Hey everyone,
Wanted to give its own proper introduction to one of the homebrew projects I've been working on for the Switch: MangaDex Reader.
What it is
A homebrew manga reader for Atmosphère/hbmenu, built entirely around MangaDex's public API as its content source. Written in C++ with Borealis for the native, controller-driven UI, and libnx/deko3d for everything Switch-side. It's a fan project — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or associated with MangaDex, Nintendo, or any publisher in any way.
What it does (and deliberately doesn't do)
The app only fetches, lists, and displays chapters that are actually hosted on MangaDex and reachable through their documented public API (/manga, /manga/{id}/feed, /at-home/server/{chapterId}). It will not follow, open, or scrape the external links MangaDex sometimes lists when a publisher requests removal of fan-scanlated content and only an official/licensed third-party reader link remains (MangaPlus, for example). When a chapter only exists as one of those external links, the app shows it clearly grayed out in the list — visible, but not tappable — instead of trying to load it. That distinction was a deliberate design choice, not an oversight.
Features
Under the hood
Built on Borealis (Apache 2.0) for UI, using Yoga (Meta, MIT) for flexbox layout and nanovg (zlib) for 2D rendering internally, on top of deko3d/libnx (devkitPro/switchbrew) for the low-level Switch graphics and system calls. Networking goes through curl for HTTP, paired with a custom-built mbedTLS 3.6.2 for TLS — the stock devkitPro mbedTLS doesn't support TLS 1.3, which MangaDex's servers require, so that had to be built separately. JSON parsing uses nlohmann/json (header-only, vendored). HTTPS certificate validation uses Mozilla's CA certificate bundle, distributed via the curl project. Compiled with devkitPro/devkitA64.
A small extra: the app also makes an anonymous, public call to the GitHub REST API purely to check the latest release version of this repo for the in-app update check — no user data involved.
Installation
Requires a Switch with Atmosphère (or another homebrew-capable CFW) already set up.
Compiling from source
Requires devkitPro with devkitA64 and libnx installed.
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/gomprime/mangadex-reader
cd mangadex-reader
export DEVKITPRO=/opt/devkitpro # adjust to your path
make
This produces mangadex-reader.nro, which you then place on the SD card as described above.
Development note
Full transparency: this was built with heavy, continuous use of Claude Code (Anthropic) as a coding partner — from the initial architecture all the way through debugging real hardware-only bugs, including two genuine bugs found in the Borealis library itself, which got patched directly in this project's vendored submodule. Every line was written, reviewed, and tested together with me as the human author, not generated blind and shipped.
License
Original code under MIT — see LICENSE. Vendored third-party components keep their own licenses (see CREDITS.md for the full breakdown).
Repo: https://github.com/gomprime/mangadex-reader
Feedback, bug reports, and PRs are all genuinely welcome. Happy to answer questions about how it works or why certain decisions were made.
Wanted to give its own proper introduction to one of the homebrew projects I've been working on for the Switch: MangaDex Reader.
What it is
A homebrew manga reader for Atmosphère/hbmenu, built entirely around MangaDex's public API as its content source. Written in C++ with Borealis for the native, controller-driven UI, and libnx/deko3d for everything Switch-side. It's a fan project — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or associated with MangaDex, Nintendo, or any publisher in any way.
What it does (and deliberately doesn't do)
The app only fetches, lists, and displays chapters that are actually hosted on MangaDex and reachable through their documented public API (/manga, /manga/{id}/feed, /at-home/server/{chapterId}). It will not follow, open, or scrape the external links MangaDex sometimes lists when a publisher requests removal of fan-scanlated content and only an official/licensed third-party reader link remains (MangaPlus, for example). When a chapter only exists as one of those external links, the app shows it clearly grayed out in the list — visible, but not tappable — instead of trying to load it. That distinction was a deliberate design choice, not an oversight.
Features
- Search by title, plus browsing by latest updates and popular titles
- Local library — favorites and reading progress, saved only on the SD card. No account, no login, no external sync of any kind
- Reader with zoom and pan controlled via the left analog stick
- Configurable language filter, applied to search, latest updates, and chapter listings
- Content rating filter
- On-disk cache for pages and covers with a configurable size limit
- Interface in Portuguese and English, following the console's system language automatically
- In-app update checking (About tab), with the update installable directly from the app itself
Under the hood
Built on Borealis (Apache 2.0) for UI, using Yoga (Meta, MIT) for flexbox layout and nanovg (zlib) for 2D rendering internally, on top of deko3d/libnx (devkitPro/switchbrew) for the low-level Switch graphics and system calls. Networking goes through curl for HTTP, paired with a custom-built mbedTLS 3.6.2 for TLS — the stock devkitPro mbedTLS doesn't support TLS 1.3, which MangaDex's servers require, so that had to be built separately. JSON parsing uses nlohmann/json (header-only, vendored). HTTPS certificate validation uses Mozilla's CA certificate bundle, distributed via the curl project. Compiled with devkitPro/devkitA64.
A small extra: the app also makes an anonymous, public call to the GitHub REST API purely to check the latest release version of this repo for the in-app update check — no user data involved.
Installation
Requires a Switch with Atmosphère (or another homebrew-capable CFW) already set up.
- Download mangadex-reader.nro from the latest release page.
- Copy it to sdmc:/switch/mangadex-reader/mangadex-reader.nro on the SD card (create the folders if they don't exist).
- Open the Homebrew Menu (hbmenu) on the console and select "MangaDex Reader" from the list.
Compiling from source
Requires devkitPro with devkitA64 and libnx installed.
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/gomprime/mangadex-reader
cd mangadex-reader
export DEVKITPRO=/opt/devkitpro # adjust to your path
make
This produces mangadex-reader.nro, which you then place on the SD card as described above.
Development note
Full transparency: this was built with heavy, continuous use of Claude Code (Anthropic) as a coding partner — from the initial architecture all the way through debugging real hardware-only bugs, including two genuine bugs found in the Borealis library itself, which got patched directly in this project's vendored submodule. Every line was written, reviewed, and tested together with me as the human author, not generated blind and shipped.
License
Original code under MIT — see LICENSE. Vendored third-party components keep their own licenses (see CREDITS.md for the full breakdown).
Repo: https://github.com/gomprime/mangadex-reader
Feedback, bug reports, and PRs are all genuinely welcome. Happy to answer questions about how it works or why certain decisions were made.
