overview architecture

Architecture

QA Scribe has three runtime layers: a React renderer, a Tauri command bridge, and a Rust core that owns SQLite, managed files, and generation workflows. AI calls are local process executions, not hosted API calls from the app.

Runtime diagram

graph LR
    User[Tester] -->|edits records| Renderer[React renderer]
    Renderer -->|typed commands| Bridge[Tauri command bridge]
    Bridge -->|locks service| Service[SessionService]
    Service -->|SQL| SQLite[(SQLite app-data DB)]
    Service -->|managed files| Attachments[attachments/session-id]
    Bridge -->|background job| JobStore[JobStore]
    JobStore -->|spawn CLI| Provider[Claude, Codex, or Copilot CLI]
    Provider -->|stream text| JobStore
    JobStore -->|events| Renderer

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Layers

The renderer in frontend/src/app/useAppController.ts owns view state, autosave timing, active provider choices, generation jobs, and UI notices. frontend/src/tauriCommands.ts wraps generated command bindings from frontend/src/bindings.ts so view code does not call Tauri directly.

The desktop shell in src-tauri/src/main.rs creates the app-data directory, opens qa-scribe.sqlite, builds AppState, registers JobStore, and wires the Specta command handler. Command modules under src-tauri/src/commands translate frontend calls into SessionService methods and structured CommandError values from src-tauri/src/commands/error.rs.

The core crate in crates/qa-scribe-core/src/lib.rs contains domain DTOs, SQLite storage, attachment management, AI provider command construction, prompt rendering, response repair, and persistence workflows. crates/qa-scribe-core/src/storage/mod.rs owns schema version 7 and the tables for Sessions, Entries, Attachments, Findings, Evidence links, Generation contexts, AI runs, Drafts, and App settings.

Source mix

The codebase is mostly Rust by source file count, with a React/TypeScript renderer and a smaller set of packaging scripts. See By the numbers for the full snapshot.

xychart-beta
    title "Tracked source files by language"
    x-axis ["Rust", "TypeScript", "TSX", "JavaScript", "CSS", "Python"]
    y-axis "Files" 0 --> 90
    bar [82, 35, 21, 16, 7, 5]

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Data boundaries

SQLite and attachment files live in the Tauri app-data directory created by src-tauri/src/main.rs. Managed attachment import and preview logic in crates/qa-scribe-core/src/attachments/mod.rs hashes file content and uses relative paths under attachments/<session-id>/. Provider authentication stays outside QA Scribe; provider readiness and model detection are implemented in src-tauri/src/commands/providers.

For feature-level flows, see Session capture, Managed attachments, and AI-assisted Testware.