aura-zones

Mutex for AI agents. File and function ownership zones for multi-agent codebases.

When multiple Claude/GPT/Copilot agents edit the same repo concurrently, they step on each other's work. aura-zones gives each agent a way to claim what it's editing, detect collisions, and send messages — all via the filesystem, no daemon needed.

[dependencies]
aura-zones = "0.1"

What it does

Feature	Description
Function claims	Agent claims `login()` in `auth.rs` — other agents see the collision before they start
Zone rules	Mark `src/auth/*` as Block — other agents can't edit without coordination
Inter-agent messaging	Broadcast "I'm refactoring auth" or DM a specific session
Stale cleanup	Dead PIDs and old messages are automatically reaped
No daemon	One JSON file per claim/zone/message — just the filesystem

Example

use std::path::PathBuf;
use aura_zones::{SentinelManager, ZoneMode};

let mgr = SentinelManager::new(PathBuf::from(".agents/sentinel"));

// Claim functions before editing
let collisions = mgr.claim_functions(
    "session-1", "claude-opus", std::process::id(),
    "src/auth.rs", &["login".into(), "verify_token".into()],
);
if !collisions.is_empty() {
    eprintln!("collision: {:?}", collisions[0]);
}

// Block other agents from editing auth files
mgr.create_zone("session-1", vec!["src/auth/*".into()], ZoneMode::Block);

// Send a heads-up
mgr.send_message("session-1", "claude-opus", None, "refactoring auth, stay away");

// Other agent checks before editing
if let Some(zone) = mgr.check_zone("session-2", "src/auth/login.rs") {
    match zone.mode {
        ZoneMode::Block => eprintln!("BLOCKED by {}", zone.session_id),
        ZoneMode::Warn  => eprintln!("WARNING: zone owner is {}", zone.session_id),
    }
}

Comparison

	File locks (flock)	Git branch isolation	aura-zones
Granularity	Whole file	Whole branch	Per function
Coordination	None	Merge later	Real-time collision detection
Messaging	None	PR comments	In-band, instant
Daemon needed	No	No	No
Works with AI agents	Not really	Merge conflicts everywhere	Designed for it

Status

✅ Function-level claims with collision detection
✅ Zone rules (Warn / Block modes)
✅ Inter-agent messaging (broadcast + DM)
✅ PID-based stale cleanup
✅ Atomic writes (tmp + rename)
⏳ Network-aware zones (for distributed agents)

Origin

Extracted from Aura — the semantic version control engine for AI-generated code. Aura uses aura-zones to coordinate multiple Claude Code agents editing the same repository simultaneously.

License

Apache-2.0