Desktop App

OpenAgent ships an Electron desktop app that connects to any OpenAgent instance via the WebSocket channel. It is an independent client application: it does not bundle the Agent Server, and it expects a running OpenAgent runtime to connect to. Built with React Native Web, the same codebase compiles for web, macOS, Windows, Linux, and future iOS/Android.

Quick Start

cd app
./setup.sh              # install dependencies (universal + desktop)
./start.sh macos        # start Electron in dev mode

Screens

• Login — connect to local (localhost:8765) or remote OpenAgent via host/port/token
• Chat — ChatGPT-style interface with multi-session support, real-time status updates
• Vault (coming soon) — Obsidian-style graph view + markdown editor
• Config (coming soon) — visual editor for openagent.yaml, MCP management

Building

./build.sh macos        # → app/desktop/release/*.dmg
./build.sh windows      # → app/desktop/release/*.exe
./build.sh linux        # → app/desktop/release/*.AppImage
./build.sh web          # → app/universal/dist/ (static web)

Auto-Update

The desktop app uses electron-updater with GitHub Releases. When a new release is published (via scripts/release.sh), the app detects it, downloads in background, and prompts the user to restart.

Architecture

Following the Mixout-Client monorepo pattern:

app/
├── universal/          # Shared React Native + Web codebase
│   ├── app/            #   Expo Router screens (Login, Chat, ...)
│   ├── stores/         #   Zustand state (connection, chat, vault)
│   └── services/       #   WebSocket client, REST API, storage
├── desktop/            # Electron wrapper
│   └── src/            #   main.ts + auto-updater, preload.ts, services/
└── common/             # Shared TypeScript types (WS protocol, API)

Shell Scripts

Script	Purpose
./setup.sh	Install deps (universal + desktop)
./start.sh web|macos|windows|linux|ios|android	Dev server
./build.sh web|macos|windows|linux|ios|android	Production build
./test.sh	Lint + type check + unit tests