# Polycentric Development Guide

Includes information on build systems, development workflow, and common issues.

Polycentric is a distributed social network with a monorepo structure containing several key packages:

• polycentric-core: Core functionality and protocol implementation
• polycentric-react: React components and UI library
• polycentric-web: Web application
• polycentric-capacitor: Mobile application
• polycentric-desktop: Electron application

1. Install dependencies:

npm install

2. Generate development certificates (required for HTTPS):

make devcert

3. Generate protocol files:

make proto

The core package needs to be running first since other packages depend on it:

cd packages/polycentric-core
npm run dev

This runs multiple concurrent processes:

• TypeScript declaration file generation (watch mode)
• ESM bundle generation (watch mode)
• CommonJS bundle generation for browser (watch mode)
• CommonJS bundle generation for Node.js (watch mode)

The React package contains all UI components:

cd packages/polycentric-react  
npm run dev

Key Vite configuration:

• Development mode excludes @polycentric/polycentric-core from dependencies
• Builds both ES and UMD formats
• Includes asset handling via vite-plugin-lib-assets
• Integrates Tailwind CSS processing

Finally, start the web or mobile app:

cd packages/polycentric-web
npm run dev

The web app's Vite config is specially configured to:

• Exclude polycentric dependencies in development
• Use HTTPS with custom certificates
• Configure PWA manifest
• Set up manual chunk splitting

1. Always run packages in order (core → react → web/capacitor)
2. Changes in core automatically propagate to dependent packages
3. Use HTTPS in development with generated certificates to ensure full browser API access

1. Module Resolution Errors

   • Ensure all packages are running in development mode
   • Check that core package is built and running

2. HTTPS Certificate Errors

   • Run make devcert to generate certificates
   • Trust the certificates in your browser

3. Changes Not Reflecting

   • Verify all watch processes are running
   • Check console for build errors

4. Dependency Issues

   • Run npm install from root directory
   • Clear node_modules and reinstall if needed

• Full documentation: https://docs.polycentric.io
• Live demo: https://polycentric.io
• Source code: https://gitlab.futo.org/polycentric/polycentric