These design principles make it easier to write, debug, and maintain code in //chrome/browser.

Caveats:

• These are recommendations, not requirements.
• These are not intended to be static. If you think a principle doesn't make sense, reach out to //chrome/OWNERS.
• These are intended to apply to new code and major refactors. We do not expect existing features to be refactored, except as need arises.

Structure, modularity:

• Features should be modular with no dependency cycles.

  • This is a provisional design principle. We are currently investigating feasibility. TODO: canonical example
  • For most features, all business logic should live in some combination of //chrome/browser/, //chrome/browser/ui/ or //component/.
  • WebUI resources are the only exception. They will continue to live in //chrome/browser/resources/ alongside standalone BUILD.gn files.
  • This directory should have a standalone BUILD.gn and OWNERs file.
  • This directory may have its own namespace.
  • This directory should have a public/ subdirectory to enforce further encapsulation.
    • The main reason for this is to guard against future, unexpected usage of parts of the code that were intended to be private. This makes it difficult to change implementation details in the future.
    • The BUILD.gn should use public/sources separation.
  • Corollary: There are several global functions that facilitate dependency inversion. It will not be possible to call them from modularized features (no dependency cycles), and their usage in non-modularized features is considered a red flag:
    • chrome::FindBrowserWithTab (and everything in browser_finder.h)
    • GetBrowserViewForNativeWindow (via browser_view.h)
    • FindBrowserWindowWithWebContents (via browser_window.h)

• Features should have a core controller with precise lifetime semantics. The core controller for most desktop features should be owned and instantiated by one of the following classes:

  • TabFeatures (member of TabModel)
    • This class should own all tab-centric features. e.g. print preview, lens overlay, compose, find-in-page, etc.
      • If the feature requires instantiation of WebContents::SupportsUserData, it should be done in this class.
    • For desktop chrome, TabHelpers::AttachTabHelpers will become a remove-only method. Clank/WebView may continue to use section 2 of TabHelpers::AttachTabHelpers (Clank/WebView only).
    • More complex features that also target mobile platforms or other supported embedders (e.g. android webview) will continue to use the layered components architecture.
      • We defer to //components/OWNERS for expertise and feedback on the architecture of these features, and encourage feature-owners to proactively reach out to them.
    • Lazy instantiation of WebContents::SupportsUserData is an anti-pattern.
  • BrowserWindowFeatures (member of Browser)
    • example: omnibox, security chip, bookmarks bar, side panel
  • BrowserContextKeyedServiceFactory (functionally a member of Profile)
  • GlobalFeatures (member of BrowserProcess)
  • The core controller should not be a NoDestructor singleton.

• Global functions should not access non-global state.

  • Pure functions do not access global state and are allowed. e.g. base::UTF8ToWide()
  • Global functions that wrap global state are allowed, e.g. IsFooFeatureEnabled() wraps the global variable BASE_FEATURE(kFooFeature,...)
  • Global functions that access non-global state are disallowed. e.g. static methods on BrowserList.

UI

• Features should use WebUI and Views toolkit, which are x-platform.
  • Usage of underlying primitives is discouraged (aura, Cocoa, gtk, win32, etc.). This is usually a sign that either the feature is misusing the UI toolkits, or that the UI toolkits are missing important functionality.
• Features should use “MVC”
  • Clear separation between controller (control flow), view (presentation of UI) and model (storage of data).
  • For simple features that do not require data persistence, we only require separation of controller from view.
  • TODO: work with UI/toolkit team to come up with appropriate examples.
• Avoid subclassing Views/Widgets.
• Avoid self-owned objects/classes for views or controllers.

General

• Code unrelated to building a web-browser should not live in //chrome.
  • See chromeos/code.md for details on ChromeOS (non-browser) code.
  • We may move some modularized x-platform code into //components. The main distinction is that ChromeOS can depend on //components, but not on //chrome. This will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
• Avoid nested message loops.
• Threaded code should have DCHECKs asserting correct sequence.
  • Provides documentation and correctness checks.
  • See base/sequence_checker.h.
• Most features should be gated by base::Feature, API keys and/or gn build configuration, not C preprocessor conditionals e.g. #if BUILDFLAG(FEATURE_FOO).
  • We ship a single product (Chrome) to multiple platforms. The purpose of proprocessor conditionals is:
    • (1) to allow platform-agnostic code to reference platform-specific code.
      • e.g. #if BUILDFLAG(OS_WIN)
    • (2) to glue src-internal into public //chromium/src.
      • e.g. #if BUILDFLAG(GOOGLE_CHROME_BRANDING)
    • (3) To make behavior changes to non-production binaries
      • e.g. #if !defined(NDEBUG)
      • e.g. #if defined(ADDRESS_SANITIZER)
  • (1) primarily serves as glue.
  • (2) turns Chromium into Chrome. We want the two to be as similar as possible. This preprocessor conditional should be used very sparingly. Almost all our tests are run against Chromium, so any logic behind this conditional will be mostly untested.
  • (3) is a last resort. The point of DEBUG/ASAN/... builds is to provide insight into problems that affect the production binaries we ship. By changing the production logic to do something different, we are no longer accomplishing this goal.
  • In all cases, large segments of code should not be gated behind preprocessor conditionals. Instead, they should be pulled into separate files via gn.
  • In the event that a feature does have large swathes of code in separate build files/translation units (e.g. extensions), using a custom feature flag (e.g. BUILDFLAG(ENABLE_EXTENSIONS)) to glue this into the main source is allowed. The glue code should be kept to a minimum.
• Avoid run-time channel checking.
• Avoid test only conditionals
  • This was historically common in unit_tests, because it was not possible to stub out dependencies due to lack of a clear API surface. By requiring modular features with clear API surfaces, it also becomes easy to perform dependency injection for tests, thereby removing the need for conditionals that can be nullptr in tests.
  • In the event that they are necessary, document and enforce via CHECK_IS_TEST().
• Avoid unreachable branches.
  • We should have a semantic understanding of each path of control flow. How is this reached? If we don't know, then we should not have a conditional.
• For a given base::Callback, execution should either be always synchronous, or always asynchronous. Mixing the two means callers have to deal with two distinct control flows, which often leads to incorrect handling of one. Avoid the following:

if (result.cached) {
  RunCallbackSync())
} else {
  GetResultAndRunCallbackAsync()
}

• Avoid re-entrancy. Control flow should remain as localized as possible. Bad (unnecessary delegation, re-entrancy)

class CarSalesPerson : public Delegate {
  // Can return nullptr, in which case no car is shown
  std::unique_ptr<Car> ShowCar() {
    return car_factory_->CreateCar();
  }

  // Delegate overrides:
  // Whether the car should be shown, even if the factory is busy.
  bool ShouldShowCarIfFactoryIsBusy() override;

  CarFactory* car_factory_;
};

class CarFactory {
  std::unique_ptr<Car> CreateCar() {
    if (!CanCreateCar())
      return nullptr;
    if (FactoryIsBusy() && !delegate->ShouldShowCarIfFactoryIsBusy())
      return nullptr;
    return std::make_unique<Car>();
  }

  bool CanCreateCar();
  bool FactoryIsBusy();

  Delegate* delegate_;
};

Good, version 1: Remove delegation. Pass all relevant state to CarFactory so that CreateCar() does not depend on non-local state.

class CarSalesPerson {
  // Can return nullptr, in which case no car is shown
  std::unique_ptr<Car> ShowCar() {
    return car_factory_->CreateCar(ShouldShowCarIfFactoryIsBusy());
  }

  // Whether the car should be shown, even if the factory is busy.
  bool ShouldShowCarIfFactoryIsBusy();

  CarFactory* car_factory_;
};

class CarFactory {
  std::unique_ptr<Car> CreateCar(bool show_even_if_factory_is_busy) {
    if (!CanCreateCar())
      return nullptr;
    if (FactoryIsBusy() && !show_even_if_factory_is_busy)
      return nullptr;
    return std::make_unique<Car>();
  }
  bool CanCreateCar();
  bool FactoryIsBusy();
};

Good, version 2: Remove delegation. CreateCar always create a car (fewer conditionals). State only flows from CarFactory to CarSalesPerson (and never backwards).

class CarSalesPerson {
  // Can return nullptr, in which case no car is shown
  std::unique_ptr<Car> ShowCar() {
    if (!car_factory_->CanCreateCar())
      return nullptr;
    if (car_factory_->FactoryIsBusy() && !ShouldShowCarIfFactoryIsBusy())
      return nullptr;
    return car_factory_->CreateCar();
  }

  // Whether the car should be shown, even if the factory is busy.
  bool ShouldShowCarIfFactoryIsBusy();
  CarFactory* car_factory_;
};

class CarFactory {
  bool CanCreateCar();
  bool FactoryIsBusy();
  // never returns nullptr.
  std::unique_ptr<Car> CreateCar();
};