electron/docs/development/source-code-directory-structure.md

Source code directory structure

Overview

The source code of Electron is separated into a few parts, and we are mostly following Chromium on the separation conventions.

You may need to become familiar with Chromium's multi-process architecture to understand the source code better.

Structure of source code

• atom - Source code of Electron.
  • app - System entry code.
  • browser - The frontend including the main window, UI, and all of the main process things. This talks to the renderer to manage web pages.
    • lib - Javascript part of the main process initialization code.
    • ui - Implementation of UI stuff for different platforms.
      • cocoa - Cocoa specific source code.
      • gtk - GTK+ specific source code.
      • win - Windows GUI specific source code.
    • default_app - The default page to show when Electron is started without providing an app.
    • api - The implementation of the main process APIs.
      • lib - Javascript part of the API implementation.
    • net - Network related code.
    • mac - Mac specific Objective-C source code.
    • resources - Icons, platform-dependent files, etc.
  • renderer - Code that runs in renderer process.
    • lib - Javascript part of renderer initialization code.
    • api - The implementation of renderer process APIs.
      • lib - Javascript part of the API implementation.
  • common - Code that used by both the main and renderer processes, including some utility functions and code to integrate node's message loop into Chromium's message loop.
    • lib - Common Javascript initialization code.
    • api - The implementation of common APIs, and foundations of Electron's built-in modules.
      • lib - Javascript part of the API implementation.
• chromium_src - Source code that copied from Chromium.
• docs - Documentations.
• spec - Automatic tests.
• atom.gyp - Building rules of Electron.
• common.gypi - Compiler specific settings and building rules for other components like node and breakpad.

Structure of other directories

• script - Scripts used for development purpose like building, packaging, testing, etc.
• tools - Helper scripts used by gyp files, unlike script, scripts put here should never be invoked by users directly.
• vendor - Source code of third party dependencies, we didn't use third_party as name because it would confuse with the same directory in Chromium's source code tree.
• node_modules - Third party node modules used for building.
• out - Temporary output directory of ninja.
• dist - Temporary directory created by script/create-dist.py script when creating an distribution.
• external_binaries - Downloaded binaries of third-party frameworks which do not support to be built via gyp.