Lacros is an architecture project to decouple the Chrome browser from the Chrome OS window manager and system UI. The name comes from Linux And ChRome OS.
Googlers: go/lacros has internal docs.
On Chrome OS, the system UI (ash window manager, login screen, etc.) and the web browser are the same binary. Lacros separates this functionality into two binaries, henceforth known as ash-chrome (system UI) and lacros-chrome (web browser).
The basic approach is to rename the existing binary to ash-chrome, with minimal changes. We then take the linux-chrome binary, improve its Wayland support, make it act like the web browser on Chrome OS, and ship that as the lacros-chrome binary. This allows the two binaries to be released independently, with some performance/resource costs. The API boundary initially will be semi-stable: it will tolerate 1-2 milestones of version skew. We may allow larger amounts of skew in the future.
Both binaries are built out of the chromium git repository. However, the binaries might be built at different versions. For example, the version of lacros built from the M-101 branch might run on top of the ash version built from the M-100 branch.
Lacros can be imagined as “Linux chrome with more Wayland support”. Lacros uses ozone as an abstraction layer for graphics and event handling. Ozone has a “backend” with client-side support for the Wayland compositor protocol.
Chrome OS has a Wayland server implementation called exosphere. It is used by ARC (to run Android apps) and Crostini (to run Linux apps).
Lacros will use exo as the Wayland server for graphics and event handling. Where possible we use stable Wayland protocols. We also share Wayland protocol extensions with ARC and Crostini (e.g. zaura-shell. Higher-level features (e.g. file picking) use Mojo IPC.
We call the new Mojo API surface “crosapi”. It‘s similar in concept to Win32 or Cocoa, but much smaller. It’s also mostly asynchronous for performance reasons. The API lives in //chromeos/crosapi. The ash-side implementation lives in //chrome/browser/chromeos/crosapi.
Code can be conditionally compiled into lacros via BUILDFLAG(IS_LACROS).
Lacros bugs can be filed under component: OS>LaCrOs.
Most test suites require ash-chrome to be running in order to provide a basic Wayland server. This requires a special test runner:
./build/lacros/test_runner.py test out/lacros/browser_tests --gtest_filter=BrowserTest.Title
Some test suites require ash-chrome to provide both a Wayland server and a valid mojo crosapi connection. This requires the test target lacros_chrome_browsertests:
./build/lacros/test_runner.py test out/lacros/lacros_chrome_browsertests --gtest_filter=ScreenManagerLacrosBrowserTest.*
If you're sshing to your desktop, please prefix the command with ./testing/xvfb.py.
For sheriffs: Test failures that should have been caught by the CQ should be treated like test failures on any other platform: investigated and fixed or disabled. Use BUILDFLAG(IS_LACROS) to disable a test just for lacros. See the sheriffing how-to.