English everywhere: code, comments, docs, commits — regardless of
conversation language.
One logical change per commit; never bundle unrelated changes.
No god classes: one class per file, split at ~300 lines or when
responsibilities mix. Layout: lib/src/<module>/ (see
architecture).
Vocabulary: Library, note, folder, tag, template, wikilink, trash,
history. Not vault/canvas/daily note/backlinks.
Design rules:
Disk is source of truth — store nothing in SQLite that cannot be
rebuilt from files.
No disk I/O on the UI isolate — use Isolate.run (every
listSync/statSync is a FUSE round trip on Android). Drift writes
stay on main.
No O(n) full scans on hot paths; FTS5 for search; tree rows
materialized. Target: 1M notes + novel-length files.
Android storage is plain dart:io (MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE, gated
by core/storage_access.dart) — SAF grants are not a substitute.
R8 strips the reminder icon unless pinned via tools:keep in
android/app/src/main/res/raw/dev_niman_niman_keep.xml — update the
keep file when renaming the drawable.
Interface rules:
Icons are outline. A filled icon says a state is on: the selected
tab, a pinned note, the current library, the note in use as the
quick note. Two weights in one list with no state behind them is a
bug.
A control that shows in only some states keeps its place. Disable
it instead of dropping it, or put it on the side the row grows
from, so nothing already on screen slides under a thumb that is
already on it.
Portability: new tests must be portable — p.join for paths
(never literal /), no chmod.
Output discipline: never dump large output into context. Redirect
to scratch dir (/tmp/niman, %TEMP%\niman), read selectively;
never cat whole large files (grep -n / sed -n); paste log lines
only on failure, only the relevant ones.
Docs in the same PR: when a feature is added, modified, or removed,
update the corresponding docs/ page in the same PR (see AGENTS.md).
