Net-Flow

# 📊 Net Flow **Real-Time Network Bandwidth Telemetry & Native Windows 11 Widget** *Built in pure Rust for maximum performance, buttery-smooth fluid waveforms, and near-zero resource footprint.* [](https://github.com/rockerrishabh/net-flow/actions/workflows/ci.yml) [](CHANGELOG.md) [](ms-windows-store://pdp/?productid=9PCR54NGJ94J) [](https://www.microsoft.com/windows) [](https://www.rust-lang.org/) [](#-license)

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✨ Highlights

• 🪟 Native Windows 11 Widgets Board Integration: First-class widget integration (Win + W) with native Adaptive Cards v1.6 support across Small, Medium, and Large card dimensions.
• 📈 Mirrored Dual-Stream Waveforms: An in-memory supersampled sparkline rendering download traffic above the baseline (in vibrant cyan #38D9F0) and upload traffic below (in warm amber #FFB020) on a shared scale with glowing pulse nodes.
• 🌊 50 KB/s Scale Floor & Headroom: A vertical scale floor keeps sub-kilobyte background network noise proportional, while 18% vertical headroom cushions traffic spikes from card boundaries.
• ⚡ Ultra-Low Resource Usage: Uses native Windows IP Helper (GetIfTable2) APIs and asynchronous Rust for near-zero CPU (< 0.1%) and negligible RAM footprint (< 15 MB).
• 🛜 Smart Active Adapter Detection: Auto-detects the primary active network adapter with contextual badges (Wi-Fi with friendly SSID, Ethernet, Cellular, VPN).
• 📱 Per-App Bandwidth Attribution: Tracks active applications consuming network bandwidth with compact rate formatting (↓ 11.1 ↑ 9.1 KB/s (37)) and generous 22-character name budgets.
• 📊 Session Usage Tracking: Monitors cumulative upload/download data transferred and active session duration with an inline Reset button.
• ⚙️ In-Card Customization: Configurable speed units (Auto-scaled, Bytes/s, KB/s, MB/s, Gbps) and adjustable waveform time windows (15s, 30s, 60s, 120s) directly inside the widget card.

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📥 Installation

1. Microsoft Store (Recommended)

Net Flow is available directly through the Microsoft Store with seamless background updates:

👉 Get Net Flow on the Microsoft Store (Product ID: 9PCR54NGJ94J)

2. Local Developer Sideloading

If building from source or testing modifications locally:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/rockerrishabh/net-flow.git
cd net-flow

# One-command build, packaging, self-signing, and sideload registration
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts/setup_msix.ps1

Once installed:

1. Press Win + W to open the Windows Widgets Board.
2. Click + (Add Widgets) in the top-right corner.
3. Select Net Flow and pin your preferred size (Small, Medium, or Large).

3. Portable Archive

Download the standalone net-flow-windows-x64.zip directly from GitHub Releases.

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⚡ Performance & Architectural Hardening

Net Flow is engineered from the ground up for zero distraction, extreme reliability, and minimal system impact:

Metric / Component	Implementation	Impact
Release Binary Size	Link-Time Optimization (lto = true, strip = true, codegen-units = 1)	1.24 MB standalone executable
CPU Utilization	Direct Win32 IP Helper polling (GetIfTable2) & diffing	< 0.1% CPU during active monitoring
Memory Footprint	Bounded caches & in-memory rasterization	< 15 MB working set
Process Sampling	Decoupled 1.0s process inspection + 500ms network throughput polling	Zero system scheduler jitter or scaling distortion
COM Lifetime	Automatic idle detection with 30s grace period and CoRevokeClassObject	Zero zombie background processes when unpinned
Lock Poison-Safety	Poison-recovering extension traits (lock_safe, read_safe, write_safe)	Fault-tolerant under panic = "abort"
Log Management	Thread-safe 1MB rotating logger in %TEMP%	Prevents disk bloat; quiet by default

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🔒 Privacy & Permissions (Why “Precise Location”?)

When running Net Flow, Windows 11 may show Net Flow under Settings → Privacy & security → Location or briefly show the taskbar location icon.

Why Does Windows Flag This?

1. Friendly Wi-Fi Name: In the card header, Net Flow displays the name of your active Wi-Fi network (e.g. Home-5G instead of generic Wi-Fi).
2. The Win32 Wi-Fi API: To read that SSID, Net Flow queries the Windows Native Wi-Fi API (wlanapi.dll via WlanQueryInterface).
3. Microsoft’s Privacy Grouping: Because nearby Wi-Fi network names (SSIDs and BSSIDs) can theoretically be cross-referenced against global Wi-Fi positioning databases to estimate a device’s physical location, Windows 10/11 classifies all native Wi-Fi scanning and query APIs under the “Precise Location” permission toggle.

Our Privacy Guarantee

• Zero Location Tracking: Net Flow contains zero GPS code, zero geolocation libraries, and makes zero network requests.
• 100% Offline: Net Flow does not transmit any data over the internet. There are zero diagnostics, zero analytics, and zero telemetry servers.
• Completely Optional: If you disable location in Windows Settings, Net Flow continues running with 100% functionality—it simply displays Wi-Fi in the header instead of your network name.

📖 For complete details, see our Privacy Policy (PRIVACY.md).

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🏗️ Architecture

Net Flow is structured as a modular, high-performance Rust workspace:

net-flow/
├── .github/
│   └── workflows/
│       ├── ci.yml                     # Continuous integration & MSIX packaging validation
│       └── publish.yml                # Release pipeline & Microsoft Store submission
├── crates/
│   └── core/                          # net-flow-core (pure Rust core logic)
│       ├── src/
│       │   ├── backend.rs             # IP Helper polling, delta computing & interface classification
│       │   ├── card.rs                # Adaptive Cards v1.6 JSON builders & templates
│       │   ├── chart.rs               # In-memory dual-stream waveform rasteriser
│       │   ├── format.rs              # Bandwidth scaling & humanized unit formatting
│       │   ├── icons.rs               # Embedded vector glyphs (PNG data URIs)
│       │   └── process.rs             # Active process network attribution & bounded icon cache
├── widget/                            # net-flow (Windows App SDK COM widget provider)
│   ├── Assets/                        # Master branding, high-DPI logos, app.ico, and favicon pack
│   │   ├── MasterLogo.png             # 816x816 high-res squircle master logo
│   │   ├── Square150x150Logo.png      # 300x300 Windows tile logo
│   │   ├── Square44x44Logo.png        # 88x88 widget header & provider logo
│   │   ├── StoreLogo.png              # 100x100 Microsoft Store logo
│   │   ├── app.ico                    # Multi-res Windows executable icon (256, 128, 64, 48, 32, 16)
│   │   └── favicon.ico                # Web & docs favicon suite (48, 32, 16)
│   ├── Package.appxmanifest           # Open-source generic manifest template
│   ├── build.rs                       # Resource compilation & icon embedding
│   └── src/
│       ├── bindings.rs                # Windows App SDK WinMD bindings
│       ├── factory.rs                 # Out-of-proc COM ClassFactory implementation
│       ├── main.rs                    # WinMain entry point, COM lifecycle & idle shutdown
│       └── provider.rs                # IWidgetProvider2 handler with poison-resilient locks
├── scripts/
│   └── setup_msix.ps1                 # Local developer build, test-signing & sideloading
├── Cargo.toml                         # Workspace manifest & LTO release profile
├── CHANGELOG.md                       # Release notes & version history
├── CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md                 # Contributor Covenant v2.1
├── CONTRIBUTING.md                     # Contributor guide & developer workflow
├── LICENSE-APACHE                     # Apache 2.0 License
├── LICENSE-MIT                        # MIT License
├── PRIVACY.md                         # Store-ready Privacy Statement & location disclosure
└── SECURITY.md                        # Security policy & vulnerability reporting

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🧪 Testing & Verification

Run all 75 workspace unit tests:

cargo test --workspace

Run Clippy with strict zero-warnings enforcement:

cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets --all-features -- -D warnings

Build the optimized release binary (1.24 MB):

cargo build --release --workspace

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📦 CI/CD & Microsoft Store Publishing

Net Flow includes automated GitHub Actions workflows:

1. ci.yml: Runs on every push and pull request. Validates formatting, executes all 75 unit tests, and verifies MSIX layout packaging.
2. publish.yml: Triggered on Git tags (e.g. v0.1.0) or manual workflow dispatch. Builds the optimized binary, injects Partner Center secrets into the manifest, packages the MSIX, publishes GitHub Releases, and submits the update to the Microsoft Store via the Store Submission API.

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👤 Author & Maintainer

Net Flow is an independent open-source project created and actively maintained by:

• Rishabh Kumar
• GitHub: @rockerrishabh
• Email: admin@rockerrishabh.me

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📜 Documentation

• Changelog — Version history and release notes.
• Contributing Guide — How to develop, test, and contribute.
• Privacy Policy — Privacy commitments and location disclosure.
• Security Policy — Vulnerability reporting and threat model.
• Code of Conduct — Community standards.

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📄 License

This project is dual-licensed under either of:

• MIT License (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
• Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)

at your option.

Contributions

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in Net Flow by you shall be dual-licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.

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