# What is conduit

## What conduit is

Conduit is a Vue 3 application that follows the RealWorld specification and provides a place to
share knowledge. Its Home screen is the starting point for browsing article feeds and popular tags.

| If you need to… | Go to |
| --- | --- |
| Understand the wider capabilities | [What can you do with conduit](./what-can-you-do-with-conduit) |
| Check setup and backend requirements | [System requirements](./system-requirements) |
| Browse articles from Home | [Discover articles](./discover-articles) |
| Open and read an article | [Read an article](./read-an-article) |
| Choose a feed | [Choose a feed](#choose-a-feed) |
| Understand what appears in the feed | [Understand the Home results](#understand-the-home-results) |

## Before you choose a feed

The Home screen changes its choices according to whether you are signed in. The personal feed is
available when you are authenticated; the public banner appears when you are not.

**Prerequisites**

- To use **Your Feed**, sign in first.
- To browse the public feed, open Home without signing in.

## Choose a feed

Home offers **Global Feed**, **Your Feed**, and a tag feed.

**Prerequisites**

- To choose **Your Feed**, you are signed in.
- To choose a tag feed, you have a tag value available from Home.

**Steps**

1. Select one feed from the table.

   | If you want to… | Select |
   | --- | --- |
   | Browse all articles | **Global Feed** |
   | Browse articles from accounts you follow | **Your Feed** |
   | Browse articles associated with a tag | the tag value in the tag feed tab |

**Result:** Home displays the selected feed.

When the following feed has no articles, Home displays the message
`Your feed is empty. Go to the Global Feed to discover articles.` Select
**Go to the Global Feed** to return to the public feed.

## Understand the Home results

Use the selected feed to inspect article previews and popular tags. An article preview links
through its title, description, or **Read more...** text, while each popular tag value opens its
tag feed.

**Prerequisites**

- You can access Home and have selected a feed.

**Steps**

1. Open an article by selecting one of its links in the table.

   | If you want to… | Select |
   | --- | --- |
   | Open it from its heading or summary | the article title or description |
   | Open it from the direct link | **Read more...** |

2. Select a popular tag value to open that tag's feed.
3. Read `Loading articles...` while articles are loading.
4. If the loaded feed has no articles, read `No articles are here... yet.`.
5. If the feed has more than one page, select the number for the page you want.

**Result:** Home shows the selected feed page, an article preview, or the applicable loading or
empty-feed message.