Architecture

ACORE Quest Creator is an Electron app written in TypeScript, with a React interface.

Layout

src/
  core/       Pure logic: no Electron, no React. Quest model, schema, SQL, scripts, map maths.
  main/       Electron's main process: the IPC API, the project store, database connections, map tiles.
  preload/    The bridge that exposes the main process's API to the interface.
  renderer/   The React interface: views, modules, editors, the map.
  shared/     Types shared by main and renderer, such as the IPC contract.
drizzle/      Migrations for the local project store.
tests/        core, main, renderer, integration, e2e and docs tests.
site/         This documentation site.

src/core never imports Electron or React, so almost everything the app decides can be unit-tested in plain Node.

Inside src/core, each feature has its own folder: scripts (quest scripting scenes), combat (the combat wizard), entities (new NPCs and objects), patrol, map, client (reading the game client’s MPQ archives and BLP images), game (server data such as DBC files, map heights and navmesh), export, sql and more.

Processes

• The main process (src/main) owns everything with side effects: the MySQL connection to the world database (read-only) and optional dev database, the local project store (SQLite through Drizzle), the file system, the game client and server data folders, and the acqc-map:// protocol that serves map tiles.
• The renderer (src/renderer) is the interface. It talks to the main process only through the API that src/preload exposes; state lives in Zustand stores in src/renderer/state.

From the editor to SQL

1. Load. Opening an existing quest reads its rows from the world database and turns them into the app’s quest model. A quest that would not read back exactly is marked unsafe to export.
2. Edit. Modules edit the quest model. Scenes, fights, new NPCs and patrols are kept in author terms (for example “when the quest is accepted, say this”), not as rows.
3. Validate. Each module reports warnings and errors, shown as badges.
4. Compile. Export turns the model into rows: the quest’s own tables, plus scripts compiled from scenes, fights and patrol actions.
5. Write. The rows become an SQL patch file, or are applied to the dev database. The Changes dialog shows the same rows before you commit to either.

See What gets written to the database for the tables involved.

Interface conventions

• Creating and editing happen in centred modals. The side panel is only for previews (the quest map is the exception).
• Copy is written in author terms: quests, givers, NPCs, scenes. Table and column names appear only where an admin needs them, such as the Changes dialog.