Skip to content

Quick Start

Generate a project

Run crabyard new to create a new app:

crabyard new "My Desktop App"

Interactive generation lets you choose:

  1. Package manager — Bun, pnpm, Yarn, or npm
  2. Auth provider — GitHub, Google, or None
  3. UI framework — shadcn/ui, daisyUI, or Minimal
  4. Extras — optional plugins and frontend libraries
  5. App details — name, identifier, version, and metadata

To skip prompts, pass flags directly:

crabyard new "My Desktop App" --auth github --ui shadcn --yes

For a local-first starting point and a focused AI brief:

crabyard new "Field Notes" --preset local-first --brief "A local-first research notebook with tags and Markdown export" --yes
crabyard check --project ./field-notes
crabyard context --project ./field-notes --brief "Add tags and search" --output docs/TAGS_CONTEXT.md

check reports configuration gaps without changing files. context writes a curated agent handoff that excludes environment values and preserves an existing output file. The generation brief is saved in docs/AI_CONTEXT.md. See AI development for JSON audits, strict CI checks, and context previews.

To use public templates from a local checkout without a license key:

git clone https://github.com/Crabyardcom/crabyard-templates.git
crabyard new "My Desktop App" --template ./crabyard-templates --preset local-first --yes

Run the app

cd my-desktop-app
bun run tauri dev

Your app opens with:

  • A custom title bar with window controls
  • The login screen (if you chose an auth provider)
  • A settings dialog
  • Auto-update integration, ready to enable after configuring your signed releases

Project structure

my-desktop-app/
├── src/                  # React frontend
│   ├── App.tsx
│   ├── components/
│   │   ├── DashboardView.tsx
│   │   ├── LoginView.tsx
│   │   ├── TitleBar.tsx
│   │   └── UpdateBanner.tsx
│   ├── hooks/
│   │   ├── useAuth.ts
│   │   ├── useSettings.ts
│   │   └── useUpdater.ts
│   ├── lib/
│   │   ├── tauri.ts
│   │   ├── types.ts
│   │   └── utils.ts
│   └── store/
│       └── appStore.ts
├── src-tauri/            # Rust backend
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── lib.rs
│   │   ├── main.rs
│   │   ├── auth/
│   │   ├── commands/
│   │   └── models/
│   ├── Cargo.toml
│   └── tauri.conf.json
├── package.json
└── vite.config.ts

Build for production

bun run tauri build

This produces platform-specific installers in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/.

Next steps