gods-eye-view/CONTRIBUTING.md

Contributing to God's Eye View

Thanks for being here. God's Eye View is an open foundation for live spatial intelligence in the browser, and it gets better when more people run it, break it, and extend it.

Getting set up

Use Node.js 24.14.x or 26.x (also enforced by package.json).

git clone https://github.com/bilawalsidhu/gods-eye-view.git
cd gods-eye-view
nvm install 24.14.0
nvm use 24.14.0
npm install
npm run doctor
./scripts/dev-fresh.sh        # or: npm run dev (keys are optional)

No key is required to start: the app boots on keyless Esri World Imagery with keyless terrain, and OSM takes over automatically if Esri is unreachable. Google Maps provides direct photorealistic 3D and place search; Cesium ion provides ion-hosted Google 3D plus optional Bing/world-terrain stacks. On macOS the launcher pulls optional keys from the Keychain; on any platform you can pass them as env vars or use a .env. People who only want to run the app can instead install the repository directly through Pinokio; the terminal path above remains the contributor path.

Open http://localhost:4173. Before sending a PR run npm run build, npm test, and npm run test:track (dev server must be up) — all three must stay green.

Checking a built app locally

Run npm run build followed by npm run preview. Preview serves the built frontend and local data-provider APIs. Keep optional server credentials in the ignored .env; browser keys are embedded during the build, so rebuild after changing them. Provider Settings and /api/setup/* are development-only: edit configuration through the development app or environment file. Unknown API paths return JSON 404 responses. Vite preview is for checking a local build; it is not a production server.

Feature regression gates

Those three are the baseline, not the whole story. Most features also have a dedicated headless gate under scripts/qa-*.mjs that drives the real app and asserts that feature's contract. Run the gate covering whatever you touched, and say which one you ran in the PR.

Feature gates and a few supporting modules live under the same filename pattern:

ls scripts/qa-*.mjs            # gates and their supporting modules
head -40 scripts/qa-radio.mjs  # what this runnable gate proves and how to run it

Runnable gate entrypoints document what they assert and how to invoke them. Most need a dev server; some also need a specific provider key or port. Follow the entrypoint's header rather than assuming every matching file accepts the same arguments. Four have an npm run alias: qa:map-source-tray, qa:street-level, qa:street-level:fixtures and qa:transit.

If you aren't sure which gate covers your change, search docs/CURRENT-STATE.md for the feature: it names the gate for many of them, and it's the authoritative runtime reference either way. scripts/qa-l9-matrix.mjs aggregates the broader release-candidate checks and selected harnesses; it does not replace the focused gate for the feature you changed.

CI covers only two of these for you. The workflow runs the setup policy checks, the formatting and package-boundary checks, the unit suite and the production build, plus a Windows onboarding job. It runs neither npm run test:track nor any qa-*.mjs gate except the Street Level fixture gate (street-level-browser job) — they need a live dev server and a browser. Include the applicable local run in your PR's validation evidence.

Share-link layer tokens

Every shareable layer owns an immutable token in LAYER_STATE_REGISTRY and src/data/layerStateTokenReservations.json. Never change or reuse an existing token: published v2 links are authored state, and the reservation remains even if its layer is later removed.

New layers first use the remaining unreserved single-character digits (0 through 9), then the two-character base-36 namespace (00 through zz). On the current published ledger, 0, 1, 2 and 3 are already owned, so the next choices are 4 through 9, then 00. After rebasing onto the latest main, run npm run layer-token:next -- <layer-id>, add that result to both the permanent JSON reservation ledger and registry entry, and keep the exact registered-layer count assertion up to date. The token is assigned against the merge-time base, not claimed when a PR opens, so another merged layer may require rerunning the command after a rebase. Never repurpose a published or retired token. Run npm run layer-token:check -- --base-ref origin/main after the rebase; this checks that every published assignment remains reserved and that new assignments consume free digits before the two-character tokens, in order. Pull-request CI runs the same check against main.

The helper reads the local ledger; it does not run during a rebase or edit files. If another PR publishes your provisional token first, keep every published registry entry and ledger reservation from the refreshed main. Temporarily remove only your still-unpublished layer's registry entry and ledger row so the local registry is valid again, then rerun npm run layer-token:next -- <layer-id>. For example, if PR A publishes 0 while PR B still provisionally uses 0, PR B removes only its own provisional entry, reruns the helper, and receives 4. Put 4 on PR B's registry entry and ledger row, update its pinned count and token tests, then rerun npm run layer-token:check -- --base-ref origin/main. An invalid duplicate ledger can fail during module import before the helper prints anything; never fix that by renaming or deleting PR A's published token.

Good first contributions

The highest-leverage places to jump in:

• 🌆 Add a CCTV source pack. Austin is the reference camera source. Adding another city means a clean public camera catalog with coordinates, attribution, and server-registered frame URLs (the proxy only fetches registered URLs — never client-supplied ones, see SECURITY.md). City packs are the best first lane.
• 🛰️ Add or improve a data layer. Layer factories live in src/layers/<family>/, with source, record, controller and renderer owners implementing the layer interface (init/enable/disable/update/destroy/getStats, optional getDetectableObjects/getStats). Use an existing layer as a template, and see Adding a new layer for what the PR needs.
• 🎙️ Extend voice control. Voice arguments are defined in src/voice/actionSchemas.js, with server-side descriptions in server/providers/openai/tools.js and client-side execution in src/voice/gevActions.js. Keep the tool surface tight and the responses honest (confirm only what actually happened).
• 🎨 Add a visual style. Styles are GLSL post-process shaders in src/styles/.
• 🐛 Fix bugs / improve the first-run experience. See docs/KNOWN-ISSUES.md.

Architecture in one minute

• No framework. Vanilla JS + CesiumJS + Vite.
• Assembly lives in src/app/; standalone defaults live in src/standalone/. UI controllers live in src/ui/, layer factories in src/layers/, portable sources in src/sources/, and application operations in src/services/. Existing src/data/<layer>.js entries retain compatibility; new code belongs with its focused owner.
• Sources acquire records; renderers own Cesium resources. Import gods-eye-view/layers/<family>/source when only a source factory is needed. Common voice controls consume the session interface; protocol adapters own connection details.
• Secrets stay server-side. Anything needing a private key goes through a local proxy under server/providers/. The browser only ever sees the Google Maps key (which you restrict) and ephemeral tokens.
• docs/CURRENT-STATE.md is the authoritative runtime reference — read it first.

Coding style

• ES modules, 2-space indent, single quotes, semicolons.
• JSDoc on exported/public functions.
• Match the surrounding code — comment density, naming, and idiom.
• User-visible text goes through t(), tn() or msg(), or a data-i18n* attribute in markup, and npm run i18n must pass. See docs/I18N.md.
• Prefer small, reviewable commits. Conventional-commit-style prefixes (feat:, fix:, perf:, docs:) are appreciated but not required.

Formatting and reusable components

Run npm run format before submitting changes, then npm run format:check and npm run check:boundaries. Runtime JavaScript under the owned roots in scripts/format-runtime.json is discovered automatically, including new files. Tests and other adopted files remain listed in scripts/format-scope.json. Git-ignored files and .prettierignore exclusions are not automatically adopted. Keep mechanical formatting separate from behavioral edits. CI checks formatting and package boundaries on Linux and Windows.

Reusable package exports own their state and receive application operations through explicit callbacks. They must not import the standalone bootstrap or local Node services. Update scripts/package-boundaries.json and consumer tests when adding an export or expanding a component. See formatting and component boundaries for the current ownership and adoption process.

Pull requests

1. Branch off main.
2. Keep npm run build, npm test, and npm run test:track green and avoid new console errors, plus the feature gate for the area you touched.
3. If you change runtime behavior, update docs/CURRENT-STATE.md in the same PR, and add your changelog entry as changelog.d/<pr-number>-<slug>.md instead of editing CHANGELOG.md — see changelog.d/README.md. Distinct filenames don't conflict; a release assembles the directory into CHANGELOG.md. A documentation claim that needs a regression test should assert against docs/CURRENT-STATE.md or README.md, which a PR still edits directly.
4. If you add or change a data source, update DATA_SOURCES.md with its license and attribution. Don't add data you don't have the right to redistribute — fetch it at runtime instead.
5. Describe what you changed and how you verified it (screenshots welcome for anything visual).
6. If you add a new layer, fill in the new-layer section of the PR template. See Adding a new layer.

Adding a new layer

A new layer changes what everyone sees on the globe, so maintainers need to see it working and know where its data comes from before reviewing the code. PRs that add a layer must include all four of these in the description. The PR template has a section for them.

1. Screenshots. At least one of the layer on the globe, plus its info card or panel if it has one.
2. A screen recording, preferably 15 to 30 seconds: turn the layer on, move around, and open a record. Drag an .mp4 or .mov into the PR description. GitHub accepts videos up to 10 MB on free accounts, so link to a larger file instead of attaching it.
3. The proposed category. Say which layer-panel group the layer belongs in. The groups are defined in PANEL_GROUPS in src/ui/layerPanel.js (today: Movement, Cameras, Infrastructure, Events, Weather and Audio, plus Utilities, whose rows render in the separate UTILITIES panel). A layer that isn't listed there falls under "Other layers". If none of the groups fits, propose a new one and explain why.
4. The data source and licence. Name the provider and endpoint, link its licence or terms, give the attribution shown in the app, and say whether it needs a key and whether the data is fetched at runtime or bundled. Add the same details to DATA_SOURCES.md and register the credit in src/data/dataCredits.js.

Maintainers may hold a layer PR until all four are there.

Maintainers

God's Eye View is maintained by Bilawal Sidhu and Sameh Khamis at Halfpixel. Either maintainer can review and merge contributions.

Ground rules

• This is a tool for public data. Don't add scraping of sources whose terms forbid it, private/paywalled datasets, or anything that misrepresents public-data inference as authoritative intelligence.
• Be decent to each other. Assume good faith, keep it constructive.

By contributing, you agree your contributions are licensed under the project's MIT License.