For Developers

*See also: docs in the source code - *https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/docs/README.md

Start here

• Get the Code: Checkout, Build, & Run
• Contributing code

How-tos

Note that some of these guides are out-of-date.

Getting the Code

• Quick reference of common development commands.
• Look at our Git Cookbook for a helpful walk-through, or the Fast Intro to Git Internals for a background intro to git.
• Changelogs for Chromium and Blink.

Development Guides

• Debugging on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Android.
• Threading
• Subtle Threading Bugs and How to Avoid Them
• Visual Studio tricks
• Debugging GPU related code
• How to set up Visual Studio debugger visualizers to make the watch window more convenient
• Linux Development tips and porting guide
• Mac Development
• Generated files
• Chromoting (Chrome Remote Desktop) compilation
• Updating module dependencies
• Editing dictionaries
• Editors Guides
  • Atom
  • Eclipse
  • Emacs cscope
  • QtCreator
  • SlickEdit
  • Sublime Text
  • Visual Studio Code
• Learning your way around the code
• Guide to Important Libraries, Abstractions, and Data Structures
  • Important Abstractions and Data Structures
  • Smart Pointer Guidelines
  • String usage
• Android WebView
• GitHub Collaboration

See also: All How-tos.

Blink

• Blink Project
  • Binding Team
  • Layout Team
  • Memory Team
  • Paint Team
  • Style Team
  • Animation Team
  • Input Team
• Running and Debugging the Blink layout tests
• Blink Sheriffing
• Web IDL interfaces
• Class Diagram: Blink Core to Chrome Browser
• Rebaselining Tool
• How repaint works
• Phases of Rendering
• Blink, Testing, and the W3C
• Baseline computation and some line layout docs
• Fast Text Autosizer
• Debugging with ScopedLogger

Testing and Infrastructure

• Tests
  • Tour of the Chromium Buildbot Waterfall
  • Getting the buildbot source
  • WebKit Layout Tests
  • Flakiness Dashboard HOWTO
  • Frame Rate Test
  • GPU Testing
  • GPU Recipe
  • WebGL Conformance Tests
  • Blink, Testing, and the W3C
  • The JSON Results format
• Browser Tests
• Handling a failing test
• Running Chrome tests
• Reliability Tests
• Using Valgrind
• Page Heap for Chrome
• Establishing Blame for Memory usage via Memory_Watcher
• GPU Rendering Benchmarks
• Infra documentation
• Contacting a Trooper

Performance

• Adding Performance Tests
• Telemetry: Performance testing framework
  • Cluster Telemetry: Run benchmarks against the top 10k web pages
• Memory
• Profiling Tools:
  • Thread and Task Profiling and Tracking (about:profiler) Also allows diagnosing per-task heap usage and churn if Chrome runs with “--enable-heap-profiling=task-profiler”.
  • Tracing tool (about:tracing)
  • Deep Memory Profiler
  • Investigating Windows Binary Sizes
• Perf Sheriffing
• Optimizing Energy Consumption
• Speed Hall of Fame

Sync

• Sync overview
• Sync diagnostics
• Syncable Service API

Diagnostics

• Diagnostics

Documentation hosted in / generated by source code

• depot_tools
• C++ use in Chromium
• GN: Meta-build system that generates NinjaBuild files; Intended to be GYP replacement.
• MB: Meta-build wrapper around both GN and GYP.
• Chrome Infra

Practices

• Core Product Principles
  • No Hidden Preferences
• Contributing code
  • Coding style
    • C++ Dos and Don'ts
    • Cocoa Dos and Don'ts
    • Web Development Style Guide
    • Java
    • Jinja
  • Becoming a Committer
  • Gerrit Guide (Googler/Non-Googler)
  • Create experimental branches to work on
  • Committer's responsibility
  • OWNERS Files
  • Try server usage
  • Commit queue
  • Tips for minimizing code review lag across timezones
• Declare your intent to launch/change a feature
• Filing bugs
  • Severity Guidelines for Security Issues
• Network bug triage
• GPU bug triage
• The Zen of Merge Requests
• Ticket milestone punting
• Tree Sheriffs
• Useful extensions for developers
• Adding 3rd-party libraries

Design documents

• Getting around the source code directories
• Tech Talks: Videos & Presentations
• Engineering design docs
• User experience design docs
• Sharing design documents on Google drive: share on Chromium domain If on private domain, share with self@chromium.org, then log in with self@chromium.org, click “Shared with Me”, right-click “Make a copy”, then set the permissions: “Public on the web” or “Anyone with the link”, generally “Can comment”. It a good idea to then mark your local copy (PRIVATE) and only edit the public copy.

Communication

• General discussion groups
• Technical discussion groups
• IRC
• Development calendar and release info
• Common Terms & Techno Babble
• Making a web standards proposal

Status

• Status Update Email Best Practices
• chromestatus.com

Usage statistics

• MD5 certificate statistics

Graphics

• Graphics overview and design docs

External links

• Waterfalls
  • Continuous build (console)
  • Memory (console)
  • For Your Information build (console)
  • Try Server
• Build Log Archives (chromium-build-logs)
• Bug tracker
• Code review tool
• Viewing the source
• GYP (Generate Your Projects) Project Page
• Glossary (acronyms, abbreviations, jargon, and technobabble)