ArchiCraft

ArchiCraft is a desktop application for drawing buildings as precise 3D models and saving them as IFCX (IFC5), the open buildingSMART format. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, works offline, and sends no data anywhere.

What it must do is specified in the SRS; what it is built with is in the technology choices.

Status

This is the first version: increment 0 of the SRS, the "walking skeleton" (SRS Appendix F). It covers:

• Projects from a default metric template (storeys, layers, 25 materials, tool defaults), with storeys, layers and materials editable in dialogs.
• Straight walls (single, chain, rectangle, rotated rectangle) and slabs (polygon, rectangle, rotated rectangle), with order-independent L and T wall junctions.
• Plan views generated from the 3D bodies (cut, projected and overhead lines, cut fills from materials), with snapping, typed distances and angles in any unit, and click or area selection.
• 3D views rendered with wgpu: perspective and parallel projection, presets, orbit, pan, zoom, picking, and four display modes.
• Properties panel and settings dialog for tool defaults and selections, with mixed values for multiple selections.
• Undo and redo for every change, through command objects.
• IFCX as the native format: spatial tree, IFC classes, names, meshes and materials that any IFCX viewer shows, plus the full parametric model in the declared archicraft:: namespace, so a saved project opens fully editable.
• Safe saving: atomic saves with backups, autosave to a separate recovery folder with recovery after a crash, and local crash reports.

Doors, windows, roofs, layered walls, columns, beams, stairs and the other SRS increments come next; the work is tracked with beads (bd ready).

Building and running

You need the Rust toolchain; rust-toolchain.toml selects the right version.

cargo run --release -p archicraft-app            # start ArchiCraft
cargo run --release -p archicraft-app -- my.ifcx  # open a project

On Linux, the application needs a Vulkan or OpenGL driver and, for file dialogs, an XDG desktop portal; standard desktops have both.

On macOS, scripts/package-macos.sh builds a release and packs it into target/dmg/ArchiCraft-<version>-macos-arm64.dmg, with ArchiCraft.app and a link to Applications to drag it to. The app is signed ad hoc; set CODESIGN_IDENTITY to sign it with a Developer ID instead. On another Mac, an ad hoc signed app opens only after the user allows it under System Settings → Privacy & Security.

scripts/package-linux.sh (a tarball with the executable, icon and desktop entry) and scripts/package-windows.sh (a zip with the executable, icon embedded; Git Bash, Windows SDK and Python with Pillow) do the same on Linux and Windows. All three take the app icon from ArchiCraft_Logo.png, rendered at 1024 px from the vector source ArchiCraft_Logo.svg (rsvg-convert -w 1024 -h 1024 ArchiCraft_Logo.svg -o ArchiCraft_Logo.png, then copy it to crates/archicraft-app/assets/). An in-between release for testers, with all three packages of a pushed commit as a GitHub pre-release, comes from the workflow Preview release: /preview-release in Claude Code, or gh workflow run preview-release.yml --ref main -f notes="What to try".

System requirements

ArchiCraft runs on Windows, macOS and Linux and draws with the GPU: Metal on macOS, DirectX 12 or Vulkan on Windows, Vulkan on Linux. The performance targets refer to two hardware classes (SRS NFR-PERF-001; the classes in detail):

Class	macOS	Windows	Linux
Minimum	MacBook Air M1, 8 GB RAM	Intel Core i5-1135G7 (Iris Xe graphics), 8 GB RAM, 1920 × 1080 display	Ubuntu 26.04 LTS on the minimum Windows laptop
Reference	MacBook Air M2, 16 GB RAM	Intel Core Ultra 7 155H (Arc graphics), 16 GB RAM	Ubuntu 26.04 LTS on the reference Windows laptop

ArchiCraft works on the minimum class; the performance targets are met on the reference class unless a target names the minimum class. Measurements are in docs/performance. Every release publishes this section (SRS NFR-PORT-006, release checklist item 4).

Testing

cargo test --workspace                      # unit, integration, golden-file and UI tests
cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets      # lints
conformance/run.sh crates/archicraft-ifcx/tests/golden/*.ifcx

The conformance check loads IFCX files with buildingSMART's reference implementation and viewer composition (SRS IFX-006); it needs Node.js and network access to fetch the pinned reference code. CI runs all of this on Linux, plus cargo-deny (licences, advisories, sources and bans); the tests run on Windows for every change to main and nightly. The tests run on macOS (Apple silicon) when a version tag v* is pushed, or by hand with gh workflow run macos.yml. The conformance check runs on Linux, Windows and macOS every night and by hand, and on Linux for pull requests that change the model, geometry, IFCX or conformance code (.github/workflows/conformance-matrix.yml). The IFCX reader and the typed-input parser are fuzzed every night, and for an hour per target before a release (gh workflow run fuzz.yml -f minutes=60; docs/testing.md, Fuzzing).

Each release also goes through the manual checks of docs/test-plan/release-checklist.md, among them the hosted IFC5 viewer check of IFX-006.

Repository guards keep done requirements done: scripts/check-layering.sh keeps UI crates out of the headless crates, scripts/check-legal.sh refuses trademarks and unlisted images, library parts and templates, and deny.toml refuses HTTP client crates, which is why adding such a dependency fails CI (see docs/testing.md).

Implementing with Claude Code

Implementation runs through the bead loop: one task (bead) per Claude Code session, tests first, an automatic gate, an independent review, and a pull request that merges on green CI. Start with the tutorial in docs/loop-tutorial.md; the design and its rules are in docs/loop.md.

Repository layout

Path	Content
crates/archicraft-model	Domain model, command/undo core, units, default template
crates/archicraft-geometry	Meshes, wall junctions, plan cuts
crates/archicraft-ifcx	IFCX reader and writer (ifcx_alpha adapter), bundled schemas
crates/archicraft-app	The desktop application (eframe, egui, wgpu)
conformance/	IFX-006 check with buildingSMART's reference code (test-only)
scripts/	Packaging (macOS DMG), repository guards, the bead loop (scripts/loop/)
docs/	SRS, technology choices, roadmap, implementation status, testing, the bead loop

License

This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). See LICENSE. The components the program contains keep their own licences; THIRD-PARTY.md lists them with their licence texts and ships with every package.