Evaluations

Try Atomic Claude in an isolated Docker container before installing it on your machine. The container builds atomic from source, lays the bundle into a persistent ~/.claude, and drops you into Claude Code with a workspace that survives container removal.

Prerequisite: Docker + docker compose v2.

For contributors

If you are working in this repo:

make docker-build    # build the image (once)
make docker-up       # start Claude Code in the container

For a raw shell without the Claude TUI (useful for fast iteration):

make docker-shell

For everyone else

If you want to evaluate atomic-claude on your own project without cloning this repo:

atomic docker init
cd atomic-docker
docker compose build
docker compose run --rm atomic-eval

atomic docker init writes a self-contained Docker setup into ./atomic-docker/ (override with --target). Drop your project files into atomic-docker/tmp/workspace/ or symlink your repo into it.

To evaluate the code-intelligence engine, drop a project into the workspace, then inside the container run atomic code index followed by atomic code explore "<question about the codebase>". The response shows the symbols, files, and call relationships resolved from the real graph rather than from grep, which is the clearest way to see what the engine adds.

How volumes work

Two directories under tmp/ are mounted into the container:

Host path	Container path	What lives here
tmp/workspace/	/workspace	Your project. Persists across runs.
tmp/claude-home/	/home/atomic/.claude	Claude config, auth tokens, memory. Persists claude login across runs.

Both are gitignored. The .gitkeep placeholders keep them in the repo so the mounts work on a fresh clone.

First-run authentication

On first launch, Claude Code prompts you to authenticate. It shows a URL and a code — open the URL in your host browser and paste the code. Auth tokens are saved in tmp/claude-home/ and persist. Subsequent launches skip the prompt.

Linux UID note

Bind mounts use the host UID. If files end up root-owned on Linux, rebuild with your UID:

make docker-build HOST_UID=$(id -u)

Mac and Windows Docker Desktop handle this transparently.

Reset

To wipe everything and start fresh:

rm -rf tmp/claude-home/* tmp/claude-home/.[!.]* tmp/workspace/* tmp/workspace/.[!.]*
touch tmp/claude-home/.gitkeep tmp/workspace/.gitkeep