---
title: Developer Guide
layout: default
nav_order: 2
has_children: true
---

# Developer Guide

Technical documentation for contributing to the Meshtastic Android and Desktop app.

## Before You Open a PR

Things that trip up first-time contributors — check these before requesting review:

- **Formatting passes** — run `./gradlew spotlessApply` to auto-format, then verify with `spotlessCheck`
- **Detekt passes** — run `./gradlew detekt` and fix all reported issues
- **All tests pass** — run `./gradlew test allTests` (both are needed: `test` covers Android-only modules, `allTests` covers KMP)
- **Screenshot tests pass** — if you touched any Compose UI, run `./gradlew :screenshot-tests:validateDebugScreenshotTest` and update reference images if needed
- **Protos are an external dependency** — protobuf models come from the `org.meshtastic:protobufs` Maven artifact (pinned in `gradle/libs.versions.toml`); change protos upstream and bump the version, never edit generated code locally
- **Docs updated** — if you changed user-visible UI, update the corresponding page under `docs/en/user/`
- **Previews updated** — if you changed UI composables, update the corresponding `*Previews.kt` file and the screenshot-test baselines
- **Branch naming** — branches must start with `feat/`, `fix/`, `chore/`, `docs/`, `build/`, `ci/`, `refactor/`, `test/`, or `deps/`

## What's New for Developers

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**August 2026** — [Documentation Style](developer/documentation-style) — New page: the house style guide for `docs/en/` prose, with rule IDs, a project word list, and the reasoning behind each convention.

**August 2026** — Map tile sources are one shared catalogue in `feature/map` (`MapTileCatalogue`, `RasterTileSpec`), so both flavors draw the same raster base maps and overlays from one definition.

**August 2026** — Both maps draw an imported feature's own icon and drape a KMZ `GroundOverlay` image at its `LatLonBox` (rotation included) — MapLibre via an `ImageSource` quad, Google via `GroundOverlayOptions` (#3786).

**August 2026** — Offline map-pack downloads are gated on `offlineMapsSupported`, since the MapLibre offline API compiles on Desktop but silently downloads nothing there.

**August 2026** — New module `feature/map-maplibre`: the F-Droid flavor and Desktop now render every map surface (main map, node track, traceroute, discovery, inline mini-map) through `maplibre-compose` from one multiplatform module, and `osmdroid` is gone. The shared rules both renderers must agree on live in `feature/map` policy classes.

**August 2026** — Android Auto removed from all build variants (#6779). `feature/car` is gone — the module, its Car App Library dependencies, the `automotive_app_desc.xml` manifest entry and the `google` flavor's `FlavorModule` registration.

**August 2026** — [Testing](developer/testing) — CI gained a fourth runner tier: `ubuntu-slim` (#6674, #6677) now carries the lightweight jobs. It is single-CPU, unprivileged, x64-only and capped at 15 minutes, so anything needing `sudo`, Docker or a full-history clone stays on `ubuntu-24.04-arm`. Picking rules are in `.github/instructions/ci-workflows.instructions.md`.

**August 2026** — Flatpak sources are generated inside each architecture's own offline build (#6919) rather than committed, and the flatpak-sources plugin resolves platform dependencies transitively (0.2.x), so the hand-tracked entries are gone.

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