Contributing

This guide covers how to set up a local development environment, run tests, and submit changes to LitePost.

Prerequisites

All Platforms

• Node.js v18 or later
• pnpm v8 or later
• Rust (latest stable toolchain)

Windows

• Microsoft Visual Studio C++ Build Tools (install via the Visual Studio Installer -- select the "Desktop development with C++" workload)

macOS

• Xcode Command Line Tools (install with xcode-select --install)

Linux

Install the required system libraries:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y \
  build-essential \
  libwebkit2gtk-4.0-dev \
  curl \
  wget \
  libssl-dev \
  libgtk-3-dev \
  libayatana-appindicator3-dev \
  librsvg2-dev

Development Setup

1. Fork and clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/LitePost.git
   cd LitePost

2. Install frontend dependencies:

   pnpm install

3. Start the development server:

   pnpm tauri dev

   This launches both the Vite dev server (with hot-reload for the React frontend) and the Tauri application window. Rust backend changes trigger an automatic rebuild of the native binary.

Building for Production

pnpm tauri build

Platform-specific installers and bundles are written to src-tauri/target/release/bundle/.

Project Structure

LitePost/
  src/                  React frontend
    components/         UI components (request panel, response panel, auth, etc.)
    hooks/              Custom React hooks (useRequest, useStreamingResponse, useTabs)
    store/              Zustand stores (environments, settings, theme)
    utils/              Utility functions (cURL parser, streaming, persistence)
    types/              Shared TypeScript type definitions
    test/               Test files (Vitest + React Testing Library)
  src-tauri/            Rust backend
    src/
      lib.rs            Tauri command definitions
      http_client.rs    HTTP request execution
      models.rs         Shared Rust types
      network_utils.rs  Network helper functions
  docs/                 Documentation (VitePress)

Running Tests

Tests use Vitest and React Testing Library. Test files live in src/test/.

Command	Description
pnpm test	Run all tests
pnpm test:watch	Run tests in watch mode
pnpm test:coverage	Generate a coverage report
pnpm test:run	Run all tests once (CI-friendly)
pnpm test:ui	Open the Vitest UI

Contributing Workflow

1. Fork the repository on GitHub.
2. Create a feature branch from main:

   git checkout -b feature/my-change

3. Make your changes. Follow existing code style and patterns. Keep commits focused.
4. Run tests to make sure nothing is broken:

   pnpm test:run

5. Open a pull request against main on github.com/LykosAI/LitePost. Include a clear description of what your change does and why.

Documentation

The docs site is built with VitePress. To preview documentation changes locally:

pnpm docs:dev

This starts a local dev server with hot-reload at http://localhost:5173.

License

LitePost is licensed under the AGPL-3.0. By contributing, you agree that your contributions will be licensed under the same terms.