StepForge/README.md

# StepForge

StepForge is a **local-first**, open-source desktop app for Windows, with
Linux (WIP) builds. It 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 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.

**Network and privacy contract.** StepForge has no telemetry, no update
checks, no license checks, and no cloud. Guides never leave your machine on
their own. The only outbound network feature is the **optional** AI
integration: when *you* enable it and configure an [Ollama](https://ollama.com)
endpoint, StepForge sends step screenshots and text to that endpoint to
generate titles and descriptions. By default that endpoint must be **local
(loopback)**; sending data to a remote host requires the explicit "Allow
remote AI host" opt-in. See [docs/PRIVACY.md](docs/PRIVACY.md) for exactly
what is collected and sent. Note that OCR (Tesseract) and its English language
data are bundled production dependencies — Electron is not the only one.

## 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).

On **Linux**, install from a package built for your distro family:
apt-based (Debian/Ubuntu) → [docs/linux/apt.md](docs/linux/apt.md); dnf-based
(Fedora) → [docs/linux/dnf.md](docs/linux/dnf.md). Wayland uses the XDG portal
for screen capture and a hotkey/interval trigger (per-click capture with a
marker needs X11 + xinput). The general developer walkthrough is
[docs/GETTING_STARTED_WITH_LINUX.md](docs/GETTING_STARTED_WITH_LINUX.md).

Requirements: Node.js 22.12+ and npm (pinned in `.nvmrc`; installs are
refused on older Nodes because the packaging toolchain needs 22.12+).

```bash
npm ci             # one-time, installs the locked dependency tree
npm start          # launch StepForge
```

Dependencies are only ever installed by you, via `npm ci` — the app never
downloads or repairs packages at runtime.

First run creates the local data directory (`~/.local/share/stepforge` on
Linux (WIP), `%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       # local Linux packaging (WIP; not part of release)
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

StepForge is licensed under the **Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial
4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0)**. See the root [LICENSE](LICENSE) for
the full terms.

In plain terms: you're free to use, modify, and share it for **non-commercial**
purposes, with attribution — but you may not sell it or use it commercially
without written permission from the copyright holder.