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Desktop App

AgentKernel includes a native macOS desktop app built with Tauri 2. It provides a GUI for managing sandboxes, snapshots, templates, and agents — all backed by the same HTTP API as the CLI.

AgentKernel Desktop App

Requirements

  • macOS 26+ (Apple Containers) or macOS with Docker Desktop
  • The agentkernel server running (agentkernel serve or make serve); the first-run wizard can start a bundled/local server when it is not reachable
  • A local sandbox backend; the wizard can initialize Apple Containers or open Docker Desktop when the runtime is installed but not ready

On macOS, brew services start agentkernel runs the HTTP API service. The separate Firecracker daemon is for Linux hosts with KVM and is not required for Apple Containers or Docker.

Install

Download the latest .dmg installer from GitHub Releases:

  • Apple Silicon (M1+): AgentKernel_<version>_aarch64.dmg
  • Intel: AgentKernel_<version>_x64.dmg

Open the DMG and drag AgentKernel to your Applications folder. Alternatively, build from source.

Build from Source

# Install dependencies
cd app && npm ci

# Run in development mode (hot-reload)
make app

# Build release .app bundle
cd app && npx tauri build

The built .app bundle is output to app/src-tauri/target/release/bundle/macos/.

Features

Page Description
Dashboard Server health, sandbox count, quick actions
Sandboxes Create, start, stop, delete sandboxes with terminal access
Sandbox Detail Exec commands, file browser, live logs
Snapshots Save and restore sandbox state
Templates Quick-launch from predefined configurations
Agents View and install supported AI agent CLIs
Policy View and manage sandbox security policies
Secrets Manage environment secrets passed to sandboxes
Audit Log View sandbox lifecycle events
Diagnostics System health checks and backend status
Settings Configure server URL and preferences

Architecture

app/
├── src/                 # React 19 + TypeScript frontend
│   ├── pages/           # Route pages (Dashboard, Sandboxes, etc.)
│   ├── components/      # Shared UI components (shadcn/ui)
│   └── lib/             # API client, hooks, types
└── src-tauri/           # Rust backend (Tauri 2)
    ├── src/commands/    # Tauri IPC commands
    ├── src/api_client.rs # HTTP client to agentkernel server
    └── src/types.rs     # Shared type definitions

The desktop app communicates with the agentkernel serve HTTP API. The Tauri backend acts as a bridge, forwarding IPC calls from the frontend to the server.