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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:validateFdroidDebugScreenshotTest and update reference images if needed

• Proto submodule unchanged — T383838core/proto/ is a read-only git submodule. Never modify proto files directly

• Docs updated — if you changed user-visible UI, update the corresponding page under T383838docs/user/. The T383838UI & Docs Governance CI workflow will flag the PR if you didn't. Add the T383838skip-docs-check label if it genuinely isn't needed

• Previews updated — if you changed UI composables, update the corresponding T383838*Previews.kt file and screenshot tests. The governance workflow will post an advisory. Add T383838skip-preview-check to dismiss

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

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Month YYYY — Page or area — One sentence on what changed architecturally or procedurally.

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May 2026 — Measurement & Formatting — New page documenting the T383838MetricFormatter API, locale-aware unit conversion patterns, and how to add new measurement types.

May 2026 — Testing — Compose Preview Screenshot Testing (CST) integrated: T383838screenshot-tests/ module, T383838@PreviewTest wrappers, CI validation, docs asset pipeline.

May 2026 — In-app documentation system added: markdown source under T383838docs/user/ and T383838docs/developer/ is bundled as Compose Resources and rendered via T383838multiplatform-markdown-renderer-m3.

May 2026 — Architecture — Documented KMP module layering, Navigation 3 patterns, and feature module conventions.

May 2026 — Contributing — Established docs governance CI workflow for PRs that change UI without updating docs.

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