Architecture

The portable core#

refract-graph owns typed state, bindings, derived values, observers, batching, ownership, and invalidation. refract-core layers on views, mounted identity, environment, memoization, effects, styles, and semantic patches.

The refract facade re-exports the public API and prelude. refract-macros supplies optional authoring conveniences such as #[view], #[state], and #[action]; these expand to the ordinary runtime APIs.

Platform adapters#

refract-web manages DOM and Shadow DOM hosting, CSS mapping, native browser events, input composition, and scheduling.

refract-desktop handles Winit hosting, retained Taffy layout, Parley text, replaceable Vello GPU rendering, and Rust timers. refract-test provides a deterministic in-memory adapter for behavioral checks.

Verify a change#

Run the repository checks from the workspace root. The suite covers graph invalidation, keyed edits, provider replacement, memoization, effects, stale callbacks, and incremental updates.

cargo fmt --all --check
cargo test --workspace --all-features --locked
cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets --all-features --locked -- -D warnings

Go deeper in the source#

README.md is the implementation overview. ARCHITECTURE.md describes the broader design; consult its status notes before treating a design as implemented. crates/desktop/README.md details native hosting and rendering.

Explore examples/counter, examples/clock, examples/gallery, and examples/chat for complete applications. docs/VALIDATION.md records validation work. These paths are relative to the repository root.