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 JSON, Markdown, HTML (simple and rich), PDF, animated GIF, image bundles, DOCX, and PPTX.

It is an independent offline desktop guide-capture tool inspired by publicly documented workflow patterns of commercial documentation tools. 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:

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.
Annotate — rectangles, ovals, lines, arrows, text, tooltips, numbered markers, blur, highlight, magnify, and crop on a resolution-independent annotation scene graph.
Describe — rich-text titles and descriptions, informational text blocks, code blocks, tables, step links, and placeholders.
Export — every exporter renders from the same normalized Render AST, so output is deterministic across formats.

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ StepForge  >  Reset Password SOP            [Capture] [Export] [Save]      │
├──────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────┤
│ Steps            │ Canvas                           │ Properties           │
│ 1 Open Users     │  ┌────────────────────────────┐  │ Title                │
│ 2 Search account │  │  [tooltip]                 │  │ [Reset password]     │
│ 3 Click Reset    │  │      ↘  ┌────────────┐     │  │ Description          │
│   3.1 Warning    │  │         │ Reset btn  │     │  │ [rich text editor]   │
│ 4 Done           │  │         └────────────┘     │  │ Text blocks          │
│ [Add Step]       │  └────────────────────────────┘  │ Step settings        │
├──────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────┤
│ Tools: [Select][Rect][Oval][Line][Arrow][Text][Tooltip][#][Blur][Hi][Crop] │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

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 with Shoot/Auto/Pause/Finish controls). 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 shorter walkthrough, see GETTING_STARTED.md.

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

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 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 — creating guides, round-tripping archives, exporting documents, and validating the bytes of the output — not string matching.

Building & Packaging

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             # portable Windows .exe in releases/
pwsh scripts/package-windows.ps1    # same Windows portable build via PowerShell

See 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 SECURITY.md for the threat model.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full contribution flow, including the issue-number requirement for every pull request and the clean-room rules.

Repository Layout

See ARCHITECTURE.md to see the repo layout.

License

Application code is licensed under MPL-2.0. Bundled example guides, templates, and screenshots are CC-BY-4.0 unless noted otherwise.