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slug: desktop

Desktop App

The OAR desktop app is a Tauri v2 shell that bundles the oar binary, the Web UI and supporting resources into a single native installer for macOS, Windows and Linux. The shell itself is intentionally a dumb launcher — it does not implement any routing logic. It spawns the backend, exposes the window, and stays out of the way.

Platform	Installer	Architectures
macOS	.dmg	aarch64, x64
Windows	.msi	x64
Linux	.deb, .rpm	x64

Installation

Download the installer for your platform from the Download page and run it. The installer bundles:

• the oar binary (the actual backend service)
• ui-dist (the admin Web UI)
• assets and vendor-icons
• a manifest.json used to sync these resources on every launch

No separate Node.js install is required — everything the backend needs ships in the bundle.

What happens on launch

Every time the app starts, the Tauri shell runs oar init --from-app. This step:

1. Reads manifest.json from the bundled resources.
2. Hash-compares each bundled file against the matching entry in ~/.open-agent-router/.
3. Copies over any file whose hash differs (or that is missing locally).
4. Spawns the backend service, which binds to 127.0.0.1:26969.
5. Waits for the port to become reachable, then shows the Web UI window.

Because the hash comparison is per-file, routine launches are fast — unchanged resources are skipped. The sync only rewrites files that actually changed in the bundle.

System tray

The app lives in the system tray, not in your taskbar's running-apps row. The backend service keeps running even when no window is visible.

Action	Result
Close window button	Hides to tray — backend keeps running
Tray left-click	Shows the window
Tray right-click → Show OAR	Shows the window
Tray right-click → Quit OAR	Actually quits (stops the backend)

macOS specifics

On macOS, both the close button and the conventional quit shortcuts are repurposed to hide to tray:

• Cmd+W (Hide Window) — hides the window, backend keeps running.
• Cmd+Q (App menu) — hides the window, backend keeps running.

To actually quit, use Quit OAR from the tray's right-click menu.

Dock management

The keepDock setting controls whether the app keeps a Dock icon while running (default true). When set to false, hiding the window also removes the Dock icon, so the app presence collapses to the tray only.

oar settings set keepDock false

Menu bar shortcuts

Menu	Item	Shortcut
App	About OAR	—
App	Hide OAR	Cmd+Q (hides, does not quit)
Edit	Undo / Redo / Cut / Copy / Paste / Select All	standard
View	Reload	Cmd+R
Window	Hide Window	Cmd+W
Help	Documentation	—
Help	GitHub	—
Help	Gitee	—
Help	About OAR	—

Cmd+R reloads the embedded Web UI — useful if the admin panel gets into a bad state. It does not restart the backend.

Auto-start

On macOS, auto-start is implemented via a launchd plist with KeepAlive and RunAtLoad set. When enabled, OAR launches at login and relaunches if the process exits unexpectedly.

• Enable — toggle Auto-start in the desktop app Settings, or via the tray menu.
• Disable — run oar service uninstall to remove the launchd entry.

Auto-update

Updates are delivered from the R2 CDN as the primary channel, with GitHub and Gitee as fallbacks. The downloaded binary is verified with an MD5 hash before the existing one is replaced. The replacement is atomic — a rename, not an in-place overwrite — so a failed update cannot leave the install in a broken state.

• Interactive update — oar update checks, prompts, and applies with a progress bar.
• Check only — oar update check reports available updates without applying them.
• Non-interactive — oar update --json emits a JSON result for scripts.

In desktop mode the tray menu surfaces the same update flow as a one-click action.

Continue to the CLI Reference for the full command surface, or the Quickstart for a hands-on walkthrough.