Genesis

Genesis is an Android app that runs user-built applets. An applet is a native-feeling React UI over one or more live website sessions: each context is a WebView that loads the real website and keeps its history, an adapter in the page publishes what the page shows as keyed records and actions, and the applet owns the screens, data and rules. Pages the applet does not customize, sign-in, cookies and protected flows stay with the website, which appears in place in the same session when needed.

There are two kinds of work:

Layer	Owns	Start here
Genesis platform	The Android shell, the Rust host, the shared packages, build tooling and builder guidance	AGENTS.md
Applets	Website adapters, screens, application rules, stored data and optional backends	factory/AGENTS.md, factory README, getting started

An applet author uses the public SDK and their own code, and does not need to learn the host implementation.

Repository map

Path	Contents
android/app/	Java shell: activity, launcher, context WebViews, website bar, native Genesis menu, service HTTPS client
android/native/	Rust host genesis-host: applets, contexts, documents, RPC, storage, services, compatibility, imports (libgenesis_host.so)
crates/contracts/	genesis-contracts: shell events and commands, document messages, bundle types, limits, error codes
packages/core/	@genesis/core: manifest validation, route matching, presentation coordinator, compatibility table, protocol types, bundle format, error codes
packages/sdk/	@genesis/sdk: bridge, foreground runtime, record store and React hooks, adapter runtime
packages/applet-tools/	genesis-applet CLI: create, check (including compatibility), build, device install, services, kit export
tools/	APK asset and native build pipeline, package index check, service helpers
factory/	Applet-builder instructions, guides, skills and templates
applets/	The applets directory: a separate repository (nirvanacp/applets) with the hn-bookmarks, x-bookmarks and gmail-only applets, their port registry and backend launcher. Not tracked here
genesis.workspace.json	Where the workspace's parts live: the applets directory and the repository it is cloned from
genesis.packages.json	Applets bundled into the APK, named by their directory in the applets directory

Build and run

Requirements: Node 24, Cargo 1.94.0 with cargo-ndk 4.1.2, the Android SDK with NDK 28.2.13676358 and ANDROID_HOME set, and OpenSSL for the example backends. tools/build.mjs checks these versions and names the install command for a missing one. From the repository root:

npm run workspace -- setup   # clone the applets repository into the configured directory
npm install
npm run typecheck
npm run build

# Build the APK, including the native library and bundled applets, and install it.
android/gradlew -p android :app:installDebug

# Build an applet and install it on a connected device without reinstalling the APK.
node packages/applet-tools/src/cli.mjs check applets/x-bookmarks
node packages/applet-tools/src/cli.mjs build applets/x-bookmarks
node packages/applet-tools/src/cli.mjs dev install applets/x-bookmarks --device emulator-5554

dev install sends the last build, so run build first. Hacker News is bundled into the APK through genesis.packages.json; X is installed with dev install. Release builds refuse dev install: they bundle each applet's published release, and users add other applets with Add applet in the launcher's Genesis menu, from a public GitHub repository or a downloaded bundle file. Genesis reviews every build before installing it and offers updates from the same source. Publishing covers versions, tags and the CI workflows that publish a release.

An entry in genesis.packages.json can be an object, { "id": "hn-bookmarks", "drawer": true }, to give that bundled applet its own entry in the Android app drawer. The entry shows the applet's name over its accent color, with the icon its manifest names as shell.icon; an applet without an icon gets no entry. The entry appears once the applet is installed and runs on this device. Before shipping a build to a store, check that each icon is original artwork and that each name does not claim to be the website's own app.

Applets directory

The applets live in their own repository, outside this one's history. genesis.workspace.json says where:

{ "applets": { "directory": "applets", "repository": "[email protected]:nirvanacp/applets.git" } }

directory is relative to the repository root or absolute. Name each applet's directory after its applet id, a short product name such as hn-bookmarks rather than a website domain, since one applet can span several websites. The root installs every applet's dependencies through the npm workspace applets/*, so all of them share one node_modules and one React. npm run workspace -- <command> keeps the checkout in line with the config:

Command	What it does
path	Prints the applets directory
setup	Clones repository into directory when it is missing, then runs sync
sync	When directory is not applets, links applets/ to it; when it is outside the repository, also links its node_modules to the root install
check	Fails with the repairing command when the checkout differs from the config. npm run check:packages runs it too

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