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AGENTS.md: AFNetworking Architectural Context & Engagement Rules

1. System Context & Paradigm

You are operating within AFNetworking, a heavily coupled network communication framework primarily composed of Objective-C (57.8%). * Architectural Paradigm: This repository functions as a "Cluster 4" macro-species and exhibits a high Architectural Drift Z-Score of 5.585. The system is characterized by a negative assortativity (-0.2372), indicating a topology highly reliant on fragile single-points-of-failure rather than a resilient, distributed core. Standard modular design patterns do not fully apply. Do not attempt to force boilerplate decoupling onto the core serialization or session manager classes.

2. Architectural Guardrails (Do's and Don'ts)

  • Algorithmic Complexity Limit: Core serialization and session management methods (init in AFNetworkReachabilityManager.m, HTTP methods like GET/POST/PATCH in AFHTTPSessionManager.m, and requestBySerializingRequest in AFURLRequestSerialization.m) currently operate at extreme O(2^N) recursive time complexities. You MUST NOT introduce additional nested loops or O(N^2+) complexity when modifying network dispatch or serialization logic.
  • Orchestrator Fragility: Central coordinators such as AFNetworking.h (19 outbound dependencies) and AFHTTPSessionManager.m (13 outbound dependencies) are highly fragile orchestrators. Any changes to data contracts, block signatures, or public properties within these files require immediate, comprehensive verification of downstream integration.
  • Avoid Dead Code Pruning: Test files and core managers (Tests/Tests/AFHTTPSessionManagerTests.m, AFNetworking/AFURLSessionManager.m, and AFNetworking/AFURLRequestSerialization.m) contain dozens of orphaned (dead) functions. DO NOT autonomously attempt to prune, format, or clean up these files unless explicitly instructed by the user, as Objective-C runtime features (like swizzling or dynamic dispatch) may rely on them.

3. Restricted Zones (The God Nodes)

The following files are load-bearing "God Nodes." They possess extreme cumulative risk, massive structural mass, or act as a "House of Cards" (deeply embedded with high error exposure).

MANDATORY RULE: You require explicit human permission and downstream test verification before modifying the structural signatures, headers, or public APIs of these files: * AFNetworking/AFURLRequestSerialization.m (Highest Cumulative Risk: 488.68, Extreme Mass: 2330.4) * UIKit+AFNetworking/UIProgressView+AFNetworking.m (High Cumulative Risk: 477.85) * AFNetworking/AFSecurityPolicy.m (Blind Bottleneck - 100% Documentation Risk with high impact evaluateServerTrust) * AFNetworking/AFURLSessionManager.m (Extreme Mass: 1454.5, DB Complexity: 21) * Tests/Tests/AFTestCase.h (House of Cards - Embedded core test header with 80% Error Risk) * AFNetworking/AFHTTPSessionManager.h & AFNetworking/AFURLResponseSerialization.h (House of Cards - High inbound coupling)

4. Threat & Security Boundaries

Status: SECURE PERIMETER. Structural XGBoost Threat Intelligence audits have flagged 0 malicious artifacts, 0 Agentic RCE funnels, and 0 Prompt Injection vectors.

CRITICAL WARNINGS: 1. AFNetworking/AFURLRequestSerialization.h contains raw memory manipulation. Any void * or buffer pointer logic here must be heavily scrutinized for out-of-bounds access. 2. The Example/Certificates/ and Tests/Resources/ directories contain hardcoded .cer payload artifacts. These are explicitly for testing SSL pinning and trust evaluation. DO NOT flag these as leaked secrets or attempt to remove/obfuscate them.

5. Environmental Tooling (The Oracle)

Do not guess dependencies, hallucinate import paths, or rely on generalized Objective-C knowledge to determine blast radius.

You have access to a deterministic GitGalaxy SQLite database that maps the absolute syntactic physics of this repository. Before modifying any file listed in the Restricted Zones, you MUST query the database for dependency mapping. * To map inbound dependencies (Blast Radius), query the function_edges or file_edges tables for all callers targeting your target file. * Do not proceed with structural modifications until the specific blast radius has been statically confirmed via the database.