feather/HACKING.md

Documentation for developers

Feather is developed primarily on Linux, but can also be built on macOS. Development on Windows is not currently supported.

We support development on rolling release distributions and the latest version of Ubuntu. Building on older stable distributions is not guaranteed to work.

Setting up a development environment

Dependencies

Arch Linux

pacman -S git cmake base-devel ccache unbound boost qrencode qt6-base qt6-svg qt6-websockets qt6-multimedia libzip hidapi protobuf zxing-cpp

Ubuntu 24.04

apt update
apt install git cmake build-essential ccache libssl-dev libunbound-dev libboost-all-dev libqrencode-dev  \
    qt6-base-dev qt6-multimedia-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libqt6svg6-dev libqt6websockets6-dev libzip-dev libsodium-dev libgcrypt-dev \
    libx11-xcb-dev libprotobuf-dev protobuf-compiler libhidapi-dev libzxing-dev

Void Linux

xbps-install -S base-devel cmake boost-devel openssl-devel unbound-devel libsodium-devel zlib-devel qt6-base-devel \
                qt6-svg-devel qt6-websockets-devel qt6-multimedia-devel libgcrypt-devel libzip-devel hidapi-devel protobuf \
                protobuf-devel qrencode-devel zxing-cpp-devel

macOS

For macOS it's easiest to leverage brew to install the required dependencies.

brew install qt libsodium libzip qrencode unbound cmake boost hidapi openssl expat libunwind-headers protobuf pkgconfig

Build zxing-cpp from source or compile Feather with -DWITH_SCANNER=Off.

Tor daemon

A Tor daemon is required to connect to .onion nodes and the websocket server. Development builds do not include the Tor binary by default, this can be enabled with -DTOR_DIR=/path/to/tor. We recommend running a local Tor daemon as this prevents Feather from spawning a child process and saves time.

Arch Linux

pacman -S tor
systemctl enable --now tor

Ubuntu Debian

apt update && apt install tor
systemctl enable --now tor

Void Linux

xbps-install tor
ln -s /etc/sv/tor /var/service/.
sv start tor

macOS

brew install tor
brew services restart tor

Clone Feather

git clone http://github.com/feather-wallet/feather.git
cd feather
git submodule update --init --recursive

Jetbrains Clion (IDE)

We recommend using Jetbrains Clion for Feather development. It integrates nicely with CMake and comes with a built-in debugger.

To pass CMake flags to CLion, go to File -> Settings -> Build -> CMake, set Build Type to Debug and set your preferred CMake options. More CMake options are documented below.

Run CMake (View -> Tool Windows -> CMake). Click on the 🔃 (Reload CMake Project) button.

Go to Run -> Edit configurations and make sure the feather target is selected. You can add any environment variables and program arguments here:

• For more verbose logging add MONERO_LOG_LEVEL=1 to environment variables.
• To start Feather in stagenet mode, add --stagenet to program arguments.

After the target is configured, Run -> Run 'feather' or press Shift + F10 to build Feather.

Building without IDE

To build Feather without an IDE:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build . -j $(nproc)

On platforms without execinfo.h use cmake -DSTACK_TRACE:BOOL=OFF .. instead of cmake ..

CMake

There are some CMake options that you may pass to control how Feather is built:

• -DCHECK_UPDATES=ON - enable checking for updates, only for standalone binaries
• -DDONATE_BEG=OFF - disable the dreaded donate requests
• -DUSE_DEVICE_TREZOR=OFF - disable Trezor hardware wallet support
• -DWITH_SCANNER=ON - enable the webcam QR code scanner
• -DTOR_DIR=/path/to/tor/ - embed a Tor binary in Feather, argument should be a directory containing the binary
• -DWITH_PLUGIN_<NAME>=OFF - disable a plugin