genshin-assistant/docs/ARCHITECTURE.md

Architecture

This document describes the structure, boundaries, flows, and technical rules of the system.

High-Level Overview

Genshin Artifact Assistant is a local desktop application. Electron owns OS integration, screen capture, IPC, and overlay windows. React owns the interactive UI. Domain logic for OCR parsing, scoring, scanner state, and recommendations lives in TypeScript modules under src/lib.

flowchart LR
    User["User"]
    Genshin["Genshin Impact Window"]
    Electron["Electron Main Process"]
    React["React Renderer"]
    Parser["OCR Parser and Scoring"]
    LocalData["Local Snapshot / Future SQLite"]

    User --> React
    React --> Electron
    Electron --> Genshin
    Electron --> React
    React --> Parser
    Parser --> React
    React --> LocalData

Architecture Style

Field	Value
Style	Desktop modular monolith
Primary reason	One local app with tight UI, capture, and parsing feedback loops
Main trade-off	Faster iteration now, but scanner heuristics must stay isolated to avoid UI coupling

Folder Structure

/
  electron/          Electron main process and preload bridge
  src/               React app, domain types, parser/scoring logic
  data/              Seed or package data
  docs/              Project documentation and decisions
  dist/              Generated renderer build
  dist-electron/     Generated Electron build
  outputs/           Packaged app output

Module Responsibilities

Module	Responsibility
electron/main.ts	Window lifecycle, capture source listing, Smart Capture, OCR crop generation, overlay window IPC, persistent PowerShell input/capture helper, JSON artifact store
electron/preload.cjs	Safe renderer bridge exposed as window.assistantApi
src/lib/artifactStore.ts	Pure signature/id/record helpers for the persistent artifact store
src/App.tsx	Main app shell, scan view, triage view, build view, overlay preview
src/lib/artifactOcrParser.ts	Converts OCR output into a parsed artifact candidate with confidence and notes
src/lib/fuzzyMatch.ts	Generic fuzzy string matching for OCR text against known game data
src/lib/scoring.ts	Recommendation and build scoring logic
src/lib/demoData.ts	Temporary local demo snapshot
src/data/genshinGameData.json	Generated local dictionary of characters, artifact sets, slots, and stats
scripts/generate-genshin-data.cjs	Regenerates the local Genshin dictionary from genshin-db
src/types/*	Shared app, capture, and domain contracts

Dependency Rules

• Renderer code calls Electron only through the preload bridge.
• Electron main process must not import React renderer modules.
• Pure parsing and scoring modules must not depend on Electron APIs.
• OCR uncertainty must be represented in data, not hidden in UI only.
• Generated folders must not be treated as source of truth.

Smart Capture Flow

sequenceDiagram
    participant UI as React Scan UI
    participant Bridge as Preload Bridge
    participant Main as Electron Main
    participant Game as Genshin Window
    participant OCR as OCR Worker

    UI->>Bridge: captureSource(sourceId, 0, focusGenshin=true)
    Bridge->>Main: IPC capture:captureSource
    Main->>Main: Hide app window
    Main->>Game: Focus Genshin window
    Main->>Main: Capture primary screen via GDI
    Main->>Main: Detect artifact detail panel
    Main->>OCR: OCR focused crops
    OCR-->>Main: Text and confidence
    Main->>Main: Restore app window
    Main-->>UI: Full capture, detail preview, crops, OCR results
    UI->>UI: Parse candidate and show result

Data Flow

Data	Source	Owner	Consumers
Capture sources	Electron desktopCapturer	Electron main	Scan UI
Screenshot	Windows GDI / desktopCapturer	Electron main	Cropper, OCR, UI preview
OCR crops	Electron main	Electron main	Details modal, parser
Game dictionary	genshin-db generated JSON	src/data/genshinGameData.json	OCR parser
Parsed artifact candidate	OCR parser	Renderer domain logic	Result panel, future local DB
Review samples	User action in Scan UI	Electron userData review-samples.jsonl	Future regression tests and OCR training
Stored artifacts	Manual/automatic scans	Electron userData artifact-store.json (dedupe by content signature)	Future triage, recommendations, SQLite migration
Recommendations	Scoring module	Renderer domain logic	Triage and builds views

Scan Modes

Manual scan is read-only: the user clicks artifacts in Genshin, the app repeatedly runs Smart Capture, deduplicates by content signature, persists new artifacts to the local store, and saves review samples when crops/OCR are missing, total confidence is low, field confidence is low, or parser notes indicate incomplete data.

Automatic grid scan is user-triggered input automation limited to clicking detected inventory tiles and wheel-scrolling the inventory. Safety and reliability rules:

• All input goes through one persistent PowerShell helper process (input-helper.ps1 in userData) that compiles the Win32 interop once and speaks JSON over stdin/stdout (ops: ping, focus, cursor, click, scroll, capture). Mouse movement is sent as iterated relative SendInput deltas (what a real mouse produces): Genshin tracks the cursor via raw input and snaps the OS cursor back to its own position every frame, so SetCursorPos/absolute moves silently stop working once the game owns the cursor. The helper verifies the cursor reached the target and refuses to click otherwise.
• Failsafe: before every click and scroll the renderer polls cursor position and ESC state. Holding ESC or moving the mouse away from the last automated position aborts the scan immediately; the Stop button also aborts. Only the GetAsyncKeyState held-down bit (0x8000) is used - the "pressed since last call" bit fires for stale ESC presses from normal Genshin menu navigation and caused false aborts.
• SendInput's return value is checked: zero injected events (UIPI, e.g. elevated Genshin vs. non-elevated app) aborts with an explicit hint instead of silently clicking into nothing.
• Click verification: after each click the parsed detail-panel signature should change. An unchanged signature is a soft miss (it can also mean two OCR-identical neighbor pieces, common among +0 artifacts), so it is retried once with a small offset, logged with the stuck artifact name, and then skipped - never fatal on its own. The scan aborts only when the first ~6 clicks of page 1 produce nothing new (diagnosis hint: elevated Genshin blocks SendInput via UIPI, or grid coordinates are wrong) or a later page yields zero new artifacts.
• Scan stats separate clicked (click attempts), parsed (readable captures), stored (persisted), review (review samples), duplicates, and misses, so "scanned" cannot be mistaken for "successfully read".
• Scrolling sends one wheel notch per grid row with the cursor anchored over the inventory (assumption: roughly one row per notch; overlap is absorbed by dedupe, and a page without new artifacts stops the scan).
• The scan never deletes, enhances, feeds, locks, or spends anything; it only selects tiles to read them.

Parsed artifacts from both modes are persisted into artifact-store.json keyed by a content signature that excludes the equipped character, so re-equipping updates a record instead of duplicating it. Leveling an artifact currently creates a new record (documented limitation until rescan-merge exists).

Security And Safety

Area	Policy
Game access	Screen capture only; no memory reads, hooks, or process injection
Automation	Future feature only, opt-in and reversible
Data privacy	Local-first; no upload path in scanner MVP
Secrets	No cookies or API tokens required for scanner MVP
Unsafe actions	Never delete, feed, enhance, or spend resources

Error Handling

• Capture failures should surface in the scan status row.
• Missing Electron bridge should explain that browser preview cannot capture Genshin.
• OCR failures should leave the capture available and mark parsed fields as unknown.
• Low-confidence data should go to review instead of silent acceptance.
• Parsed artifact fields carry individual confidence and source metadata so the UI can show uncertainty per field.

Performance

Current OCR is prototype-grade and may be slower than the target scanner. Two batch-scan bottlenecks were removed: input/capture no longer spawn a PowerShell process (and recompile Win32 interop) per action, and the Tesseract worker is created once and reused across captures. The eventual batch scanner should still move expensive capture/OCR/build work into workers or a native sidecar.