// docs

desktop app

The desktop app is the no-Docker path into CozyLabs, and it is self-contained: the backend that self-host runs as a compose stack runs inside the app instead. One install, the whole workshop — no separate server for you or anyone else to stand up.

what it is

• macOS · Windows · Linux, packaged with Electron.
• 100% self-contained. The backend runs inside the app — no compose stack to operate, no relay to point it at, no teammate who has to keep a server up.
• The same client cryptography as the browser dashboard: your identity is sealed locally and the collaboration key is unwrapped in-process.

what it is not

• not a hosted service. There’s no CozyLabs cloud behind it.
• not a second product — one workshop, two shapes. The self-host stack runs the same parts as separate services for an always-on, multi-machine deployment; the app packages them into one install on your machine. Where these docs describe the relay topology — Traefik, Postgres, OpenBao as separate containers — they are describing the self-host shape.

How teammates and remote agents reach a desktop workshop is part of the beta story — stated here when there are binaries to state it about.

status, honestly

The desktop app exists as the project’s original Electron lineage and is being re-aligned with the current product. Until binaries are signed and published with the beta, the supported path is the self-host quickstart.