Assistant to the Head Coach: athc

Game plan (.pln) editor, profile (.prf) editor, and other tools for Front Page Sports Football Pro '98 coaches and league managers.

Current state and what's next: STATUS.md · task list: TODO.md

Install

End-user: run athc-<ver>-setup.exe. It needs no Python, uv or internet, installs per user, and puts athc on PATH.

Making a release (end users skip this): build the setup.exe with packaging/release-build.ps1 and test it in Windows Sandbox with packaging/release-test.ps1; see docs/installer.md.

Commands

athc --help lists top-level commands athc <group> --help lists subcommands athc <group> <subcommand> --help for flags

Configuration

athc reads %LOCALAPPDATA%\athc\athc.toml for app-wide settings and leagues\<NAME>\ next to it for each league (league.toml and rule TOMLs); missing file, table or key falls back to defaults. A league's league.toml can hold a tool's table too, with only the keys that differ (convert-pdb so far). athc config set league NAME picks the league.

[toolname]
setting = "value"

Extending

Third-party packages add subcommands by registering entries under the athc.commands group in their own pyproject.toml:

[project.entry-points."athc.commands"]
mytool = "mypkg.cli:mytool"

The umbrella discovers them at runtime — no changes to athc needed.

See docs/design/architecture.md for the full architecture and the conventions every command follows.

Development

Install the project and its dev tools:

uv sync

Source runs read the dev config in config/dev/ (a full athc.toml plus league folders) instead of the installed one: point ATHC_CONFIG_DIR at that folder. ATHC_LOG_DIR does the same for the run log (athc.log), so a dev run never writes the installed one; set it the same way. For the VS Code terminal, in .vscode/settings.json (in a multi-root workspace, in the .code-workspace settings with ${workspaceFolder:athc}; open a new terminal to pick it up):

"terminal.integrated.env.windows": {
  "ATHC_CONFIG_DIR": "${workspaceFolder}/config/dev"
}

For F5, each .vscode/launch.json entry sets it on the debug process (terminal and launch env are independent; set both if you run both ways):

{
  "name": "athc profile check",
  "type": "debugpy",
  "request": "launch",
  "module": "athc",
  "args": ["profile", "check"],
  "console": "integratedTerminal",
  "env": { "ATHC_CONFIG_DIR": "${workspaceFolder}/config/dev" }
}

For one shell session:

$env:ATHC_CONFIG_DIR = "$PWD\config\dev"

Tests

uv run pytest

Coverage runs with every test run and fails below 92%.

The real-game tests are slow and skipped by default; they play the game in Windows Sandbox:

uv run pytest -m slow tests/integration/test_autocontinue_game.py --no-cov

They need:

• Windows Sandbox, with its wsb command line.
• The installer, built with packaging/release-build.ps1.
• Football Pro '98 installed, and ATHC_GAME_DIR set once to the folder holding FbPro98: setx ATHC_GAME_DIR E:\SIERRA.
• The PC unlocked while they run.

Each test plays its own copy of the game, so your install, settings and leagues never change.

License

MIT.