onionHEN/CONTRIBUTING.md

Contributing

Keep the change small. Put it in the process that already owns that job. Do not invent a parallel path.

The map is docs/arch.md. Update that file when you change modules, IPC, runtime paths, or dependencies.

Runtime

OnionHEN.elf (unpacker)
  → bootstrapper.elf
    → onion_elfldr.elf :9020
      → util.elf → kstuff.elf → daemon.elf
        → inject shellui.elf into SceShellUI

The first hop still needs an external elfldr on 9021. After that, user payloads and internal ELFs go through the private loader on 9020. Startup is serial on purpose: util, then kstuff, then daemon. Do not start those three in parallel.

Where a change belongs

If you are changing…	Put it here
First boot, remount, update block, ELF launch order	source/bootstrapper/
Toolbox inject, fan rewrite, crit IPC, app jailbreak	source/daemon/
Cheats, heavier I/O, util IPC	source/util/
Toolbox pages, OnPress, overlay, language list	source/shellui/
LZMA wrap of the bootstrapper	source/unpacker/
Shared config schema	source/libonion_settings/
Notifications, log, small FS helpers	source/libonion_platform/
Unix IPC client / server	source/libonion_ipc/
User-facing strings	source/i18n/

Reuse libonion_*, libNineS, libhijacker, and libNidResolver. Do not copy a helper into a page file because it is closer.

Settings persist through onion::Settings and the twin config.ini paths. A Toolbox save is settings_commit → BREW_RELOAD_SETTINGS → LoadSettings. That rereads config in daemon and util. It does not inject ShellUI again.

Code

• Match the snake_case already in source/.
• Leave third-party file names as the upstream project spelled them.
• New Toolbox UI goes through ps5ui::Page in toolbox_xml.cpp and the existing OnPress tables. Do not add a second menu builder.
• New toasts use stable notify.* keys via onion_notify. Do not pass an English sentence as the key.

Strings

Toolbox and notification text live in source/i18n/*.json. Add or change a key in every locale file, and keep the printf placeholders the same. See source/i18n/README.md.

A new JSON file is compiled automatically. It is not selectable until you also add the settings value, Toolbox list item, and Lang / ONION_NOTIFY_LANG_* mappings.

Build and tests

export PS5_PAYLOAD_SDK=/path/to/ps5-payload-sdk
./scripts/build.sh
make -C source/util/tests test

Host tests live in source/util/tests/. They cover settings, IPC, cheats, Toolbox routing, and i18n. Run them even if you cannot flash a console.

Products go under build/. Downloads go under .cache/dependencies/. Do not write either into source/.

Pull requests

Use the Bug report or Feature request form for issues. Firmware, loader, and logs matter more than a long write-up.

Contributions are under the same GNU GPL v3 as this tree.