Architecture
System Overview
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Tauri v2 Shell │
│ │
│ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │
│ │ Editor (Web) │ │
│ │ │ │
│ │ Vue 3 UI Skia CanvasKit (WASM, 7MB) │ │
│ │ - Toolbar - Vector rendering │ │
│ │ - Panels - Text shaping │ │
│ │ - Properties - Image processing │ │
│ │ - Layers - Effects (blur, shadow) │ │
│ │ - Color Picker - Export (PNG, SVG, PDF) │ │
│ │ │ │
│ │ ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │
│ │ │ Core Engine (TS) │ │ │
│ │ │ SceneGraph ─── Layout (Yoga) ─── Selection │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ Undo/Redo ─── Constraints ─── Hit Testing │ │ │
│ │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │ │
│ │ │ │
│ │ ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │
│ │ │ File Format Layer │ │ │
│ │ │ .fig import/export ── Kiwi codec ── .svg (planned) │ │ │
│ │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │ │
│ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │
│ │
│ MCP Server (planned, 117 tools) Collaboration (planned, CRDT) │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Editor Layout
The UI follows Figma's UI3 layout — toolbar at the bottom, navigation on the left, properties on the right:
- Navigation panel (left) — Layers tree, pages panel, asset library (planned)
- Canvas (center) — Infinite canvas with CanvasKit rendering, zoom/pan
- Properties panel (right) — Context-sensitive sections: Appearance, Fill, Stroke, Typography, Layout, Position
- Toolbar (bottom) — Tool selection: Select, Frame, Section, Rectangle, Ellipse, Line, Text, Pen, Hand
Components
Rendering (CanvasKit WASM)
The same rendering engine as Figma. CanvasKit provides GPU-accelerated 2D drawing with:
- Vector shapes (rect, ellipse, path, line, star, polygon)
- Text shaping via Paragraph API
- Effects (shadows, blurs, blend modes)
- Export (PNG, SVG, PDF)
The 7MB WASM binary loads at startup and creates a GPU surface on the HTML canvas.
Scene Graph
Flat Map<string, Node> keyed by GUID strings. Tree structure via parentIndex references. Provides O(1) lookup, efficient traversal, hit testing, and rectangular area queries for marquee selection.
See Scene Graph Reference for internals.
Layout Engine (Yoga WASM)
Meta's Yoga provides CSS flexbox layout computation. A thin adapter maps Figma property names to Yoga equivalents:
| Figma Property | Yoga Equivalent |
|---|---|
stackMode: HORIZONTAL | flexDirection: row |
stackMode: VERTICAL | flexDirection: column |
stackSpacing | gap |
stackPadding | padding |
stackJustify | justifyContent |
stackChildPrimaryGrow | flexGrow |
File Format (Kiwi Binary)
Reuses Figma's proven Kiwi binary codec with 194 message/enum/struct definitions. The .fig import pipeline: parse header → Zstd decompress → Kiwi decode → NodeChange[] → scene graph. The export pipeline reverses the process: scene graph → NodeChange[] → Kiwi encode → Zstd compress → ZIP with thumbnail.
See File Format Reference for details.
Undo/Redo
Inverse-command pattern. Before applying any change, affected fields are snapshotted. The snapshot becomes the inverse operation. Batching groups rapid changes (like drag) into single undo entries.
Clipboard
Figma-compatible bidirectional clipboard. Encodes/decodes fig-kiwi binary using native browser copy/paste events (synchronous, not async Clipboard API).