Windows Architecture

Native Windows architecture

Sensitivity's Windows application is an unpackaged, self-contained WinUI 3 desktop app. It uses Fluent controls and Mica through the stable Windows App SDK. The recovery protocol remains in the shared Rust core and is shipped as sensitivity-cli.exe beside the user-facing Sensitivity.exe.

Process boundary

The app starts the backend with ProcessStartInfo.ArgumentList; ROM paths are never interpolated into a command line. Standard output and standard error are read concurrently so a full pipe cannot stall a recovery operation.

Long-running commands use a private temporary directory containing two one-shot control files:

• creating cancel requests a graceful USB close;
• creating approve-wipe approves a server-required data wipe.

The backend deletes stale control files before connecting. The app first asks for graceful cancellation and only terminates the process tree after an eight-second timeout. The temporary directory is removed when the operation ends.

Machine event contract

sensitivity --machine writes one JSON object per line. Current events are status, progress, confirmation_required, completed, and error. Unknown event names and extra fields must be ignored by supervisors. Human diagnostic text may still appear, so clients should parse only complete JSON objects. Exit status remains authoritative: zero is success and non-zero is failure.

Validation tokens and raw protocol authentication values are deliberately not included in events, diagnostics, settings, or process arguments. App settings contain only ADB preferences and the last selected ROM path in the current user's local application-data directory.

ADB coexistence

The safe default is to leave the user's ADB server running. If Windows reports that the recovery USB interface is busy, the app offers to stop ADB once and retry; it does not silently disrupt another debugging session. Users with a persistently conflicting setup can opt into stopping ADB before every direct USB connection.

Build and release

The Windows CI job is the authoritative XAML compilation check because the Windows App SDK XAML compiler is a Windows executable. Releases publish the WinUI app and Rust backend together, then produce a portable ZIP and an architecture-matched Inno Setup installer for x64 and ARM64. The Start menu shortcut launches only Sensitivity.exe; the CLI remains available for automation and diagnostics through sensitivity-cli.exe.