Desktop App

Ship your app as a desktop app: its own window, Dock or taskbar icon, and sign-in, around the same app people open in the browser. Sixb builds it with Electron from what the app already declares, so there is nothing new to configure.

The desktop app opens your deployed app; it does not contain it. Every deploy reaches desktop users as it reaches the browser, and you rebuild the desktop app only to change its name or icon.

Add it

bun add -d @sixb/desktop

The package brings Electron, so only projects that ship a desktop app download it.

Develop in a window

bun sixb dev --desktop

The window opens once the dev server is ready and stays open while you work: the app reloads itself as you edit. Stopping sixb dev closes it.

Build it

bun sixb desktop build

The build opens your app where it is deployed: the domains in sixb.deploy.ts, or the SIXB_APP_PUBLIC_ORIGIN and SIXB_API_PUBLIC_ORIGIN variables (or the --app-public-origin and --api-public-origin flags). The app must be running there, because the build reads the app's name and icon from it.

It packages the app for the platform and architecture you build on, into .sixb/desktop/dist/: on macOS a .zip of the app to hand out, elsewhere the app's folder.

To try a build against sixb dev, point it at the local app and API:

bun sixb desktop build --app-public-origin http://localhost:3000 --api-public-origin http://localhost:3001

Name and icon

The desktop app takes its identity from your app's metadata and icons, the same ones a browser installs the app from:

On macOS the icon is cut to the rounded square every Mac app icon uses, with the same margin and shadow, so it sits at the size of the icons beside it. A maskable icon, with its background drawn to the edges and its artwork inside the central 80%, is made for this.

Each deployment has its own domain, so a build of your staging app installs beside the production one.

Signing in

A desktop window cannot finish a sign-in itself: sign-in links open in the user's browser, and identity providers refuse embedded browsers. So when the app asks the user to sign in, the window shows Continue in your browser and opens an approval page there. The user approves, signing in first if they need to, and the window continues signed in. It stays signed in across launches, until the session ends.

This works with every sign-in method, because the sign-in itself happens in the browser.

Distribute it

Host the .zip anywhere people can download it.

Unsigned, a downloaded Mac app opens only once the user allows it: they open it, then click Open Anyway in System Settings → Privacy & Security. Macs managed by an IT department may not allow this. On Windows, users choose More info, then Run anyway.

To sign and notarize the macOS app, so that it opens like any other download, join the Apple Developer Program, put a Developer ID Application certificate in your keychain, and build with an App Store Connect API key:

APPLE_API_KEY=~/keys/AuthKey_ABC123.p8 APPLE_API_KEY_ID=ABC123 APPLE_API_ISSUER=<issuer-id> \
  bun sixb desktop build

To install a build on your own Mac, copy it into Applications:

ditto ".sixb/desktop/dist/Acme Orders-darwin-arm64/Acme Orders.app" "/Applications/Acme Orders.app"

The window

The window stays on your app and API. A link to any other site opens in the user's browser.

On macOS the window has no title bar: your app draws to the top edge, with the window controls over it and a strip across the top to drag the window by. The default AppShell sidebar makes room for the controls. Another layout can read html[data-sixb-desktop] and the --sixb-desktop-controls-height variable. A clickable element in the strip other than a link, button or form control needs -webkit-app-region: no-drag.

Limitations

• sixb desktop build is tested on macOS. On Windows and Linux it packages the app's folder, unsigned and without an icon.
• There is no installer and no automatic update of the desktop app itself. A new build is downloaded again; deploys reach users without one.
• Under sixb dev --desktop, macOS names the app Electron in the menu bar and app switcher. Built apps carry their own name.