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+# SurfaceFlinger FrontEnd
+
+SurfaceFlinger FrontEnd implements the client APIs that describe how buffers should be
+composited on the screen. Layers are used to capture how the buffer should be composited
+and each buffer is associated with a Layer. Transactions contain an atomic set of changes
+to one or more of these layers. The FrontEnd consumes these transactions, maintains the
+layer lifecycle, and provides a snapshot to the composition engine every frame that
+describes how a set of buffers should be composited.
+
+
+
+## Layers
+Layers are used to describe how a buffer should be placed on the display relative to other
+buffers. They are represented as a hierarchy, similar to a scene graph. Child layers can
+inherit some properties from their parents, which allows higher-level system components to
+maintain policies at different levels without needing to understand the entire hierarchy.
+This allows control to be delegated to different parts of the system - such as SystemServer,
+SysUI and Apps.
+
+### Layer Lifecycle
+Layer is created by a client. The client receives a strong binder reference to the layer
+handle, which will keep the layer alive as long as the client holds the reference. The
+layer can also be kept alive if the layer has a parent, since the parent will hold a
+strong reference to the children. If the layer is not reachable but its handle is alive,
+the layer will be offscreen and its resources will not be freed. Clients must explicitly
+release all references to the handle as soon as it's done with the layer. It's strongly
+recommended to explicitly release the layer in Java and not rely on the GC.
+
+
+
+## Transactions
+Transactions contain a group of changes to one or more layers that are applied together.
+Transactions can be merged to apply a set of changes atomically. Merges are associative,
+meaning how you group the merges does not matter, but they are not commutative, meaning
+that the order in which you merge them does.
+For example:
+
+`Transaction a; a.setAlpha(sc, 2);`
+
+`Transaction b; b.setAlpha(sc, 4);`
+
+`a.merge(b)` is not the same as `b.merge(a)`
+
+<p>
+
+`Transaction c; c.setAlpha(sc, 6);`
+
+`a.merge(b).merge(c)` is the same as `b.merge(c); a.merge(b);`
+
+Transactions are queued in SurfaceFlinger per ApplyToken so order is only guaranteed for
+Transactions with the same applyToken. By default each process and each buffer producer
+provides a unique ApplyToken. This prevents clients from affecting one another, and possibly
+slowing each other down.
+
+
+
+## Architecture
+SurfaceFlinger FrontEnd intends to optimize for predictability and performance because state
+generation is on the hotpath. Simple buffer updates should be as fast as possible, and they
+should be consistently fast. This means avoiding contention (e.g., locks) and context
+switching. We also want to avoid doing anything that does not contribute to putting a pixel
+on the display.
+
+The pipeline can be broken down into five stages:
+- Queue and filter transactions that are ready to be committed.
+- Handle layer lifecycles and update server-side state per layer.
+- Generate and/or update the traversal trees.
+- Generate a z-ordered list of snapshots.
+- Emit callbacks back to clients
+
+
+### TransactionHandler
+TransactionHandler is responsible for queuing and filtering transactions that are ready to
+be applied. On commit, we filter the transactions that are ready. We provide an interface
+for other components to apply their own filter to determine if a transaction is ready to be
+applied.
+
+
+### LayerLifecycleManager
+RequestedLayerState is a simple data class that stores the server side layer state.
+Transactions are merged into this state, similar to how transactions can be merged on the
+client side. The states can always be reconstructed from LayerCreationArgs and a list of
+transactions. LayerLifecycleManager keeps track of Layer handle lifecycle and the layer
+lifecycle itself. It consumes a list of transactions and generates a list of server side
+states and change flags. Other components can register to listen to layer lifecycles.
+
+
+### LayerHierarchyBuilder
+LayerHierarchyBuilder consumes a list of RequestedLayerStates to generate a LayerHierarchy.
+The hierarchy provides functions for breadth-first traversal and z-order traversal of the
+entire tree or a subtree. Internally, the hierarchy is represented by a graph. Mirrored
+layers are represented by the same node in the graph with multiple parents. This allows us
+to implement mirroring without cloning Layers and maintaining complex hierarchies.
+
+
+### LayerSnapshotBuilder
+LayerSnapshotBuilder consumes a LayerHierarchy along with a list of RequestedLayerStates to
+generate a flattened z-ordered list of LayerSnapshots. LayerSnapshots contain all the data
+required for CompositionEngine and RenderEngine. It has no dependencies to FrontEnd, or the
+LayerHierarchy used to create them. They can be cloned and consumed freely. Other consumers
+like WindowInfo listeners (input and accessibility) also updated from these snapshots.
+
+Change flags are used to efficiently traverse this hierarchy where possible. This allows us
+to support short circuiting parts of the hierarchy, partial hierarchy updates and fast paths
+for buffer updates.
+
+
+While they can be cloned, the current implementation moves the snapshot from FrontEnd to
+CompositionEngine to avoid needless work in the hotpath. For snapshot consumers not critical
+to composition, the goal is to clone the snapshots and consume them on a background thread.