Capability Tiers

vibeTeX is built around four capability tiers. They are auto-detected at startup and degrade gracefully — vibeTeX always offers the most it can given your environment. Call overleaf_whoami first in any session: it reports the active tiers, which TeX binaries are on PATH, and the configured projects.

The four tiers

1 · Git bridge — the robust core

The official Overleaf git authentication token gives full read/write plus commit history. This is the recommended path: your project becomes a real working copy you can pull, edit, push, and diff.

• Needs: git installed and OVERLEAF_GIT_TOKEN. The token is an Overleaf premium feature (project Menu → Git).
• Gives: overleaf_pull, overleaf_status, overleaf_push, overleaf_history, and all file ops.
• Note: never auto-poll the git endpoint — it rate-limits with roughly a one-minute recovery.

2 · Open in Overleaf — no auth, one-way

Turn generated LaTeX (raw content, a file set, or a zip URL) into a brand-new Overleaf project via Overleaf's public "Open in Overleaf" endpoint.

• Needs: nothing — always available.
• Gives: overleaf_create_project. One-way: it creates a project, it does not sync back.

3 · Local / CLSI compile — no premium needed

Compile to PDF and parse the log without any Overleaf account, using a local TeX engine or a self-hosted CLSI.

• Needs: latexmk (preferred), tectonic (zero-TeXLive), or pdflatex on PATH; or a VIBETEX_CLSI_URL.
• Gives: latex_compile, latex_log, latex_get_pdf, and the quality checks.

4 · Session cookie — unofficial, experimental, OFF by default

The only way free-tier Overleaf users get list / pull / push / compile against their cloud projects. Best-effort and ToS-grey; you paste your own cookie.

• Needs: VIBETEX_EXPERIMENTAL_SESSION=true and OVERLEAF_SESSION_COOKIE.
• Gives: session-tier project listing and sync — see Free-tier (experimental).

Capability matrix

What overleaf_whoami returns

overleaf_whoami is read-only and takes no arguments. It reports:

• the active tiers (gitBridge, openInOverleaf, localCompile, clsi, experimentalSession);
• which binaries are on PATH (latexmk, tectonic, pdflatex, xelatex, lualatex, chktex, latexindent, texcount);
• configured projects (default + aliases) with their git URLs;
• the resolved compile engine and the Overleaf base URLs.

Use it to decide: if git + token are present, prefer overleaf_pull / overleaf_push; otherwise use overleaf_create_project or a local latex_compile.