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title: Developer Guide

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

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

• Formatting passes — run T383838./gradlew spotlessApply to auto-format, then verify with T383838spotlessCheck

• Detekt passes — run T383838./gradlew detekt and fix all reported issues

• All tests pass — run T383838./gradlew test allTests (both are needed: T383838test covers Android-only modules, T383838allTests covers KMP)

• Screenshot tests pass — if you touched any Compose UI, run T383838./gradlew :screenshot-tests:validateDebugScreenshotTest and update reference images if needed

• Protos are an external dependency — protobuf models come from the T383838org.meshtastic:protobufs Maven artifact (pinned in T383838gradle/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 T383838docs/en/user/

• Previews updated — if you changed UI composables, update the corresponding T383838*Previews.kt file and the screenshot-test baselines

• Branch naming — branches must start with T383838feat/, T383838fix/, T383838chore/, T383838docs/, T383838build/, T383838ci/, T383838refactor/, T383838test/, or T383838deps/

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July 2026 — Test Builds & Obtainium — New page, replacing the root T383838obtainium-test-builds.md. Distributable Obtainium configurations now live in T383838obtainium/ (importable export, one-tap link generator, config-site submission).

July 2026 — Map layer stack (T383838MapLayer.kt, T383838MapLayersManager, GeoJSON/KML import, Site Planner) extracted from the Google flavor into shared T383838androidApp/src/main source (#6148) — F-Droid now renders imported overlays via a new OSMdroid-based renderer, so both flavors compile one implementation.

July 2026 — Persistence — Local Mesh Discovery sessions and cached T383838msh.to device links now persist to Room (T383838DiscoverySessionEntity, T383838DiscoveryPresetResultEntity, T383838DiscoveredNodeEntity, T383838DeviceLinkEntity).

June 2026 — Architecture / Codebase — Protos migrated from the T383838core/proto git submodule to the T383838org.meshtastic:protobufs Maven artifact; there is no longer a local proto module to build or sync.

June 2026 — AIDL/T383838IMeshService removed (#5586). The mesh service is now in-process only, driven entirely through T383838RadioController — no cross-process binder, no T383838aidl stubs.

June 2026 — Testing — Split the screenshot pipeline: the new generate-only T383838:docs-screenshots module holds doc-framed compositions, while T383838:screenshot-tests stays the CI visual-regression gate — so reframing a doc image no longer churns a test baseline.

June 2026 — New feature modules: T383838feature:discovery (mesh network discovery, #5275) and T383838feature:car (Android Auto / Car App Library, google flavor only, #5633).

June 2026 — Testing — Added the T383838:baselineprofile module (#5735): a Macrobenchmark cold-start journey generates a Baseline Profile for T383838:androidApp to AOT-compile hot startup paths.

June 2026 — Persistence — FTS5 full-text message search (#5373): a T383838PacketFts virtual table mirrors T383838Packet.messageText, kept in sync by Room-managed triggers.

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