MQTT Explorer

The App has moved to mqtt-explorer.com

MQTT Explorer is a comprehensive and easy-to-use MQTT Client.
Downloads can be found at the link above.

This page is dedicated to its development. Pull-Requests and error reports are welcome.

Quick Start with GitHub Codespaces

The fastest way to start developing is with GitHub Codespaces:

1. Click the green "Code" button above
2. Select "Codespaces" tab
3. Click "Create codespace on [branch]"
4. Wait for the environment to set up (includes Node.js and MQTT broker)
5. Run yarn dev:server to start development

The devcontainer includes a pre-configured MQTT broker and all development tools. See .devcontainer/README.md for details.

Run from sources

Desktop Application (Electron)

npm install -g yarn
yarn
yarn build
yarn start

Browser Mode (Web Application)

MQTT Explorer can also run as a web application served by a Node.js server:

npm install -g yarn
yarn
yarn build:server
yarn start:server

Then open your browser to http://localhost:3000. For more details, see BROWSER_MODE.md.

Develop

Desktop Application

Launch Application

npm install -g yarn
yarn
yarn dev

Browser Mode

Launch in development mode with hot reload:

npm install -g yarn
yarn
yarn dev:server

The app directory contains all the rendering logic, the backend directory currently contains the models, tests, connection management, src contains all the electron bindings. mqttjs is used to facilitate communication to MQTT brokers.

Automated Tests

To achieve a reliable product automated tests run regularly on CI.

• Data model tests: yarn test:backend
• App tests: yarn test:app
• UI test suite: yarn test:ui (independent, deterministic tests)
• Demo video: yarn ui-test (UI test recording for documentation)

Run UI Test Suite

The UI test suite validates core functionality through automated browser tests. Each test is independent and deterministic.

# Run with automated setup (recommended)
./scripts/runUiTests.sh

# Or run directly (requires manual MQTT broker setup)
yarn build
yarn test:ui

See docs/UI-TEST-SUITE.md for more details.

Run Demo Video Generation

A mosquitto MQTT broker is required to generate the demo video.

yarn build
yarn ui-test

Create a release

Create a PR to release branch. There needs to be a "feat: some new feature" or "fix: some bugfix" commit for a new release to be created

Create a beta release

Create a PR to beta branch. A "feat" or "fix" commit is necessary to create a new version.

Write docs

git clone --single-branch -b gh-pages https://github.com/thomasnordquist/MQTT-Explorer.git mqtt-explorer-pages
cd mqtt-explorer-pages
bundle install
bundle exec jekyll serve --incremental

Readme file: Readme.tpl.md

Preview is available at http://localhost:4000/Readme.tpl

Update docs

npm install
./updateReadme.ts

The readme will be generated from the docs.

License

CC-BY-Nc 4.0

The license allows for anyone to adapt, share, and redistribute the material, as long as it is non-commercial.