Contributing to Spotifast

Spotifast is a native Spotify client. Changes should improve the desktop app without adding a browser, fallback services, or another backend.

Before opening an issue

Search open and closed issues first. For a bug, use the bug form and include the requested log and exact steps to reproduce it. Reports without enough information to investigate may be closed.

For a feature, explain the user problem. Discuss large changes in an issue before writing code. Existing code does not guarantee that a feature fits the project.

Some boundaries come from Spotify or from upstream libraries:

Local playback requires Spotify Premium because librespot requires it.
Spotify Lossless is not available through librespot. Spotifast will reconsider it if librespot gains lawful upstream support; proposals that depend on bypassing Spotify's DRM are out of scope.
Spotify tracks must come from Spotify. Substituting audio from YouTube, Piped, yt-dlp, or another catalogue is out of scope.
Spotifast will not embed a browser engine, add telemetry, or introduce a Spotifast-operated service.

What Spotify Lets a Client Do lists what each of the three surfaces offers and the requests none of them can serve, with the reason for each; a request in its last section is answered from there and closed.

Duplicate, out-of-scope, or incomplete issues may be closed with a short explanation.

A bug can be closed once its fix is on main and the relevant checks pass, with the commit and release status stated. Reporter confirmation is welcome but is not required for closure. Reopen the issue if it persists after updating.

Automated triage

Copilot Triage assesses new and reopened issues and new discussions. It uses the report and latest five comments plus previous bot replies, adds up to two labels, and may condense a long new issue into one concise recap. Follow-up replies must add help: a necessary question, supported answer, applicable policy, released fix, or useful issue link. Clear duplicates can be closed after comparison; related reports stay open. Maintainers handle uncertain decisions and removing obsolete labels.

Human follow-ups can trigger reassessment. The agent decides whether a reply would help; repeated updates and thanks usually need none. Use /triage to request reassessment, /triage mute to stop automatic replies, or maintainer-only /triage unmute to resume them. You can also run Issue assessment from Actions with the report kind and number. Preview is enabled by default; turn it off to apply the result. The agent uses scoped read-only tools to investigate; only conversation state and the CLI installation are cached. A party-popper reaction marks a completed assessment, including one that needed no reply; it does not promise acceptance or a fix. Bot comments are skipped; configured error-monitoring bots can open reports. Model failures stay in the job summary.

The COPILOT_ISSUE_ASSESSMENT_ENABLED repository variable controls the workflow. Edit .github/triage.yml for labels, replies, source files, and response policy. The shared action follows tested v0 releases in .github/workflows/issue-assessment.yml; its implementation and regression tests live in the Copilot Triage repository.

Design principles

Native and fast. Startup time, idle work, memory use, and binary size are product features. Keep the UI thread free of network and disk waits.
Focused. Prefer a complete, coherent workflow over a collection of settings, modes, and speculative features.
Honest integrations. Use Spotify's Web API and librespot for what they support. Do not scrape, impersonate capabilities, bypass technical protections, or silently replace one service with another.
Cross-platform by default. Linux, macOS, and Windows are supported products. Platform-specific code must be isolated and the other targets must keep compiling.
Small dependency surface. Reuse the standard library and existing crates where practical. A new dependency needs a concrete benefit worth its build time, binary size, maintenance, and security cost.
Visible failure, private data. Errors should be actionable, rate limits should be respected, and credentials must never appear in logs. Network behaviour belongs in the documentation.

Pull requests

Keep each pull request to one change. Explain why it belongs in Spotifast, what changed, and how you tested it. Avoid unrelated formatting, refactors, generated prose, and large mechanical rewrites.

main has a linear history. Outside pull requests are squash-merged into one focused commit with contributor credit; merge commits are not accepted. Maintainer work is committed directly on main, one topic per commit. Use fast-forward-only pulls and rebase unpublished local commits when needed. Do not rewrite published history without explicit maintainer approval.

The same rules apply to hand-written and AI-assisted changes. The author must understand every line and answer review comments with specific reasoning.

Code changes should include tests for behaviour that can regress. UI changes should include before/after screenshots or a short recording and should use demo mode where possible. User-visible behaviour, settings, files, or network access must be documented in the same pull request.

Visual reviews

Provide an HTML comparison with actual before-and-after captures, using demo mode where possible. Match the data, page, interaction state, zoom and window size so the difference shows the proposed change. Identify the baseline and candidate, and report which platforms actually produced the captures.

Include light/dark and narrow/normal window selectors, plus Before and After buttons or a comparison slider. Show relevant open menus, loading, error and empty states. Explain the visible change briefly and list any remaining checks.

When reviewing several changes, provide one index with the PR number and name, a selector and Previous/Next controls, and a direct link to each comparison. Load only the selected review. The maintainer can approve by PR number and give exceptions or requested adjustments in a normal message.

Visual approval covers the described appearance and interaction; integration still requires the relevant checks. Retain approval across rebases that preserve that scope. Implement explicitly requested adjustments and update the evidence; ask again only if the resulting scope goes beyond what was approved or requested.

Checks

Run the same checks CI runs before submitting:

python3 packaging/test-launchers.py
cargo fmt --all --check
cargo clippy --locked --all-targets -- -D warnings
cargo clippy --locked --all-targets --all-features -- -D warnings
cargo test --locked --all-targets
cargo test --locked --all-targets --all-features
cargo test --locked --all-features --doc
RUSTDOCFLAGS='-D warnings' cargo doc --locked --all-features --no-deps
(cd docs && bundle exec jekyll build)

Linux needs the development packages listed in the README; nix develop provides the complete development environment. The command compatibility test also needs dbus-run-session, to use a private bus instead of the desktop's. MilkDrop builds libprojectM from source, so every platform also needs CMake, a C++ compiler, and libclang (on Windows, vcpkg with glew:x64-windows-static installed and VCPKG_INSTALLATION_ROOT pointing at it); --no-default-features leaves MilkDrop out and needs none of that. CI repeats the test suite on Linux, macOS, and Windows. Passing CI is required, but does not replace review for correctness, product fit, maintainability, or security.

Credential-storage changes also need a native store round trip. With the desktop keyring unlocked, run cargo test --locked --lib credentials::tests::native_store_round_trip -- --ignored --exact. It uses temporary dummy grants and deletes them afterward. CI runs this check on macOS and Windows; Linux requires an available Secret Service provider. The ordinary test suite uses an isolated fake store and never reads a real Spotify grant. Demo mode also skips credential restoration.

Flatpak state-persistence changes also need packaging/flatpak/test-state.sh. It requires Flatpak, Ruby, and an installed Platform runtime, and checks both manifests using disposable dummy state. Pass a runtime and branch to use an existing installation, for example packaging/flatpak/test-state.sh org.kde.Platform 6.9.

Translation changes also need .github/scripts/update-translations.sh --check, using GNU gettext tools with Rust support. Run the script without --check when translatable source strings change, and review any fuzzy or missing entries in the updated PO files. Normal Cargo builds compile the catalogs without gettext tools. See Translating Spotifast for the pilot scope and contributor workflow.

Documentation deployments take their canonical URL from the domain configured in GitHub Pages. When changing domains, configure DNS and GitHub Pages before redeploying; the previous hostname keeps working until that switch. Renamed guides use jekyll-redirect-from to preserve their old URLs.

When changing Cargo.lock or flake.nix, also verify nix build .#default on a Nix host or wait for the Nix CI job. A package-version-only lockfile change can change the vendor hash. Releases must wait for all required CI jobs on the version commit before the tag is pushed.

By contributing, you agree that your contribution is licensed under the project's MIT License.

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