Development

How to set up, run, and work on Conductor locally.

Prerequisites

Node.js ≥ 20 (developed on 22) and pnpm ≥ 9
Rust stable (developed on 1.95) via rustup
Tauri platform build deps — see the Tauri prerequisites guide. On macOS: xcode-select --install.

pnpm install
pnpm tauri dev     # Vite + the Tauri shell (Rust)

Vite serves the frontend on port 1420. The first tauri dev compiles Rust deps (~30 s); later runs are fast.

pnpm build         # type/compile the Svelte + Vite frontend
pnpm preview       # preview the built frontend

cd src-tauri
cargo check        # fast type-check of the Rust core
cargo build        # full build

See the full tree in Architecture & boundaries. The short version:

src/ — Svelte 5 frontend. App.svelte owns layout, tabs, splits, shortcuts, and persistence; src/lib/ holds the components and the pure layout.js split-tree logic.
src-tauri/src/ — the Rust core: pty.rs (terminals), projects.rs (scan + git + editors), fs.rs (files + tasks), agent.rs (Elyra RPC bridge), and lib.rs (the command registry).

A new Rust command: write a #[tauri::command] and register it in lib.rs's generate_handler!. See Tauri commands.
New persisted state: extend serialize() / applySnapshot() in App.svelte, and document the key in State & persistence.
A new palette action: push an entry into the derived commands list in App.svelte (see Command palette for the groups).

Keep every feature within the boundary: Conductor is a host/launcher, never an AI agent — no model calls, no API keys, no prompts/tools.

Webview console: use the dev window's web inspector for frontend logs and errors.
Rust logs: output from pnpm tauri dev shows Rust println!/eprintln! and panic traces.
Terminal issues: check the PTY event wiring (pty://data/<id> / pty://exit/<id>) and that the pane's termId is dot-free (Tauri event names reject .).

Match the existing code style (Svelte 5 runes, small pure helpers, Rust commands that return Result<_, String>).
Update the docs and CHANGELOG.md ([Unreleased]) with notable changes.