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Development Guide

::: tip This page mainly describes the PR workflow and MAA's file formatting requirements. If you want to learn specifically how to make changes to MAA's operational logic, please refer to the Protocol Documentation :::

::: tip You can Ask DeepWiki to learn about the overall architecture of the MAA project. :::

I don't know programming but just want to modify some JSON files/documents, how can I do it?

Welcome to the Web-based PR Tutorial that anyone can understand (purely web-based on Github.com)

I want to make simple modifications to a few lines of code, but configuring the environment is too tedious and pure web editing is difficult to use. What should I do?

Use the GitHub Codespaces online development environment and try it out!

We've preset several different development environments for you to choose from:

• Blank environment with a bare Linux container (default)

  

• Lightweight environment, suitable for documentation site frontend development

  

• Full environment, suitable for MAA Core related development (not recommended, suggest local development with full environment setup. See next section)

  

Complete Environment Setup (Windows)

1. If you forked the repository long ago, first delete it via your repository's Settings at the bottom.

2. Visit the MAA main repository, click Fork, then Create fork.

3. Clone the dev branch of your repository with submodules:

   git clone --recurse-submodules <your repository link> -b dev
   

   ::: warning If using Git GUI clients like Visual Studio without --recurse-submodules support, run git submodule update --init after cloning to initialize submodules. :::

4. Download prebuilt third-party libraries
   Python environment required - search for Python installation tutorials if needed
   (tools/maadeps-download.py is located in the project root)

   python tools/maadeps-download.py
   

5. Configure development environment

   • Download and install CMake
   • Download and install Visual Studio 2026 Community, selecting Desktop development with C++ and .NET Desktop Development during installation.

6. Execute cmake project configuration

   cmake --preset windows-x64
   

7. Double-click build/MAA.slnx to open the project in Visual Studio.

8. Configure Visual Studio settings

   • Select Debug and x64 in the top configuration bar
   • Right-click MaaWpfGui - Set as Startup Project
   • Press F5 to run

   ::: tip To debug Win32Controller (Windows window control) features, you need to manually download the corresponding platform package from MaaFramework Releases, and place MaaWin32ControlUnit.dll from the bin directory into MAA's DLL directory (e.g. build/bin/Debug). PRs for an auto-download script are welcome! :::

9. Now you're ready to happily mess around start developing!

10. Commit regularly with meaningful messages during development
    If you're not familiar with git usage, you might want to create a new branch for changes instead of committing directly to dev:

    git branch your_own_branch
    git checkout your_own_branch
    

    This keeps your changes isolated from upstream dev updates.

11. After development, push your local branch (e.g. dev) to your remote repository:

    git push origin dev
    

12. Submit a Pull Request at the MAA main repository. Ensure your changes are based on the dev branch, not master.

13. To sync upstream changes:

    1. Add upstream repository:

       git remote add upstream https://github.com/MaaAssistantArknights/MaaAssistantArknights.git
       

    2. Fetch updates:

       git fetch upstream
       

    3. Rebase (recommended) or merge:

       git rebase upstream/dev # rebase
       

       or

       git merge # merge
       

    4. Repeat steps 8, 9, 10, 11.

::: tip After opening Visual Studio, Git operations can be performed using VS's built-in "Git Changes" instead of command-line tools. :::

Using VSCode for Development (Optional)

::: warning Visual Studio is the recommended IDE for development. The MAA project is primarily built around Visual Studio, and the complete environment setup described above covers all development needs with the best out-of-the-box experience. The VSCode workflow is provided only as an alternative for developers already familiar with VSCode + CMake + clangd, and requires more configuration effort. :::

If you prefer VSCode, you can use CMake, clangd, and related extensions for code completion, navigation, and debugging. After completing steps 1–6 above (clone, dependencies, CMake configuration), follow these steps:

Recommended Extensions

Install from the VSCode marketplace:

Extension	Purpose
CMake Tools	CMake configure, build, and debug integration
clangd	C++ IntelliSense, code navigation, diagnostics (LSP-based)
C/C++	Debug C++ programs (works with CMake Tools or launch.json)

::: tip When using clangd, set C_Cpp.intelliSenseEngine to disabled to avoid conflicts with the C/C++ extension's IntelliSense. :::

Setup Steps

1. Open the project root folder in VSCode
2. CMake Tools:
   • Select a Configure Preset from the status bar (e.g. windows-x64, linux-x64)
   • Select a Build Preset and run configure/build
3. clangd: Works on Windows with MSVC without needing compile_commands.json. On Linux/macOS, presets enable CMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS and clangd uses build/compile_commands.json automatically
4. Debugging: The project includes .vscode/launch.json for launching MaaWpfGui or Debug Demo

Build and Debug Shortcuts

• Build: Ctrl+Shift+B or via CMake Tools status bar
• Debug: F5 or choose a configuration from the Run and Debug panel

MAA File Formatting Requirements

MAA uses a series of formatting tools to ensure that the code and resource files in the repository are visually unified for easy maintenance and reading.

Please ensure that it has been formatted before submission, or enable Pre-commit Hooks for automatic formatting.

The currently enabled formatting tools are as follows:

File Type	Format Tool
C++	clang-format
Json/Yaml	Prettier
Markdown	markdownlint

Use Pre-commit Hooks to Automatically Format Code

1. Ensure that you have Python and Node environments on your computer.

2. Execute the following command in the root directory of the project:

   pip install pre-commit
   pre-commit install
   

If pre-commit still cannot be used after pip install, please check if the pip installation path has been added to the PATH.

The formatting tool will automatically run every time you submit to ensure that your code format conforms to the style guide.

Enable clang-format in Visual Studio

1. Install clang-format version 20.1.0 or higher.

   python -m pip install clang-format
   

2. Use tools like 'Everything' to locate the installation location of clang-format.exe. As a reference, if you are using Anaconda, clang-format.exe will be installed in YourAnacondaPath/Scripts/clang-format.exe.

3. In Visual Studio, search for 'clang-format' in Tools-Options.

4. Click Enable ClangFormat support and select Use custom clang-format.exe file and choose the clang-format.exe located in Step 2.

You are all set with the clang-format integrated in Visual Studio supporting c++20 features!

You can also format with tools\ClangFormatter\clang-formatter.py directly, by executing in the root folder of the project:

• python tools\ClangFormatter\clang-formatter.py --clang-format=PATH\TO\YOUR\clang-format.exe --input=src\MaaCore