Graphene

Graphene is a UI-independent Minecraft: Java Edition launcher engine written in Rust. Tauri, Slint, CLI, and other hosts are consumers of the engine rather than part of its domain.

The current repository implements the launcher foundation, Vanilla metadata/install/launch path, provider-neutral accounts with Microsoft authentication support, managed Java support, component composition, Fabric/Forge/NeoForge loader adapters, mutable instance engine with locking, verify, and repair, and provider-neutral content management (local offline mod scanning, Modrinth and CurseForge catalog integration, bounded dependency resolution, journaled transactions, and lockfile convergence). The implementation remains a candidate rather than release sign-off; current automated and real-world validation evidence is tracked in docs/VALIDATION.md.

Start here

• docs/PROJECT_SPECIFICATION.md — product, scope, final target, and non-goals.
• docs/ARCHITECTURE.md — dependency direction and bounded contexts.
• docs/API.md — current public behavior.
• docs/SECURITY.md — trust boundaries and residual risks.
• docs/VALIDATION.md — automated and real-world validation status.
• docs/LOADER_SUPPORT.md — loader compatibility evidence.
• docs/ROADMAP.md — implementation chronology and future work.
• docs/ENGINEERING_STANDARDS.md — testing, modularity, documentation, and ADR policy.

Architecture rule of thumb

Stable Graphene-owned domain models point inward; volatile providers and host frameworks stay at the edges.

The root graphene crate is the consumer-facing facade. Provider DTOs, Reqwest responses, archive codec internals, filesystem publication primitives, and Tokio child handles are implementation details behind bounded-context crates.

Reference hosts

apps/ is a separate Cargo workspace containing two reference consumers of the root graphene facade, plus shared host-only support:

• apps/graphene-cli — reference CLI covering every major service family with human and stable --json output modes.
• apps/graphene-tauri — Vite/TypeScript frontend plus a src-tauri Rust adapter that consumes Graphene over Tauri IPC and typed events.
• apps/graphene-reference-host-support — host-only data-root/config resolution, a production OS credential-vault SecretStore adapter, tracing initialization, and operation/run bridging registries.

Hosts are outward consumers: they never contain Minecraft/provider/install/content/modpack/ diagnostic/launch logic, and no host framework type enters the engine. See docs/ARCHITECTURE.md and docs/SECURITY.md for the host dependency direction and trust boundaries.