El Foundation

Engineering repository for El Foundation.

About

El Foundation builds institutions that outlast their founders. We create technology and organizations that compound in value over time. This repository is the source of truth for our engineering work.

Getting Started

1. Read the company charter to understand why we exist.
2. Read the operating model to understand how decisions are made.
3. Read CONTRIBUTING.md before making any changes.
4. Read docs/engineering/local-dev.md for the day-to-day workflow.
5. Read docs/engineering/hatch-architecture.md for the component map.

Installation

Pre-built Binaries (Recommended)

Download the latest binary for your platform from the Releases page:

• Linux (x64): hatch-linux-amd64
• Linux (ARM64): hatch-linux-arm64
• macOS (Intel): hatch-darwin-amd64
• macOS (Apple Silicon): hatch-darwin-arm64
• Windows (x64): hatch-windows-amd64.exe

After downloading:

# Linux/macOS
chmod +x hatch-*
sudo mv hatch-* /usr/local/bin/hatch

# Windows (PowerShell)
Rename-Item hatch-windows-amd64.exe hatch.exe
# Move to a directory in your PATH

Build from Source

Requires Go 1.25 or later:

git clone https://github.com/elfoundation/hatch.git
cd hatch
CGO_ENABLED=0 go build -o hatch ./cmd/hatch
sudo mv hatch /usr/local/bin/

Repository Layout

├── .github/workflows/    # CI/CD definitions
├── cmd/hatch/            # Server entrypoint (Go binary)
├── docs/
│   ├── company/          # Founding documents (charter, org, etc.)
│   ├── engineering/      # Engineering standards, architecture, local dev
│   └── adrs/             # Architecture Decision Records
├── examples/             # Usage examples and integration guides
├── internal/             # Go packages (handler, store, ...)
├── Dockerfile            # Multi-stage static binary build (golang → scratch)
├── docker-compose.yml    # Local stack with optional Caddy sidecar
├── Caddyfile             # TLS reverse proxy for the demo host
└── go.mod                # Go module definition

Hatch — Deploy in one command

Hatch is a self-hostable HTTP request inspector + mocker. Ship it to any VPS with Docker.

Read why we are building Hatch →

Quick start (local dev, no HTTPS)

docker compose up --build
# Hatch UI: http://localhost:8080
# Health check: http://localhost:8080/healthz

Or run the binary directly:

go run ./cmd/hatch
# Health check: http://localhost:8080/healthz

Production (with HTTPS via Caddy)

# Set your domain name
cp .env.example .env
# Edit HATCH_HOSTNAME in .env to your real domain

# Start Hatch + Caddy (auto-issues Let's Encrypt cert)
docker compose --profile with-caddy up -d --build
# Hatch UI: https://{your-domain}
# Capture endpoint: https://{your-domain}/{endpoint-id}

Architecture

Internet → :443 (Caddy) → hatch:8080 (Go binary, internal network)
                 │
                 ├─ Auto TLS (Let's Encrypt, or self-signed for localhost)
                 ├─ Reverse proxy with security headers
                 └─ JSON access logs to stdout

Caddy terminates TLS and reverse-proxies to the Hatch Go binary. The Hatch container only listens on 127.0.0.1:8080 — it's never directly exposed to the internet.

CLI Reference

Hatch includes a powerful CLI for interacting with the server from the command line:

# Capture requests
hatch capture https://api.example.com/webhook

# Inspect captured traffic
hatch inspect my-webhook

# Search for specific requests
hatch search my-webhook -query 'status:500'

# Replay requests to other services
hatch replay <request-id> -endpoint my-webhook -target https://httpbin.org/post

# Configure mock responses
hatch mock set my-webhook -status 200 -body '{"ok":true}'

# Generate OpenAPI documentation
hatch doc generate my-webhook > openapi.json

For detailed CLI documentation, see docs/engineering/cli.md.

Technology Stack

See docs/engineering/tech-stack.md for current choices and rationale, and docs/adrs/ for the decision records that produced them.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

Hatch is released under the MIT License — see LICENSE.