rustdesk/AGENTS.md

RustDesk Guide

Project Layout

Directory Structure

• src/ Rust app
• src/server/ audio / clipboard / input / video / network
• src/platform/ platform-specific code
• src/ui/ legacy Sciter UI (deprecated)
• flutter/ current UI
• libs/hbb_common/ config / proto / shared utils
• libs/scrap/ screen capture
• libs/enigo/ input control
• libs/clipboard/ clipboard
• libs/hbb_common/src/config.rs all options

Key Components

• Remote Desktop Protocol: Custom protocol implemented in src/rendezvous_mediator.rs for communicating with rustdesk-server
• Screen Capture: Platform-specific screen capture in libs/scrap/
• Input Handling: Cross-platform input simulation in libs/enigo/
• Audio/Video Services: Real-time audio/video streaming in src/server/
• File Transfer: Secure file transfer implementation in libs/hbb_common/

UI Architecture

• Legacy UI: Sciter-based (deprecated) - files in src/ui/
• Modern UI: Flutter-based - files in flutter/
  • Desktop: flutter/lib/desktop/
  • Mobile: flutter/lib/mobile/
  • Shared: flutter/lib/common/ and flutter/lib/models/

Rust Rules

• Avoid unwrap() / expect() in production code.

• Exceptions:

  • tests;
  • lock acquisition where failure means poisoning, not normal control flow.

• Otherwise prefer Result + ? or explicit handling.

• Do not ignore errors silently.

• Avoid unnecessary .clone().

• Prefer borrowing when practical.

• Do not add dependencies unless needed.

• Keep code simple and idiomatic.

Tokio Rules

• Assume a Tokio runtime already exists.
• Never create nested runtimes.
• Never call Runtime::block_on() inside Tokio / async code.
• Do not hide runtime creation inside helpers or libraries.
• Do not hold locks across .await.
• Prefer .await, tokio::spawn, channels.
• Use spawn_blocking or dedicated threads for blocking work.
• Do not use std::thread::sleep() in async code.

Editing Hygiene

• Change only what is required.
• Prefer the smallest valid diff.
• Do not refactor unrelated code.
• Do not make formatting-only changes.
• Keep naming/style consistent with nearby code.

Comments

• Keep them short: one line by default, three at most.
• Say why, never what. If the code already says it, delete the comment.
• Do not document rejected alternatives, past bugs, measurements, or how you arrived at the code. That belongs in the commit message or the PR.
• A comment must never be longer than the code it describes.
• Applies to YAML, shell and Python too, not just Rust.

Be minimally invasive

• Prefer purely additive changes: layer new (#[cfg]-gated) blocks or new functions around existing code instead of restructuring it. The ideal diff for a fix adds lines and modifies/deletes none.
• Do not extract or reshape existing code just to enable your new code; look for a mechanism that leaves existing lines untouched (e.g. hide/show an existing object instead of refactoring its construction into a helper for rebuilding).
• Put new logic in self-contained functions in the module it belongs to (platform-specific logic in src/platform/, with use inside the function body to avoid churning shared import blocks). Call sites in shared files (src/tray.rs, src/core_main.rs, src/server/connection.rs, …) should be thin one-line hooks.

Localization (src/lang/*.rs)

Each file is a HashMap<key, translation>. Layout:

• template.rs is the master list of every key. Never edit it as part of translation work.
• en.rs holds only the keys whose English display text differs from the key itself.
• Every other file (de.rs, fr.rs, …) carries the full key set; an untranslated entry has an empty value: ("key", "").

Finding the English source for a key

When filling an empty entry, determine the source English text with this rule:

• If key exists in en.rs with a non-empty value, that value is the source text (look it up in en.rs).
• Otherwise the key string itself is the source text (the key is already plain English).

Then translate that source into the file's target language (infer the language from the file's existing non-empty entries / filename).

Translation hygiene

• Only fill empty values. Never change keys, and never touch existing non-empty translations.
• Preserve placeholders ({}) and escape sequences (\n, \") exactly as in the source.
• Do not translate brand or technical tokens: RustDesk, Socks5, TLS, UAC, Wayland, X11, TCP, UDP, 2FA, RDP, D3D, etc.
• Copy URL values (e.g. doc_* keys) verbatim from en.rs.

Adding new keys (feature work)

• New English-text keys use sentence case, not Title Case: Use ID whitelisting, not Use ID Whitelisting. Acronyms (ID, IP, 2FA…) stay uppercase. Legacy Title-Case keys (e.g. Use IP Whitelisting) stay as-is — do not rename them.
• Since the key itself is the English display text, a sentence-case key usually needs no en.rs entry; add one only when the display text must differ from the key (e.g. *_tip keys).
• Append each new key to template.rs (with "") and to every src/lang/*.rs file (translated, or "" if unsure), at the end of the list.