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Desktop

The desktop of Gentian OS — login hub, desktop/mobile bases, app launcher, and iframe window host. One of the two apps in gentian-ui; the administration console is the other (../admin-console). Canonical scaffold for Gentian-built UI — same stack as the app template gentian-apps/apps/_template (catalog apps and kernel shell).

What it does, and what it does not​

The desktop is a relay for tiles. It shows what the signed-in person may open — the tiles the usher answers for them — and opens it, and it keeps that person's own preferences. It installs nothing, removes nothing, grants nothing and reads no catalog: administering apps is the administration console's (its Apps tab), and nothing an ordinary member could interfere with is reachable from here. An App Store, on a cluster that has one, is an app of its own and arrives as a tile like any other; the desktop has no special handling for it.

Quick start​

docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yaml up --build

Local dev uses AUTH_DISABLED=true and VITE_AUTH_DISABLED=true (see backend/.env.example, frontend/.env.example, or docker-compose.dev.yaml).

Layout​

backend/          shell-api (FastAPI) — same modules as gentian-apps/apps/_template
frontend/
  design-system/  Brand tokens (gentian-theme.css)
  public/fonts/   Self-hosted webfonts
  public/tiles/   App launcher glyphs (PNG; `npm run glyphs` renders them)
  assets/glyph-templates/  The glyphs' SVG templates, never served
  public/branding/ Logo
  src/auth/       OIDC stubs
  src/shell/      App menu, background, launcher
chart/            Kernel Helm chart (portal.<domain>)

Layout​

An app directory in the gentian-apps layout (apps/<name>/), so that the desktop and the console sit side by side in the same shape and either could move to a repository of its own as a move of files and nothing else:

backend/          FastAPI — who is signed in, their tiles (from the usher), their preferences
frontend/         React SPA — Vite, TanStack Router/Query, Zustand, Tailwind
chart/            Helm — api + web Deployments, no RBAC, no mounted token
docs/             SECURITY.md, FRONTEND-STACK.md, architecture.md, ai-widget.md

No profile/. The desktop's ComponentProfile lives in the gentian-os chart (charts/gentian-os/templates/componentprofile-desktop.yaml), because the platform installs the desktop for every tenant itself rather than offering it in a catalog — gentian-apps' apps/_template/README.md states this exception. One declaration, in the repository that does the installing.