Vex Core

Vex Core is the main technical repository for Vex, an independent browser built as a shallow, disciplined fork of brave/brave-core and Chromium.

Status: Pre-alpha development. There are no official supported builds or release channels yet.

Linux is the first development target, with Ubuntu as the initial reference environment.

Vex keeps a small, explicit, and maintainable product delta over a continuously updated Brave upstream. Timely upstream security fixes and improvements take priority over local implementation convenience.

The core rules are:

• reuse Brave and Chromium behavior before creating parallel systems;
• prefer configuration, preferences, feature flags, and Vex-owned files;
• modify inherited files only through narrow integration points;
• use Chromium patches only when a sustainable brave-core implementation is not available;
• avoid broad refactors, renames, formatting churn, and unrelated changes;
• develop and stabilize one major structural feature at a time;
• keep upstream synchronization separate from Vex product work;
• document every long-lived divergence and recurring conflict;
• require explicit review for deep engine, security, privacy, data, or network changes.

Automated agents and contributors must start with AGENTS.md and the Vex engineering documentation under docs/vex/.

• This repository (vex-core) — browser source, patches, build integration, tests, and technical engineering rules.
• VexBrowser/vex-browser — public roadmap, issues, discussions, releases, and user-facing project documentation.
• VexBrowser/vex-brand — private source of truth for proprietary brand source assets.

The complete incremental roadmap is maintained in VexBrowser/vex-browser/ROADMAP.md.

The current foundation milestone must prove that the untouched fork can be initialized, built, launched, documented, and synchronized with upstream on Ubuntu before Vex product features are introduced.

Vex currently inherits the Brave Core build system. Until Vex-specific setup documentation has been validated, use the current upstream Brave documentation as the technical reference:

• Brave Core README and build overview
• Brave Core documentation index

A normal checkout should use the Vex repository as origin and brave/brave-core as upstream. Follow docs/vex/UPSTREAM.md rather than rebasing or replacing the published Vex master branch.

Do not claim that a local build is an official Vex release.

Contributions are welcome. Begin with a focused issue in VexBrowser/vex-browser, then follow docs/vex/CONTRIBUTING.md and the pull request template.

Suspected vulnerabilities must not be reported publicly. Follow SECURITY.md.

Except where another license is explicitly stated, Vex-specific source code and documentation are intended to remain under the Mozilla Public License 2.0. Inherited Brave, Chromium, and third-party materials remain under their respective licenses and notices.

The Vex name, logo, icons, wordmarks, and visual identity are proprietary and are not licensed under MPL-2.0. See NOTICE and TRADEMARKS.md.

Vex is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Brave Software, Inc., Google LLC, or the Chromium project.

Maintained by The Vex Team.