Directory structure
This page documents the Zulip directory structure, where to find things, and how to decide where to put a file.
You may also find the new application feature tutorial helpful for understanding the flow through these files.
Core Python files
Zulip uses the Django web framework, so a lot of these paths will be familiar to Django developers.
zproject/urls.py
Main Django routes file. Defines which URLs are handled by which view functions or templates.zerver/models/*.py
Django models files. Defines Zulip’s database tables.zerver/lib/*.py
Most library code.zerver/actions/*.py
Most code doing writes to user-facing database tables lives here. In particular, we have a policy that all code callingsend_event_on_commit
to trigger pushing data to clients must live here.zerver/views/*.py
Most Django views.zerver/webhooks/
Webhook views and tests for Zulip’s incoming webhook integrations.zerver/tornado/views.py
Tornado views.zerver/worker/
Queue workers.zerver/lib/markdown/
Backend Markdown processor.zproject/backends.py
Authentication backends.
HTML templates
See our docs for details on Zulip’s templating systems.
templates/zerver/
For Jinja2 templates for the backend (for zerver app; logged-in content is intemplates/zerver/app
).web/templates/
Handlebars templates for the frontend.
JavaScript, TypeScript, and other frontend assets
web/src/
Zulip’s own JavaScript and TypeScript sources.web/styles/
Zulip’s own CSS.web/images/
Images bundled with webpack.static/images/
Images served directly to the web.web/third/
Third-party JavaScript and CSS that has been vendored.node_modules/
Third-party JavaScript installed via pnpm.web/shared/icons/
Icons placed in this directory are compiled into an icon font.
Tests
zerver/tests/
Backend tests.web/tests/
Node Frontend unit tests.web/e2e-tests/
Puppeteer frontend integration tests.tools/test-*
Developer-facing test runner scripts.
Management commands
These are distinguished from scripts, below, by needing to run a Django context (i.e. with database access).
zerver/management/commands/
Management commands one might run at a production deployment site (e.g., scripts to change a value or deactivate a user properly).zilencer/management/commands/
includes some dev-specific commands such aspopulate_db
, which are not included in the production distribution.
Scripts
scripts/
Scripts that production deployments might run manually (e.g.,restart-server
).scripts/lib/
Scripts that are needed on production deployments but humans should never run directly.scripts/setup/
Scripts that production deployments will only run once, during installation.tools/
Scripts used only in a Zulip development environment. These are not included in production release tarballs for Zulip, so that we can include scripts here one wouldn’t want someone to run in production accidentally (e.g., things that delete the Zulip database without prompting).tools/setup/
Subdirectory oftools/
for things only used during the development environment setup process.tools/ci/
Subdirectory oftools/
for things only used to set up and run our tests in CI. Actual test suites should go intools/
.
API and bots
See the Zulip API repository. Zulip’s Python API bindings, a number of Zulip integrations and bots, and a framework for running and testing Zulip bots, used to be developed in the main Zulip server repo but are now in their own repo.
templates/zerver/integrations/
(withintemplates/zerver/
, above). Documentation for these integrations.
Production Puppet configuration
This is used to deploy essentially all configuration in production.
puppet/zulip/
For configuration for production deployments.puppet/zulip/manifests/profile/standalone.pp
Main manifest for Zulip standalone deployments.
Additional Django apps
confirmation
Email confirmation system.analytics
Analytics for the Zulip server administrator (needs work to be useful to normal Zulip sites).corporate
The old Zulip.com website. Not included in production distribution.zilencer
Primarily used to hold management commands that aren’t used in production. Not included in production distribution.
Jinja2 compatibility files
zproject/jinja2/__init__.py
Jinja2 environment.
Translation files
locale/
Backend (Django) and frontend translation data files.
Documentation
docs/
Source for this documentation.
You can consult the repository’s .gitattributes
file to see exactly
which components are excluded from production releases (release
tarballs are generated using tools/build-release-tarball
).