Contributing to Tranquil PDS#

When PRing#

In order of importance:

You must run your change! Every contribution that says "here's xyz. untested." does not help the project.
Relevant tests to your PR must pass. The whole suite doesn't have to be proven to have run, because there are a ton of tests and they're quite heavy, but hopefully there are existing tests for whatever you're PRing, and if there aren't, please add those too.
Run cargo fmt :P

🦪 Lewis

Good CI fixes some of these. We should really get around to that.

Things that would also be nice but aren't like, a pain in our side:

Big changes should be stacked PRs that are broken up into digestible pieces. Those stacked PRs should hopefully be able to be merged individually if necessary.

Local Development#

Prerequisites#

Docker and Docker Compose
Add pds.test to your hosts file (one-time setup):
```
127.0.0.1 pds.test
```
- macOS / Linux: /etc/hosts
- Windows: C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

Starting the dev environment#

just run-dev

This starts the following services via docker-compose:

Traefik — HTTPS reverse proxy at https://pds.test
Backend — Rust server with cargo-watch (auto-rebuilds on file changes)
Frontend — Vite dev server with hot module replacement
Postgres — Database on port 5432
PLC Directory — Local did-method-plc server for DID registration
Mailpit — Local email server with web UI at http://localhost:8025

Once all services are running, open https://pds.test in your browser.

Trusting the self-signed certificate#

Traefik generates a self-signed TLS certificate. Your browser will show a security warning on first visit. You can either click through it, or add the certificate to your system trust store for a seamless experience:

macOS:

# Extract the cert from traefik and add it to the system keychain
echo | openssl s_client -connect localhost:443 -servername pds.test 2>/dev/null | openssl x509 > /tmp/pds-test.pem
sudo security add-trusted-cert -d -r trustRoot -k /Library/Keychains/System.keychain /tmp/pds-test.pem

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu):

echo | openssl s_client -connect localhost:443 -servername pds.test 2>/dev/null | openssl x509 | sudo tee /usr/local/share/ca-certificates/pds-test.crt
sudo update-ca-certificates

Linux (Fedora/RHEL):

echo | openssl s_client -connect localhost:443 -servername pds.test 2>/dev/null | openssl x509 | sudo tee /etc/pki/ca-trust/source/anchors/pds-test.pem
sudo update-ca-trust

Windows (PowerShell as Administrator):

$cert = New-Object System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate2
$cert.Import([System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes((echo | openssl s_client -connect localhost:443 -servername pds.test 2>$null | openssl x509)))
$store = New-Object System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Store("Root", "LocalMachine")
$store.Open("ReadWrite")
$store.Add($cert)
$store.Close()

Restart your browser after adding the certificate.

Stopping the dev environment#

# Stop containers (preserves database + build cache)
docker compose --profile dev down

# Stop and wipe all data (fresh start)
docker compose --profile dev down -v

Direct database access#

Postgres is exposed on port 5432:

psql postgres://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/pds

How it works#

Source code is bind-mounted into the containers so that changes made on the host will be immediately reflected in the application
Backend uses cargo-watch to recompile and restart when Rust files change
Frontend uses Vite's HMR for instant browser updates when frontend files change
Build cache (target/ directory and cargo registry) are stored in Docker volumes, so incremental compilation persists across container restarts
Traefik routes /, /xrpc, /oauth, /.well-known, /u, and /health to the backend; everything else goes to the Vite dev server
Mailpit captures all outgoing email — open http://localhost:8025 to view verification emails during registration
PLC Directory runs locally so DID registration doesn't hit the real plc.directory

Running the backend natively#

If you prefer running the Rust backend outside Docker (faster incremental builds on host), you need:

Rust toolchain (see rust-toolchain.toml)
protoc (brew install protobuf on macOS)
PostgreSQL (start with docker compose up db)

Then run:

cargo run -p tranquil-server -- --config config.toml

And start the frontend separately:

cd frontend && pnpm install && pnpm dev

Configure Feed