# StepForge

StepForge is a **fully offline**, open-source desktop app for Windows and
Linux that captures step-by-step workflows as screenshots, lets you annotate
and describe each step in a focused three-pane editor, and exports the result
to Markdown, DOCX, PPTX, PDF, HTML (WIP), GIF (WIP), confluence (WIP), Wiki.js (WIP), and image bundles (WIP). The current reconmendations for exporting is Markdown and PDF.

It is an independent offline desktop guide-capture tool inspired by publicly
documented workflow patterns of commercial documentation tools like Folge. It contains no
third-party branding, assets, or code from those tools, and it never talks to
the network: no telemetry, no update checks, no license checks, no cloud, no
remote AI.

## Overview

The core workflow:

1. **Capture** — take full-screen, active-window, or region screenshots with
   configurable delay, pause/resume, and global hotkeys; or import images and
   paste from the clipboard.
2. **Annotate** — rectangles, ovals, lines, arrows, text, tooltips, numbered
   markers, blur, highlight, magnify, and crop on a resolution-independent
   annotation scene graph.
3. **Describe** — rich-text titles and descriptions, informational text
   blocks, code blocks, tables, step links, and placeholders.
4. **Export** — every exporter renders from the same normalized Render AST,
   so output is deterministic across formats.


## What's Included

- **Guide library** with folders, favorites, title search, full-text search,
  duplicate/move/delete, and a quick-actions palette (`Ctrl+/`).
- **Capture engine** — the editor's **Capture ▾** button offers full screen,
  active window, and region capture (the app hides itself during the shot),
  plus continuous capture sessions that grab a step on every click where the
  OS allows it, or on a 3/5/10 s auto-interval everywhere else. The REC bar
  shows the live count and the start/pause control. Delay, global
  hotkeys, click markers, clipboard paste, and PNG/JPEG/GIF import included.
  The full keyboard shortcut list lives under **More ▾ → Keyboard
  shortcuts** in the editor.
- **Three-pane editor** — step tree with substeps, statuses
  (todo/in-progress/done), hidden/skipped steps, focused view (zoom/pan that
  never mutates the original image), autosave, and command-stack undo/redo.
- **Annotation canvas** — normalized JSON scene graph with
  resolution-independent coordinates; annotations render identically in the
  editor and in every exporter.
- **Sharing & backups** — single-file `.sfgz` archives (zip-based, path-
  traversal validated), linked guides with `.lock-sfgz` lock files and
  explicit save, plus automated snapshot backups and restore.
- **Exports** — JSON, Markdown, Simple HTML, Rich HTML (checkboxes + floating
  TOC), PDF, animated GIF, image bundle, DOCX, and PPTX, with per-format
  export templates shareable as `.sfglt` files.
- **Settings & theming** — system/light/dark themes, capture options,
  keyboard shortcuts, preview step count.

Everything except the Electron shell is dependency-free Node.js: the ZIP,
PNG, GIF, PDF, DOCX, and PPTX writers are all implemented in this repository
using only Node built-ins.

## Getting Started

For a windows installation, see [docs/windows_installation](docs/windows_installation.md) or for a developer/more in depth walkthrough, see [docs/GETTING_STARTED.md](docs/GETTING_STARTED.md).

Requirements: Node.js 20+ and npm (Electron is the only dependency).

```bash
npm install        # one-time, fetches the Electron shell
npm start          # launch StepForge
```

First run creates the local data directory (`~/.local/share/stepforge` on
Linux, `%APPDATA%/stepforge` on Windows; override with `STEPFORGE_DATA_DIR`).

## Testing

Please create your tests so that when the following is ran it automatically
tests your test.

```bash
bash tests/run_test.sh
```

The runner executes every `tests/checks/test_*.sh` script; those scripts run
the workflow test suites under `tests/unit/` with `node --test`. The tests
exercise real workflows like creating guides, round-tripping archives, exporting
documents, and validating the bytes of the output, not string matching.

## Building & Packaging

```bash
bash scripts/bootstrap-offline.sh   # verify toolchain availability
bash scripts/verify.sh              # full test suite + smoke checks
bash scripts/build-release.sh       # assemble runnable app directory
bash scripts/package-linux.sh       # portable tar.gz + .deb (+ AppDir spec)
npm run package:windows             # Windows installer .exe in releases/
pwsh scripts/package-windows.ps1    # same Windows installer build via PowerShell
```

See [build/build_report.md](build/build_report.md) for what was produced on
this machine and which packaging tools were unavailable.

## Offline Guarantee

The shipping app makes **zero network calls**. There is no telemetry, no
update check, no license validation, no cloud sync, no account system, and no
remote AI. Exports embed no remote fonts or CDN references. See
[docs/SECURITY.md](docs/SECURITY.md) for the threat model.

## Contributing

See [docs/CONTRIBUTING.md](docs/CONTRIBUTING.md) for the full contribution flow,
including the issue-number requirement for every pull request and the
clean-room rules.

## Repository Layout

Project docs live in `docs/` and prompt handoffs live in `ai_prompts/`.

See [docs/ARCHITECTURE.md](docs/ARCHITECTURE.md) for the repo layout.

## License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 

Basically, do whatever you want with it just don't make money off it or sell it.
