Desktop App

Kandev desktop is a Tauri app that starts the native Kandev runtime locally and shows the existing Kandev UI in a system WebView. It does not require Node.js at runtime. Node.js, pnpm, Rust, and the Tauri CLI are build-time tools only.

Install Artifacts

GitHub releases publish desktop artifacts alongside the existing runtime tarballs. Desktop artifact names start with kandev-desktop-<platform>- and each artifact has a .sha256 checksum.

Supported desktop platforms:

• macos-arm64
• macos-x64
• linux-x64
• linux-arm64
• windows-x64

When signing inputs are configured, macOS artifacts are Developer ID signed and notarized and Windows artifacts are code signed. When those inputs are missing, the release still publishes unsigned desktop development builds with a release-notes warning. Linux artifacts are checksum-gated; package-manager signatures can be added later.

Unsigned macOS or Windows desktop artifacts may require manual OS security bypasses and should not be presented as trusted downloads.

Runtime Requirements

The desktop app packages the native Kandev runtime binaries and starts:

kandev --headless --port <local-port>

The backend binds to 127.0.0.1 and serves the same embedded Vite UI used by the CLI/Homebrew/npm runtime.

Platform WebView requirements:

• macOS: system WebKit.
• Windows: Microsoft WebView2 runtime.
• Linux: WebKitGTK and package dependencies installed by the .deb/.rpm package.

Kandev data still lives in the existing Kandev home directory, ~/.kandev by default, unless overridden by existing environment/config settings.

Updates

The first desktop release does not include an in-app Tauri updater. Update by downloading and installing a newer desktop artifact from GitHub Releases. Existing worktrees, settings, tasks, and the SQLite database remain in the Kandev data directory.

The npm and Homebrew channels continue to update through:

brew upgrade kandev
npm install -g kandev@latest
npx kandev@latest

Those channels are separate from desktop installers, even though all release artifacts share the same SemVer.

Agent CLI Discovery

Desktop apps launched from an OS app launcher may not inherit the same shell initialization as a terminal. Kandev preserves available environment variables and adds common user binary directories such as /usr/local/bin, /opt/homebrew/bin, /usr/bin, /bin, ~/.local/bin, and common agent install directories.

If an agent CLI is not discoverable from the desktop app:

• Set the agent profile command to the full executable path.
• Confirm the executable works from a normal terminal.
• Put custom install directories in a location visible to GUI apps, or configure them through OS-level environment settings rather than only shell startup files.

Existing explicit command paths in Kandev settings remain authoritative over PATH lookup.

Release Trust

See desktop-tauri-signing.md for the CI secrets and automatic signing behavior used for desktop releases.