Code #

I use 4 spaces for indentation. Go should ideally be formatted with goimports and/or gofmt. I don’t use a formatter on typescript, so don’t worry about that.

Code in Go should ideally use PascalCase for exported values, and camelCase for non-exported, JSON for transferring data should use snake_case, and Typescript should use camelCase. Forgive me for my many inconsistencies in this, and feel free to fix them if you want.

Functions in Go that need to access *appContext should be generally be receivers, except when the behaviour could be seen as somewhat independent from it (email.go is the best example, its behaviour is broadly independent from the main app except from a couple config values).

Compiling #

The Makefile is more suited towards development than other build methods, and provides separate build stages to speed up compilation when only making changes to specific aspects of the project.

Prefix each of these with make DEBUG=on :

• all will download deps and build everything. The executable and data will be placed in build. This is only necessary the first time.
• npm will download all node.js build-time dependencies.
• compile will only compile go code into the build/jfa-go executable.
• typescript will compile typescript w/ sourcemaps into build/data/web/js.
• bundle-css will bundle CSS and place it in build/data/web/css.
  • inline will inline the css and javascript used in the single-file crash report webpage.
• configuration will generate the config-base.json (used to render settings in the web ui) and config-default.ini and put them in build/data.
• email will compile email mjml, and copy the text versions in to build/data.
• swagger: generates swagger documentation for the API.
• copy will copy iconography, html, language files and static data into build/data.

Environment variables #

• DEBUG=on/off: If on, compiles with type-checking for typescript, sourcemaps, non-minified css and no symbol stripping.
• INTERNAL=on/off: Whether or not to embed file assets into the binary itself, or store them separately beside the binary.
• UPDATER=on/off/docker: Enable/Disable the updater, or set a special update type (currently only docker, which disables self-updating the binary).
• TRAY=on/off: Enable/disable the tray icon, which lets you start/stop/autostart on login. For linux, requires libappindicator3-dev (deprecated in bullseye, you’ll have to install it manually) for debian or the equivalent on other distributions.
• GOESBUILD=on: Use a locally installed esbuild binary. NPM doesn’t provide builds for all os/architectures, so npx esbuild might not work for you, so the binary is compiled/installed with go get.
• GOBINARY=<path to go>: Alternative path to go executable. Useful for testing with unstable go releases.
• VERSION=v<semver>: Alternative verision number, useful to test update functionality.
• COMMIT=<short commit>: Self explanatory.
• LDFLAGS=<ldflags>: Passed to go build -ldflags.
• E2EE=on/off: Enable/disable end-to-end encryption support for Matrix, which is currently very broken. Must subsequently be enabled (with Advanced settings enabled) in Settings > Matrix.
• TAGS=<tags>: Passed to go build -tags.
• OS=<os>: Unrelated to GOOS, if set to windows, -H=windowsgui is passed to ldflags, which stops a windows terminal popping up when run.
• RACE=on/off: If on, compiles with the go race detector included.

Web API #

Static Web API docs can be accessed by clicking Web API Docs on the sidebar or here.

A live version of the swagger documentation is available by running jfa-go with the -swagger argument to make it available at http://localhost:8056/swagger/index.html. If you’re introducing any new routes when working on the API, make sure to give them a proper description above the function (see other routes in api.go as well as the swaggo documentation), and to put it in the appropriate category. If a struct used as a parameter or return type needs explanation, put descriptions of each field as a comment next to it (see models.go).