Development

Working with Miniflux’s codebase is straightforward:

Requirements

Check Out the Source Code

Fork the project and clone the repository locally.

Miniflux uses Go Modules to manage dependencies.

Compilation

Build the application for the current platform:

make miniflux

To specify a version number:

make miniflux VERSION=2.0.29

Cross-compilation:

# Build binaries for all supported platforms
make build

# Build Linux binary for amd64 architecture
make linux-amd64

# ARM 64-bit (arm64v8)
make linux-arm64

# ARM 32-bit variant 7 (arm32v7)
make linux-armv7

# ARM 32-bit variant 6 (arm32v6)
make linux-armv6

# ARM 32-bit variant 5 (arm32v5)
make linux-armv5

# macOS (amd64)
make darwin-amd64

# macOS (arm64 / Apple Silicon)
make darwin-arm64

# FreeBSD (amd64)
make freebsd-amd64

# OpenBSD (amd64)
make openbsd-amd64

# Windows (amd64)
make windows-amd64

Remove Precompiled Binaries 

make clean

Run the Software Locally 

make run

This command runs the software in debug mode. If needed, you can run a local PostgreSQL database with Docker.

Linter 

make lint

Unit Tests 

make test

Integration Tests

Integration tests validate API endpoints with a real database.

You need to have PostgreSQL installed locally, preconfigured with the user “postgres” and the password “postgres”. Alternatively, you can run a local PostgreSQL database with Docker.

To run integration tests, execute the following command:

make integration-test ; make clean-integration-test

If the test suite fails, you will see the logs of Miniflux.

Build Docker Image

Miniflux supports different architectures for Docker images: amd64, arm32v6, arm32v7, and arm64v8.

Here is an example to build only the amd64 image:

make docker-image

Build all images and override the image name:

make docker-images DOCKER_IMAGE=your-namespace/miniflux

Override the build version:

make docker-images DOCKER_IMAGE=your-namespace/miniflux VERSION=42

Note that you need to enable Docker experimental features to build multi-platform images. Miniflux uses buildx.

Build RPM Package

You can build your own RPM package using this command:

make rpm

Note that Docker is required to generate the RPM package. All build operations are performed inside a container.

Build Debian Package

You can build your own Debian package using this command:

make debian

Use the following command to build packages for all supported architectures (amd64, arm64, and armhf):

make debian-packages

Note that Docker is required to generate the Debian packages. All build operations are performed inside a container.

GitHub Codespaces

The Miniflux development environment is preconfigured for GitHub Codespaces. It is useful for small contributions.

Click the “Create codespace” button in the GitHub web UI to create a new development environment in the cloud. Once it’s ready, you can use Visual Studio Code to edit the source code.

Run a Local PostgreSQL Database with Docker

Based on the PostgreSQL Docker image.

You can create a local PostgreSQL database for testing easily with the following command:

docker run --rm --name local-miniflux2-db -p 5432:5432 -e POSTGRES_DB=miniflux2 -e POSTGRES_USER=postgres -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=postgres postgres

To persist data:

docker volume create local-miniflux2-data
docker run --rm --name local-miniflux2-db -p 5432:5432 -v local-miniflux2-data:/var/lib/postgresql/data -e POSTGRES_DB=miniflux2 -e POSTGRES_USER=postgres -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=postgres postgres

To delete data:

docker volume rm local-miniflux2-data