Development Setup

Set up your local development environment for SyntheticData.

Prerequisites

Required

• Rust: 1.88 or later (install via rustup)
• Git: For version control
• Cargo: Included with Rust

Optional

• Node.js 18+: For desktop UI development (datasynth-ui)
• Protocol Buffers: For gRPC development
• mdBook: For documentation development

Installation

1. Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/EY-ASU-RnD/SyntheticData.git
cd SyntheticData

2. Install Rust Toolchain

# Install rustup if not present
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

# Install stable toolchain
rustup install stable
rustup default stable

# Add useful components
rustup component add clippy rustfmt

3. Build the Project

# Debug build (faster compilation)
cargo build

# Release build (optimized)
cargo build --release

# Check without building
cargo check

4. Run Tests

# Run all tests
cargo test

# Run tests with output
cargo test -- --nocapture

# Run specific crate tests
cargo test -p datasynth-core
cargo test -p datasynth-generators

IDE Setup

VS Code

Recommended extensions:

{
  "recommendations": [
    "rust-lang.rust-analyzer",
    "tamasfe.even-better-toml",
    "serayuzgur.crates",
    "vadimcn.vscode-lldb"
  ]
}

Settings for the project:

{
  "rust-analyzer.cargo.features": "all",
  "rust-analyzer.checkOnSave.command": "clippy",
  "editor.formatOnSave": true
}

JetBrains (RustRover/IntelliJ)

1. Install the Rust plugin
2. Open the project directory
3. Configure Cargo settings under Preferences > Languages & Frameworks > Rust

Desktop UI Setup

For developing the Tauri/SvelteKit desktop UI:

# Navigate to UI crate
cd crates/datasynth-ui

# Install Node.js dependencies
npm install

# Run development server
npm run dev

# Run Tauri desktop app
npm run tauri dev

# Build production
npm run build

Documentation Setup

For working on documentation:

# Install mdBook
cargo install mdbook

# Build documentation
cd docs
mdbook build

# Serve with live reload
mdbook serve --open

# Generate Rust API docs
cargo doc --workspace --no-deps --open

Project Structure

SyntheticData/
├── crates/
│   ├── datasynth-cli/          # CLI binary
│   ├── datasynth-core/         # Core models and traits
│   ├── datasynth-config/       # Configuration schema
│   ├── datasynth-generators/   # Data generators
│   ├── datasynth-output/       # Output sinks
│   ├── datasynth-graph/        # Graph export
│   ├── datasynth-runtime/      # Orchestration
│   ├── datasynth-server/       # REST/gRPC server
│   ├── datasynth-ui/           # Desktop UI
│   └── datasynth-ocpm/         # OCEL 2.0 export
├── benches/                # Benchmarks
├── docs/                   # Documentation
├── configs/                # Example configs
└── templates/              # Data templates

Environment Variables

Debugging

VS Code Launch Configuration

{
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
    {
      "type": "lldb",
      "request": "launch",
      "name": "Debug CLI",
      "cargo": {
        "args": ["build", "--bin=datasynth-data", "--package=datasynth-cli"]
      },
      "args": ["generate", "--demo", "--output", "./output"],
      "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}"
    }
  ]
}

Logging

Enable debug logging:

RUST_LOG=debug cargo run --release -- generate --demo --output ./output

Module-specific logging:

RUST_LOG=synth_generators=debug,synth_core=info cargo run ...

Common Issues

Build Failures

# Clean and rebuild
cargo clean
cargo build

# Update dependencies
cargo update

Test Failures

# Run tests with backtrace
RUST_BACKTRACE=1 cargo test

# Run single test with output
cargo test test_name -- --nocapture

Memory Issues

For large generation volumes, increase system limits:

# Linux: Increase open file limit
ulimit -n 65536

# Check memory usage during generation
/usr/bin/time -v datasynth-data generate --config config.yaml --output ./output

Next Steps

• Review Code Style guidelines
• Read Testing practices
• Learn the Pull Request process