Ferrostar GSOC 2025

[Archdoog]

Ferrostar - Session Recorder, Snapshot Testing Tool

Developers fix problems faster when they can “see what the user sees.” When something is wrong, users need a way to show what went wrong.To that end, we’re proposing a session recorder and replay module for Ferrostar. When enabled by a developer, this code will log both sensor updates and intermediate state from Ferrostar's core during
a navigation session.

Ferrostar’s core is designed as a set of pure functions. Every time the user’s position or another sensor updates, Ferrostar will produce a new state deterministically. By recording all of the inputs and the resulting state, we can build a session recorder with dual uses. Either we can “see through the user’s eyes” what happened, or we play back just the inputs (GPS data and so on) to verify that app behavior has (or has not!) changed after some code changes. This process is called snapshot testing.

The contributor working on this project will work with the team to design an appropriate serialization format, build the session recorder functionality, design APIs for working with it, integrate it into the existing unit testing framework, and introduce replace functionality for at least one of the big three frontends (Native iOS or Android, or Typescript web components).

Mandatory Skills

The majority of the work will be in Rust. There will also be some work in a frontend platform of your choice (iOS, Android, Web); you don’t need to be an excellent frontend designer or anything, but some basic knowledge will be nice.

Useful Skills

Prior experience with mobile development certainly won’t hurt!

[bp7968h]

Hi,

I am interested in contributing to this project, as it seems a very interesting and would be great opportunity to enhance my Rust and Typescript skills and ship something to production. However, I have no prior mobile dev experience, but I am open to learning.

I was curious how mapping technology works under the hood, I have done (and am still working on) some maps related work which can be found in my Github repository and I was particularly interested in routing and found this GSOC project, so really interested on working on it.

I'd love to get started and would really appreciate any advice or guidance you could share on where to begin and the next steps, please.

Looking forward to learning from all of you!

[4Christinelh4]

Hi,

I came across this project on the idea list and would love to give it a try!

I've worked on a few Rust projects 1 & 2 during university and have some experience with TypeScript, along with limited exposure to Swift.

I'd love to dive in and see how I can contribute. If you have any advice or guidance, I’d really appreciate it.

Looking forward to discussing this further!

[Kandarp05]

Hi,

I’ve been exploring this project, and I really appreciate the work being done here. I’d love to start contributing and learn more along the way.

I have a strong interest in Rust and have worked on a project in it. I also have experience in web development, having built multiple projects there.

Could you point me to any good first issues or areas where help is needed?

Looking forward to getting involved!

[ianthetechie]

Welcome to everyone who's interested + commenting here :) We have in issue tracker here where you can take a look at + discuss issues: https://github.com/stadiamaps/ferrostar/issues. In case you're not familiar with GitHub issues, every issue can be optionally tagged with a label, and we have around 20 issues tagged as "good first issue": https://github.com/stadiamaps/ferrostar/issues?q=is%3Aissue%20state%3Aopen%20label%3A%22good%20first%20issue%22.

Admittedly "good first issue" is highly subjective, so take the label with a grain of salt, but that's a good place to look to get started. There are several related issues around detecting and logging errors bettor across all platforms, but the primary surface for these will probably be Rust (I think).

Please comment on issues before starting work. This way others won't try to do the same work twice. And if anything isn't clear, please do leave a comment asking for clarification.

[Akila618]

Hi!

I'm really interested in contributing to this project. This is my first GSOC attempt, and I see this as a great opportunity to enhance my Rust skills while making meaningful contributions. I have experience in Rust programming (and I'm continuously learning more 😊), Android development with Java, and mobile frontend development with React Native.

I’m excited about collaborating, learning from the community, and improving both my skills and the project itself.
Looking forward to learning, coding, and growing together 😀!