# Agent Guide: marstemedia
This document is for AI agents working on this codebase. Read it before touching anything.
---
## What is this project?
**marstemedia** is a cross-platform desktop (+ Android) news reader app built with:
- **Tauri v2** as the native shell
- **Yew** (Rust → WebAssembly) for the UI
- **Rust** for all backend logic (networking, file I/O, cryptography)
It has three features:
1. **Nostr feed** — anonymous browsing of decentralized social posts, filterable by hashtag
2. **RSS reader** — fetches and displays articles from a user-configurable list of RSS/Atom feeds
3. **AI news** — one-click tech news summary from Groq (Llama 3) or OpenRouter
---
## Repository Layout
```
marstemedia/
├── src/ # Frontend (Yew/Wasm)
│ ├── main.rs # Wasm bootstrap
│ ├── app.rs # Router + top-level layout
│ ├── navbar/
│ │ ├── mod.rs
│ │ └── navbar.rs # Bottom navigation dock
│ └── pages/
│ ├── mod.rs
│ ├── home.rs # Nostr feed page
│ ├── news.rs # RSS + AI news page
│ └── greet.rs # Placeholder/demo page
│
├── src-tauri/ # Backend (native Rust)
│ ├── Cargo.toml
│ ├── tauri.conf.json # App config (window size, build commands)
│ ├── capabilities/
│ │ └── default.json # Tauri capability permissions
│ └── src/
│ ├── main.rs # Desktop executable entry
│ ├── lib.rs # Tauri setup, command registration
│ ├── home.rs # Nostr: fetch_nostr_posts command
│ └── news.rs # RSS + AI: all news commands + NewsState
│ └── easy-nostr/ # Local path-dependency (nostr-sdk wrapper)
│
├── Cargo.toml # Frontend workspace root
├── styles.css # All CSS for the app
├── index.html # Trunk entry point
├── Trunk.toml # Trunk (Wasm bundler) config
├── justfile # Dev shortcuts
└── .gitea/workflows/
└── android.yaml # CI: builds Android APK
```
---
## How to Add a New Page
1. Create `src/pages/yourpage.rs` as a Yew `#[function_component]`.
2. Export it in `src/pages/mod.rs`: `pub mod yourpage;`
3. Add a variant to the `Route` enum in `src/app.rs`:
```rust
#[at("/yourpage")]
YourPage,
```
4. Add a match arm in the `switch` function in `src/app.rs`:
```rust
Route::YourPage => html! { },
```
5. Add a `>` in `src/navbar/navbar.rs`.
---
## How to Add a New Backend Command
1. Write your async function in the appropriate module (`src-tauri/src/home.rs`, `news.rs`, or a new file).
2. Annotate it with `#[tauri::command]`.
3. If you need shared state, add a field to `NewsState` in `src-tauri/src/news.rs`, or create a new state struct and call `.manage()` in `lib.rs`.
4. Register the command in `src-tauri/src/lib.rs` inside `tauri::generate_handler![...]`.
5. In the frontend, call it with `invoke("your_command_name", args)`.
---
## How to Call a Backend Command from the Frontend
Every page that needs backend calls declares this extern at the top:
```rust
#[wasm_bindgen]
extern "C" {
#[wasm_bindgen(js_namespace = ["window", "__TAURI__", "core"], catch)]
async fn invoke(cmd: &str, args: JsValue) -> Result;
}
```
Serialize args with `serde_wasm_bindgen::to_value(...)`, deserialize results with `serde_wasm_bindgen::from_value(...)`. Use `spawn_local` to run async calls inside Yew callbacks.
---
## Key Patterns to Know
### State management (frontend)
Yew uses `use_state` hooks. There is no global store — state lives inside components. If two pages need to share data, consider lifting state to `app.rs` or using Tauri's managed state on the backend.
### State management (backend)
`NewsState` in `src-tauri/src/news.rs` is registered with `.manage()` and injected into commands via `State<'_, NewsState>`. All fields are `Mutex` — always lock, read/write, and drop the lock quickly. **API keys are in-memory only** (not saved to disk).
### Config persistence
RSS feeds are saved to `/rss.ron` using the `ron` crate. Access the config path via `app.path().app_config_dir()`. Pattern is: read on load, write on save, keep in-memory state in sync.
### Markdown rendering
The `News` page renders article content as Markdown using `pulldown-cmark`. The output is injected with `Html::from_html_unchecked`. Only use this for content you control or have sanitized.
### Privacy pattern (Nostr)
A new random keypair is generated on every `fetch_nostr_posts` call. This is intentional — do not change this to a persistent key without understanding the privacy implications.
---
## CSS
`styles.css` in the project root is the single entry point — it only contains `@import` statements. All actual styles are split into files under `assets/`:
| File | What's inside |
|---|---|
| `assets/variables.css` | CSS custom properties (colors, fonts), reset, `body`/`html` |
| `assets/layout.css` | `.feed-container`, responsive media queries |
| `assets/navbar.css` | `.navbar-dock`, `.nav-link` |
| `assets/header.css` | `.feed-header`, `.mode-toggle`, `.toggle-btn`, `.action-btn`, `.provider-switch` |
| `assets/cards.css` | `.post-card`, `.markdown-body`, `.post-category-badge` |
| `assets/config.css` | `.config-panel`, RSS list, inputs, `.add-btn`, `.delete-btn`, `.save-master-btn` |
| `assets/filters.css` | Hashtag chips (Home), `.category-bar`, `.cat-btn` (News) |
| `assets/animations.css` | `@keyframes float`, `slideIn`, `pulse-subtle` |
| `assets/utils.css` | `.reload-btn-large`, `.error-box`, `.loading-spinner`, `.status-msg` |
| `assets/greet.css` | `.robot-container`, `.robot-icon`, `.bubble` |
When adding styles for a new page, create a new file in `assets/` and add an `@import` line to `styles.css`. There is no CSS framework — vanilla CSS with custom classes.
---
## Build & Dev
```bash
# Start dev server (hot reload)
cargo tauri dev
# Build for desktop release
cargo tauri build
# Build for Android (requires Android SDK + NDK)
cargo tauri android build
# Frontend only (no Tauri shell)
trunk serve
```
The `justfile` may contain additional shortcuts — check it first.
---
## Dependencies Worth Knowing
| Crate | Used for |
|---|---|
| `yew` | UI components |
| `yew-router` | Client-side routing |
| `wasm-bindgen` / `wasm-bindgen-futures` | Wasm ↔ JS bridge |
| `serde-wasm-bindgen` | Serialize/deserialize across the Tauri IPC |
| `pulldown-cmark` | Markdown → HTML in the frontend |
| `nostr-sdk` | Nostr protocol (via `easy-nostr` wrapper) |
| `reqwest` | HTTP client (rustls, no OpenSSL) |
| `feed-rs` | RSS/Atom feed parsing |
| `ron` | Config file serialization |
| `tauri-plugin-opener` | Open URLs in system browser |
---
## What to Watch Out For
- **`easy-nostr`** is a local path dependency at `src-tauri/easy-nostr/`. It is also a private Git repo cloned by CI. If you need to update it, clone it manually into that path.
- **No OpenSSL** — both `reqwest` usages (frontend and backend) use `rustls-tls` with `default-features = false`. Keep it that way to avoid cross-compilation pain on Android/CI.
- **`wasm32-unknown-unknown`** target is required for the frontend. `aarch64-linux-android` and friends are required for Android CI.
- The `Greet` page (`src/pages/greet.rs`) appears to be a leftover demo page from the Tauri template. It is still linked in the navbar — decide whether to keep or remove it.
- API keys entered by the user are held in `Mutex` fields in `NewsState`. They are lost when the app restarts. There is no persistence for keys by design.