Meshtastic-Android/docs/en/developer.md

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Developer Guide

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

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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/user/. The UI & Docs Governance CI workflow will flag the PR if you didn't. Add the skip-docs-check label if it genuinely isn't needed
• Previews updated — if you changed UI composables, update the corresponding *Previews.kt file and screenshot tests. The governance workflow will post an advisory. Add skip-preview-check to dismiss
• Branch naming — branches must start with feat/, fix/, chore/, docs/, build/, ci/, refactor/, test/, or deps/

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What's New for Developers

June 2026 — Architecture / Codebase — Protos migrated from the core/proto git submodule to the org.meshtastic:protobufs Maven artifact; there is no longer a local proto module to build or sync.

June 2026 — AIDL/IMeshService removed (#5586). The mesh service is now in-process only, driven entirely through RadioController — no cross-process binder, no aidl stubs.

June 2026 — New feature modules: feature:discovery (mesh network discovery, #5275) and feature:car (Android Auto / Car App Library, google flavor only, #5633).

June 2026 — Testing — Added the :baselineprofile module (#5735): a Macrobenchmark cold-start journey generates a Baseline Profile for :androidApp to AOT-compile hot startup paths.

June 2026 — Persistence — FTS5 full-text message search (#5373): a PacketFts virtual table mirrors Packet.messageText, kept in sync by Room-managed triggers.

May 2026 — Measurement & Formatting — New page documenting the MetricFormatter API, locale-aware unit conversion patterns, and how to add new measurement types.

May 2026 — Testing — Compose Preview Screenshot Testing (CST) integrated: screenshot-tests/ module, @PreviewTest wrappers, CI validation, docs asset pipeline.