open
  • Is something wrong?
#111 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
55/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Quiet
Tech stack
javascript, typescript
Domain
frontend, game-dev

Research direction

Start with ui/src/App.tsx and ui/src/components/navbar.tsx to trace how “Create new application” calls doCreateApp, then read SamplePage.doClone in ui/src/page/sample/samplePage.tsx for the existing create, seed, arena, restart, and navigation flow. Check the sample bot files under ui/public/samples/ for reusable templates. Done means users can choose a starter or blank source and create an app through the existing flow, with app and arena caps handled.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

enhancement good first issue priority: low

"New bot" offers a few skeletons (aggressive, defensive, scout) rather than a blank file.

Effort: S

Migrated from ENHANCEMENTS.md (§1 Approachability & onboarding).

Implementation notes

Priority: low — Cosmetic onboarding polish for new-bot creation; no stability/security impact and touches only a niche first-run UX moment.

Purpose

Today "Create new application" (ui/src/components/navbar.tsx → App.tsx's doCreateApp) always creates a blank-source app and drops the author straight into an empty editor — a rough on-ramp for new users. Offering a small set of starter skeletons (aggressive/defensive/scout, plus "blank") gives new authors a working, editable starting point and a faster path to their first running match, without touching the sandbox or simulation engine.

Implementation approach
  • Add a picker UI (new modal/component, e.g. ui/src/components/newAppModal.tsx) triggered from doCreateApp in ui/src/App.tsx (currently posts blank immediately) and NavDropdown.Item "Create new application" in ui/src/components/navbar.tsx.
  • Reuse the exact create→seed→add→restart→navigate sequence already implemented in SamplePage.doClone (ui/src/page/sample/samplePage.tsx): POST /api/user/:userId/app → PUT /api/user/:userId/app/:appId/source (raw text body) → PUT /api/user/:userId/arena/app/:appId → POST /api/user/:userId/arena/restart → navigate. No new REST/MCP endpoints needed — this is pure UI composition over server/src/api/app.ts and api/arena.ts.
  • Author 3-4 short starter source strings (aggressive/defensive/scout/blank) client-side as string constants (or new static files under ui/public/samples/ mirroring existing samples like marksman.js/survivor.js/squad.js for tone/style), each using only the documented bot API from server/src/util/compiler.ts (bot.turn, bot.radar.scan, bot.turret.fire, events).
  • No changes to server/src/util/simulation.ts, ui/src/util/simulate.ts, or compiler.ts — this is purely an authoring-flow feature, not a physics/bot-API change.
Key details to plan
  • No DB schema change: AppService.create (server/src/services/AppService.ts) still inserts empty source; the picker just calls the existing source PUT immediately after create, same as cloning a sample — no migration needed (consistent with #142's no-migrations-yet state).
  • Respect existing caps: MAX_APPS_PER_USER (server/src/api/app.ts) and the arena roster cap (MAX_APPS_PER_ARENA = 5 mirrored in samplePage.tsx); reuse SamplePage's roster-count check pattern for the "add to arena" step's disabled/error states.
  • No sandbox/security implications (seeded templates are trusted, authored source, same as samples) and no SSE/reducer/determinism impact.
  • Testing: primarily UI — a new component test for the picker plus an update to any navbar/App interaction tests; no new server test files needed since no server behavior changes (existing api.test.ts coverage of app create/source PUT already exercises the reused endpoints).
  • Consider consolidating templates with the sample-bot content (avoid duplicating "aggressive/defensive/scout" logic separately from ui/public/samples/*.js) to keep one canonical source of example strategies.
  • Effort/risk: S, low risk — additive UI-only feature layered on stable, already-proven endpoints.
Dominant language
TypeScript
Stars
0
Forks
0
Avg merge
8m
Merged PRs (30d)
8

Getting set up

Open in Codespaces

Starts the project's dev container in your browser, under your own GitHub account.

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

More from LeeAdcock/robocodeJs.com

All issues in LeeAdcock/robocodeJs.com

Similar issues

More TypeScript issues

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.