From 6f3461730eeb5593eb45d34667e7308792eb7ffa Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: jess <jess@else-if.org>
Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2026 13:55:51 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] logs

---
 src/bin/layers_shell.rs |  1 +
 src/paths.rs            | 13 ++++++++++++-
 2 files changed, 13 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/src/bin/layers_shell.rs b/src/bin/layers_shell.rs
index cd7632a..771f080 100644
--- a/src/bin/layers_shell.rs
+++ b/src/bin/layers_shell.rs
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ fn main() {
 
     tracing::info!(
         plugin_root = ?plugin_root,
+        data_dir = ?layers::paths::data_dir(),
         log_dir = ?layers::paths::log_dir(),
         "layers shell: starting native event loop",
     );
diff --git a/src/paths.rs b/src/paths.rs
index a6d02b0..b562f51 100644
--- a/src/paths.rs
+++ b/src/paths.rs
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ use sha2::{Digest, Sha256};
 
 const PLUGIN_ID: &str = "com.jesshunter.layers";
 const KICAD_MAJOR_DIR: &str = "KiCad/10.0/plugins";
+const USER_DATA_DOTDIR: &str = ".layers";
 
 pub fn plugin_data_dir() -> PathBuf {
     plugin_root()
@@ -14,8 +15,18 @@ pub fn plugin_dir() -> PathBuf {
     plugin_root()
 }
 
+/// User-writable runtime data root: logs, state, cache, settings, runtime sockets.
+/// Decoupled from the plugin install location so a flatpak KiCad (which sandboxes
+/// its own data dirs) still writes somewhere we can `tail -f` from a normal shell.
 pub fn data_dir() -> PathBuf {
-    plugin_root()
+    if let Ok(v) = std::env::var("LAYERS_DATA_DIR") {
+        if !v.is_empty() {
+            return PathBuf::from(v);
+        }
+    }
+    dirs::home_dir()
+        .map(|h| h.join(USER_DATA_DOTDIR))
+        .unwrap_or_else(|| PathBuf::from("/tmp").join(USER_DATA_DOTDIR))
 }
 
 pub fn state_dir() -> PathBuf {