shed-desktop

A native macOS menu-bar application that ties the shed toolchain into one resident control surface: list and create sheds across hosts, launch Claude remote-control agents, approve credential requests from the shed host agent, and watch a live activity feed. A Tauri cross-platform client on the same shared Rust core is the shipped Linux client (apt install shed-desktop).

It is a coordinator — it runs no sheds and holds no credentials. It observes and drives components that already exist on the developer's Mac and on shed hosts (see Architecture for the full picture):

• shed lifecycle — HTTP to one or more shed-server instances, discovered from ~/.shed/config.yaml; live create-progress over SSE.
• credentials / approvals — a Unix-domain-socket channel to shed-host-agent (the headline feature; see Credential approvals).
• terminals + remote control — SSH into a shed and drive tmux, launching the user's terminal app for interactive attach.

The macOS app and the Linux Tauri app are two thin shells over one shared Rust core (shed-core + shed-app); see Rust core.

Status

Shipping. The dashboard, lifecycle/create, RC agent launcher, the credential-approval gate, the System (disk) pane, and Sparkle auto-update are all implemented on macOS, with the Tauri Linux client at full feature parity (the Egress pane included). Since the monorepo consolidation the app moved onto shed's shared vX.Y.Z release line — a git tag cuts the macOS DMG and the Linux .deb together when the desktop component ships.

Area	What	State
Dashboard + IPC spine	Read-only dashboard across hosts; the drivability socket + screenshots	✅
Lifecycle + create	start/stop/reset/delete, create with live SSE progress, terminal launch	✅
Agents	Remote-control launcher (RC classifier), Agents pane	✅
Approval gate	Multi-server SSH approval over UDS, policy engine, notifications, merged audit feed	✅
System	Per-host disk usage (/api/system/df)	✅
Packaging	Launch-at-login, preferences, DMG + Sparkle EdDSA auto-update (mac); nfpm .deb (Linux)	✅

Design principles

• Native + small. SwiftUI menu-bar app on macOS; launches instantly; no Dock icon by default. A Tauri/WebKitGTK shell on Linux — both over one Rust core.
• Drivable + testable. The app exposes a JSON IPC control socket and an in-process screenshot op, so every change is verified by a no-sleep functional harness — not by a human clicking. See Test automation.
• Fail-closed security. The app never holds secrets; a missing or unresponsive app results in credential denial, matching the host agent's unanswered-prompt behavior.

Roadmap & directions

Directions we may take, not a schedule. Today's app is a complete control surface on both platforms — dashboard + lifecycle, the remote-control launcher, the SSH-credential approval gate, the System (disk) pane, plus notarized Sparkle auto-update on macOS and an apt-installable .deb on Linux.

Shared Rust core & multi-client (delivered). The shed-server protocol layer was extracted into a shared Rust core (shed-core) so the same logic backs every client instead of being re-implemented per language. It is the macOS default backend (behind SHED_DESKTOP_RUST_CORE, on by default) and the base for the Tauri cross-platform client, which is now the shipped Linux client (WebKitGTK). An earlier GTK MVP proved the architecture and has since been retired in favor of Tauri. shed-host-agent stays a separate process on both platforms. See Rust core.

Credentials.

• Gate AWS + Docker, not just SSH. The host agent already streams an all-namespace audit feed and the approval protocol is namespace-agnostic; only ssh-agent is gated today. Extending the gate to aws-credentials and docker-credentials is mostly agent-side wiring, behind a clean policy story so frequent STS refreshes don't become prompt fatigue. See Credential approvals.
• Auto-approve with constraints — e.g. docker limited to a registry allowlist.
• Approvals on Linux — done. The Mac approval spine was ported into the shared Rust core, so the Tauri client shows + gates SSH approvals on Linux (polkit) and macOS.

Broader control surface. The shed-server HTTP API exposes more than the app surfaces today. Natural additions, each independently useful: a global sessions view (/api/sessions + the RC list, merged), snapshot management (/api/snapshots), image management (/api/images), system prune (/api/system/prune), and a port-forwarding UI on top of /api/sheds/{name}/connect/{port}.

Distribution. A Developer-ID-signed, notarized DMG with an EdDSA-signed Sparkle appcast on macOS; the Linux client ships as the shed-desktop nfpm .deb (built from the Tauri client — tauri/src-tauri, bin shed-desktop-tauri → /usr/bin/shed-desktop) per-arch (amd64 + arm64) via charliek/apt-charliek, so end users apt install shed-desktop. See Installation.

Larger bets. A mobile client (Android-first) on the same core; an embedded terminal (revisited only if delegating to the user's terminal app proves insufficient); in-app host management (writing ~/.shed/config.yaml instead of read-only reflection); and, deliberately last, a Rust rewrite of shed-host-agent on the shared core — the security-critical broker lands on the most-proven foundation. Have an idea? Open an issue.