Runic.Application.Views.Desktop 0.17.0

Runic.Application.Views.Desktop

Present Runic Windows and Views with Runic Desktop: native windows, embedded WebViews or browser presentations, and the Runic platform services.

dotnet add package Runic.Application.Views.Desktop --prerelease
dotnet add package Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection

This is the default host of the runic-app project template: dotnet new runic-app opens a native window with this host.

In a project named MyApp:

using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;
using MyApp; // the generated AddRunicViews()
using Runic.Application.Views;
using Runic.Application.Views.Desktop;
using Runic.Desktop;

var services = new ServiceCollection();
services.AddScoped<MainViewModel>();
services.AddRunicViews();
await using var provider = services.BuildServiceProvider();
// Windows uses WebView2 and macOS WKWebView; Linux selects a toolkit explicitly.
var options = new DesktopHostOptions { Linux = new() { EmbeddedBackend = LinuxEmbeddedBackend.Gtk3WebKit41 } };

return RunicDesktopHost.Run(provider, options, async host =>
{
    // Stops at startup when a registration, WebView runtime or window option is missing.
    host.ValidateWindow<MainWindow>().ThrowIfInvalid();
    await using var window = await host.OpenWindowAsync<MainWindow>(new RunicWindowOptions { Width = 800, Height = 600 });
    await window.WaitForCloseAsync();
    return 0;
});

public sealed partial class MainWindow : RunicWindow<MainViewModel>;

The same Window and async host => ... body run on CS-WebUI with RunicCsWebUiHost.Run(provider, ...) from Runic.Application.Views.CsWebUi.

Entry points

• RunicDesktopHost.Run(provider, options, application) starts a DesktopHost and runs the asynchronous application on the event loop the platform needs (DesktopEventLoop): the process main thread on macOS and with GTK 4. Call it from Main before any await and return its result. Ctrl+C and SIGTERM close the open windows, so WaitForCloseAsync returns, and cancel host.Desktop.ShutdownRequested. A body without a window, such as one behind a status icon, sets DesktopHostOptions.HandlesShutdownWithoutWindow and ends its loop on that token; without that option, a signal that arrives while no Window is open or served ends the process with its default action. provider is any IServiceProvider, such as Generic Host's host.Services; the configuration guide shows how to start hosted services and read appsettings.json with this host.

• host.OpenWindowAsync<TWindow>(options, cancellationToken), from Runic.Application.Views, creates the Window's DI scope, resolves its ViewModel, opens a DesktopSurface and its presentation, and attaches the generated Bridge. The surface serves RunicWindowOptions.ContentRoot (www by default) and opens StartPage; Width and Height replace the window size. For other surface or window options, pass a RunicDesktopHostOptions to RunicDesktopHost.Run(provider, desktopOptions, hostOptions, async host => ...), or to new RunicDesktopHost(provider, desktop, hostOptions) for a host on a DesktopHost you started yourself. RunicDesktopHost.DefaultWindowOptions opens the embedded WebView and falls back to an installed browser; change one option of every Window with with, such as the native spell checker, which an application that brings its own turns off (Spell checking):

  var hostOptions = new RunicDesktopHostOptions
  {
      WindowOptions = RunicDesktopHost.DefaultWindowOptions with { SpellChecking = false },
  };
  

  A build with RunicApplicationFrontendDelivery=Embedded embeds the frontend in the assembly, and the host serves that archive in place of www/; see Ship the frontend inside the executable. RunicDesktopHostOptions.Assets serves another IAssetSource, such as an archive read with AssetArchive.ReadAsync. SurfaceOptions, a Window's ContentRoot and dotnet runic dev's live frontend take precedence.

• RunicDesktopHostOptions.ContentSecurityPolicy sends a Content-Security-Policy with the HTML of every Window's surface, unless SurfaceOptions set one of their own (DesktopSurfaceOptions.ContentSecurityPolicy). It is a header of its own next to the surface's frame-ancestors policy, and the WebView enforces both. The Bridge needs 'self' scripts and connections and no 'unsafe-eval': DesktopBridgeTransport sends Views pushes as raw data to __runicViewsPush, which the served bridge script hands to runic-desktop-views.js without evaluating them, so default-src 'self'; script-src 'self'; object-src 'none'; base-uri 'self'; frame-ancestors 'none' works and blocks inline, foreign and evaluated scripts. Only DesktopSurface.ExecuteJavaScriptAsync, which evaluates a string in the page, needs 'unsafe-eval'.

• RunicDesktopHostOptions.Resources serves application files that are not part of the frontend build, such as icons from a cache, from each Window's own address. It is called with each Window as it opens, after its ViewModel is set, and returns that Window's ContentHandler or null. The surface asks the handler only for a request its content has no file for, before 404, so the page loads <img src="icons/org.example.App.png"> alike in a native window, in a browser after a fallback and under RUNIC_APPLICATION_SERVE_ONLY. The request path is decoded and can contain ..: map it to known files rather than to the file system.

  var hostOptions = new RunicDesktopHostOptions
  {
      Resources = window => window is DashboardWindow ? icons.ServeAsync : null,
  };
  

• host.OpenWindowAsync<TWindow>(options, activation, cancellationToken) on RunicDesktopHost, and since 0.14 on any IRunicWindowHost (CS-WebUI opens the Window and ignores the context), opens a Window for a launch or a click: it opens the Window as above and presents it with the desktop's activation token or startup ID, such as ApplicationLaunch.PlatformContext of a launch the running instance received. Wayland compositors such as KWin give a new window focus only with that token. A Window that is already open is brought forward with DesktopPlatformServices.PresentAsync(window, context) instead.

• host.ValidateWindow<TWindow>(options) checks, before any window opens, that the generated Bridge for the ViewModel is registered and that DesktopHost.Validate accepts the window options. It returns every problem as a RunicWindowDiagnostic with a stable code and remediation: an error bridge-not-registered, the Runic Desktop codes, and a warning viewmodel-not-registered when the container does not report the ViewModel through IServiceProviderIsService. A container can resolve services it does not report, so only the Bridge check fails; a container without IServiceProviderIsService is not checked. ThrowIfInvalid() throws a RunicWindowConfigurationException. OpenWindowAsync runs the same checks before it creates a surface and throws the same exception; a DesktopConfigurationException from Runic Desktop becomes its InnerException. A missing Bridge is logged as event 1050 through the provider's ILoggerFactory.

• DesktopBridgeWindow<TViewModel>, the Window's Host, owns the Window's scope, surface, and attachment. It exposes ViewModel, Surface, Window, WaitForCloseAsync, and CloseAsync, which stops new operations and waits for accepted ones before releasing the scope. RunicDesktopHost.GetSurface(window) returns the Surface of any Window of this host without naming its ViewModel type, and null for another host's; DesktopPlatformServices.GetDesktopWindow(window) returns its DesktopWindow the same way, also null under RUNIC_APPLICATION_SERVE_ONLY=1, for example to hide it with HideAsync or subscribe to Closed. It implements IBridgeWindow, the lifetime contract shared with the CS-WebUI host, and returns the same RunicWindowCloseResult.

• A Window with GuardClose (see Guarding a user close) passes its CanCloseAsync to the embedded window as DesktopWindowOptions.ConfirmCloseAsync, ahead of a ConfirmCloseAsync of WindowOptions, so the title-bar close button, Alt+F4 or the window manager asks the navigation regions' departure guards. window.RequestCloseAsync() is the same native close request and shares its decision; CloseAsync, disposal, Ctrl+C and SIGTERM do not ask. An explicitly selected browser, a browser fallback (EmbeddedThenBrowser, Fallbacks), or a custom window host without the CloseConfirmation capability opens the Window unguarded for the user's close and logs event 1053 WindowCloseGuardUnavailable; RequestCloseAsync still asks CanCloseAsync there.

• DesktopPlatformServices.AnnounceAsync(window, message, priority) asks the screen reader to speak a status message for a Window, such as "Saved", through its embedded window (DesktopWindow.AnnounceAsync; see Accessibility). WebKitGTK reports no ARIA live region to Orca, so on Linux this is how a page's status reaches a screen reader. A ViewModel takes IWindowPlatformServices and calls its AnnounceAsync(message, priority), which works on every host, or takes DesktopWindowPlatformServices and calls its AnnounceAsync(message, priority) with a DesktopAnnouncementPriority. All return Success, or Unavailable with OwnerUnavailable for a Window without an embedded window (an installed browser, serve-only mode, another host, or a ViewModel's window that has not opened yet), OwnerClosed once it closed, and BackendUnavailable for a window host without announcements, such as GTK 4 before 4.14.

• The window's locale (IRunicWindowLocale, set before the window opens) gives an embedded window on Windows and Linux its native direction (DesktopWindowOptions.LayoutDirection, right to left for ar, he, fa and other right-to-left scripts) and the web view's language (DesktopWindowOptions.Language: built-in text such as the context menu and form validation, navigator.language). A later locale change, including one while the window opens, mirrors the open window or returns it to left to right (DesktopWindow.SetLayoutDirectionAsync), and a null locale returns it to the platform's direction. Changes apply in order, so the window ends with the direction of the last one. The script of a tag counts only right after its language: ar-u-nu-latn (Arabic with Latin digits) stays right to left. The web view's language stays until the window opens again. A LayoutDirection or Language that WindowOptions sets wins, and a ProfilePath keeps the platform's language, since WebView2 needs one language per profile. macOS takes both from the application bundle. The page sets its own <html lang dir> (syncDocumentLocale in @runic-artifex/views); the pages the window serves itself, such as Resource Not Available, take lang and dir from the window locale and their text from DesktopPlatformTexts.

• RunicDesktopHost.Placement restores each Window's size, position and maximized state from the last time it closed, and DesktopPlatformServices.GetWindowState(window) reads them to save. The callback is called with each Window as it opens, after its ViewModel is set, and returns the saved DesktopWindowPlacement or null; it becomes DesktopWindowOptions.Placement, which replaces the Window's size and keeps it on a monitor that exists now (see Window state and restore). GetWindowState returns the embedded window's DesktopWindowState, also after the window closed and until the Window is disposed, so save it after WaitForCloseAsync returns:

  return RunicDesktopHost.Run(provider, new DesktopHostOptions(), new RunicDesktopHostOptions
  {
      Placement = window => window is MainWindow ? settings.MainWindowPlacement : null,
  }, async host =>
  {
      await using var window = await host.OpenWindowAsync<MainWindow>();
      await window.WaitForCloseAsync();
      if (DesktopPlatformServices.GetWindowState(window) is PlatformResult<DesktopWindowState>.Success { Value: var state })
          settings.MainWindowPlacement = state.Placement;
      return 0;
  });
  

  A Window without a native owner, one on CS-WebUI or another host, one served under RUNIC_APPLICATION_SERVE_ONLY or an installed browser after a fallback, reports Unavailable with OwnerUnavailable, as PresentAsync does; a custom window host that reports no state reports BackendUnavailable. For each change while the window is open, subscribe to DesktopWindow.StateChanged of the host's DesktopBridgeWindow<TViewModel>.Window. A placement belongs to the machine and operating system that saved it: its units are each platform's.

• host.UseApplicationMenu(commands) runs the application's menu bar commands by id until the returned object is disposed. They are application-wide, the DesktopHost.MenuCommands of every host on that Desktop host, so a second call before the first is disposed throws. A Window's root ViewModel that implements IRunicMenuCommandSource runs its own while the Window is key (see Menu bar commands). Declare the menus in DesktopHostOptions.MenuBar; macOS and the GTK 3 and GTK 4 windows show them. With MenuBarPresentation = DesktopMenuBarPresentation.Page in WindowOptions the page renders the bar with its own components through createMenuBarController in @runic-artifex/views; every Window serves the reserved route runic.menu-bar on its Views connection, with menu bar page protocol 2 (see In-page menu bar), and a page's invoke runs through DesktopWindow.TryExecuteMenuItemAsync. Each item's CommandParameter is the command's parameter. A ViewModel that takes IWindowPlatformServices shows a native context menu with ShowContextMenuAsync, which DesktopWindowPlatformServices implements for the embedded window.

• A Window's root ViewModel that implements IRunicFileDropTarget receives the files the user drops onto the embedded window, with their native paths, in its model turn (see Receiving dropped files). A window served under RUNIC_APPLICATION_SERVE_ONLY or shown in an installed browser after a fallback receives none.

• services.AddRunicPlatformServices() registers native file dialogs, the clipboard, and the file launcher for each window scope: IWindowPlatformServices, IFileDialogs, ITextClipboard, IDesktopClipboard (HTML, RTF, images, files and a format watch), and IDesktopFileLauncher; IWindowPlatformServices also sets the window's taskbar badge and progress (Windows), the Dock tile's (macOS) or the application's Unity launcher entry (GTK 3 and GTK 4), which AddRunicPlatformServices(applicationId) names with the application ID (inside Flatpak the Flatpak ID serves). A ViewModel takes them in its constructor before its window opens. They bind to the window's native owner when it opens, and the provider is selected from the backend that is actually running:

  • Windows: Runic.Platform.Windows.
  • macOS: Runic.Platform.MacOS.
  • Linux with GTK 3: Runic.Platform.Linux.
  • Linux with GTK 4 (WithGtk4()): xdg-desktop-portal dialogs and the file launcher through Runic.Platform.Linux.Portal, parented with Runic.Platform.Linux.Gtk4, plus the GTK 4 clipboard. A GTK 4 process never loads the GTK 3 provider.

  Until the window opens, every operation returns Unavailable(OwnerUnavailable). It returns the same result when the window has no native owner, for example an installed browser after an embedded-window fallback, except for file dialogs and message boxes that ask for OwnerPolicy.PreferOwner, which show without an owner, and the file launcher, which is the application's. After the window closes, every operation returns Unavailable(OwnerClosed). A Linux process without a GTK backend returns Unavailable(ProviderNotConfigured). GetSnapshot() reports the same states per capability. The package references every provider package, but loads only the selected provider assembly. An application that targets net10.0-windows, such as a WPF application, gets an assembly that references only Runic.Platform.Windows, so it does not ship the Linux and macOS providers. dotnet runic doctor names the provider and, on Linux, checks for the session bus and xdg-desktop-portal. DesktopPlatformServices.ForWindow(owner) creates the same services for a DesktopWindow that the application opened itself.

  services.AddScoped<NotesViewModel>();
  services.AddRunicViews();
  services.AddRunicPlatformServices();
  
  public sealed partial class NotesViewModel(IFileDialogs files) : ObservableObject
  {
      [ObservableProperty] private string _text = "";
  
      public async Task OpenAsync()
      {
          if (await files.OpenFileAsync(new() { Filters = [new("Notes", ["txt", "md"])] }) is not PickerResult<IReadFileLease>.Selected(var lease)) return;
          await using (lease)
          await using (var stream = await lease.OpenReadAsync())
          using (var reader = new StreamReader(stream))
              Text = await reader.ReadToEndAsync();
      }
  
      // Replaces the file atomically, or leaves it unchanged.
      public async Task<bool> SaveAsync()
      {
          if (await files.SaveFileAsync(new("notes.txt") { Filters = [new("Notes", ["txt"])] }) is not PickerResult<ISaveFileLease>.Selected(var lease)) return false;
          await using (lease)
          {
              if (await lease.BeginWriteAsync(FileWritePolicy.RequireAtomicReplace)
                  is not PlatformResult<IFileWriteTransaction>.Success(var transaction)) return false;
              await using (transaction)
              {
                  await using (var writer = new StreamWriter(transaction.Content, leaveOpen: true))
                      await writer.WriteAsync(Text);
                  return await transaction.CommitAsync() is FileCommitResult.Committed;
              }
          }
      }
  }
  

  Filters, the initial folder and OpenFilesAsync for several files work with every provider; the Runic.Platform guide lists what each platform does with them.

  On Windows, Linux and for unsandboxed macOS selections, the save writes a staged sibling file and replaces the selection in one step. On Linux this also works inside Flatpak: the xdg-desktop-portal document view stages the sibling as a private host file and renames it onto the chosen file. A sandboxed macOS selection stages in the volume's item replacement directory instead and NSFileManager replaces the chosen file. BeginWriteAsync returns Unavailable(AtomicReplaceUnavailable) on Linux for a read-only or revoked grant before it changes the file, and CommitAsync returns NotCommitted(Conflict) when the file changed or appeared since selection. A false result therefore means the file was not changed: tell the user and offer Save As to another destination. Runic never falls back to overwriting the file in place. The portal guide describes the document-view mechanism and the GTK 3 opt-in. CS-WebUI's AddRunicPlatformServices() registers the same services, which return OwnerUnavailable.

  An editor that saves back to the file it opened keeps a document lease from OpenDocumentAsync (or SaveDocumentAsync for Save As) and writes it on every save. A Conflict means another program changed the file; reading it again makes its content the one the next save compares with:

  public sealed partial class EditorViewModel(IFileDialogs files) : ObservableObject
  {
      private IDocumentFileLease? _document;
      [ObservableProperty] private string _text = "";
  
      public async Task OpenAsync()
      {
          if (await files.OpenDocumentAsync(new() { Filters = [new("Notes", ["txt", "md"])] }) is not PickerResult<IDocumentFileLease>.Selected(var document)) return;
          if (_document is not null) await _document.DisposeAsync();
          _document = document;
          await ReloadAsync();
      }
  
      // Also after a conflict, when the user chooses the other program's version.
      public async Task ReloadAsync()
      {
          if (_document is null || await _document.OpenReadAsync() is not PlatformResult<Stream>.Success(var stream)) return;
          await using (stream)
          using (var reader = new StreamReader(stream))
              Text = await reader.ReadToEndAsync();
      }
  
      // Ctrl+S and autosave, as often as needed.
      public async Task<FileCommitResult?> SaveAsync()
      {
          if (_document is null || await _document.BeginWriteAsync(FileWritePolicy.RequireAtomicReplace)
              is not PlatformResult<IFileWriteTransaction>.Success(var transaction)) return null;
          await using (transaction)
          {
              await using (var writer = new StreamWriter(transaction.Content, leaveOpen: true))
                  await writer.WriteAsync(Text);
              return await transaction.CommitAsync();
          }
      }
  }
  

  The lease belongs to the window and is released when it closes. Keep a recent-files entry with CreateBookmarkAsync and reopen it with IDesktopFileBookmarks.OpenDocumentAsync, which AddRunicPlatformServices() registers; the Runic.Platform guide describes conflicts, bookmarks and what each platform supports.

• AddRunicPlatformServices() also registers IDesktopSettings, the desktop's appearance preferences (color scheme, accent color, contrast and forced colours, reduced motion, text scale). They belong to the application, not to a window, so there is one singleton, which DesktopPlatformServices.CreateSettings() creates when it is first resolved and the service provider disposes. Windows reads its settings, macOS reads AppKit, and Linux reads xdg-desktop-portal with either GTK version, without loading GTK. On other systems every read returns Unavailable(ProviderNotConfigured), and so does CS-WebUI's registration. A ViewModel or service takes it in its constructor and watches it off the model context:

  await foreach (var result in settings.WatchAsync(cancellationToken))
      if (result is PlatformResult<DesktopAppearance>.Success { Value: var appearance })
          await context.InvokeAsync(() => DesktopScheme = appearance.ColorScheme.ToString(), cancellationToken);
  

  The multi-window example stores the app's own theme in a settings file and follows this preference when the theme is "system". Register your own IDesktopSettings before calling AddRunicPlatformServices(), for example in tests, to replace it. RunicDesktopHost watches the same IDesktopSettings (or, without the registration, the platform's own) while any Window is open, and pushes the appearance to each Window's pages (appearance/1, Appearance), so the page's useAppearance sees the desktop's text scale, accent colour, contrast and forced-colours palette. A serve-only Window, and every Window of a host with DesktopHostOptions.NetworkExposure = AllInterfaces, gets none: their pages may run on another machine.

• AddRunicPlatformServices() also registers IDesktopNotifications, one singleton for the application, which DesktopPlatformServices.CreateNotifications(applicationId) creates when it is first resolved and the service provider disposes. A ViewModel takes it in its constructor, with no OperatingSystem branch:

  services.AddRunicPlatformServices("org.example.Notes");
  
  public sealed partial class NotesViewModel(IFileDialogs files, IDesktopNotifications notifications) : ObservableObject
  {
      private async Task SavedAsync(string name) =>
          await notifications.ShowAsync(new DesktopNotification("saved", "Notes", $"Saved {name}."));
  }
  

  The application ID is the one string you pass: on Windows the AppUserModelID your installer registers with the shell (an MSIX package's process uses the package's AppUserModelID instead), on Linux the reverse-DNS ID of the installed desktop entry (org.example.Notes for org.example.Notes.desktop); macOS uses the bundle identifier. Runic does not derive it from the assembly or the GTK application ID. The overload checks it for the running system and throws ArgumentException when it is invalid there. Without an ID, AddRunicPlatformServices() lets the Linux portal infer the identity from the desktop session, which suits development, and Windows requests return Unavailable(ProviderNotConfigured); so does CS-WebUI's registration. Creating the service sends nothing and opens no connection; the first request does, and success acknowledges submission, not that the desktop showed it. On Linux, a rejected desktop ID is reported as portal-identity-registration-failed, and portal diagnostics are logged as event 2003 through the provider's ILoggerFactory. Register your own IDesktopNotifications first to replace it, for example a fake in tests.

• AddRunicPlatformServices() also registers IDesktopStatusIcon, IDesktopLoginStartup and IDesktopInhibition, one singleton each for the application, created by DesktopPlatformServices.CreateStatusIcon(applicationId), CreateLoginStartup(applicationId) and CreateInhibition(applicationId). Inhibition keeps the system or display awake while an operation holds a lease:

  if (await inhibition.AcquireAsync(DesktopInhibitionEffects.SystemSleep, "Exporting documents")
      is PlatformResult<IDesktopInhibitionLease>.Success(var lease))
      await using (lease) await ExportAsync();
  

  Windows uses a power request and macOS an IOKit power assertion; Linux asks the xdg-desktop-portal Inhibit interface without a parent window, so the request belongs to the application, not to a window. The application services need no native owner and work the same in an installed browser after a fallback; the window services report OwnerUnavailable there. The Runic.Platform guide lists every service's result without a native owner. Register IDesktopPrivilegedActions yourself; it needs declared actions.

• AddRunicPlatformServices() also registers IDesktopVolumes, one singleton created by DesktopPlatformServices.CreateVolumes(), which lists, mounts, unmounts and ejects storage volumes and watches them. Linux uses UDisks2 on the system bus with either toolkit; Windows uses the volume management API and ejects as "Safely Remove Hardware" does; macOS uses Disk Arbitration. See Volumes.

• AddRunicPlatformServices() also registers IDesktopNetworkStatus, one singleton created by DesktopPlatformServices.CreateNetworkStatus(): online, metered and captive portal, read or watched, from the Network List Manager's connectivity hint on Windows, Network.framework's path monitor on macOS and the NetworkMonitor portal or NetworkManager on Linux; see Network status. Per window it registers IDesktopMessageBoxes, the window's native message boxes: task dialogs on Windows, also for a WPF window, sheets on macOS and GTK message or alert dialogs on Linux; see Message boxes.

• AddRunicPlatformServices() also registers IDesktopPowerEvents, one singleton created by DesktopPlatformServices.CreatePowerEvents(): sleep, wake, session lock and battery events from WM_POWERBROADCAST and WTS on Windows, NSWorkspace and IOKit on macOS, and logind and UPower on Linux. It decides on first use: once a RunicDesktopHost with ServeOnly was built on the provider, or under RUNIC_APPLICATION_SERVE_ONLY=1, it reports Unavailable and opens no watches; see Power events.

• AddRunicPlatformServices() also registers IDesktopRecentDocuments, the application's recent documents (DesktopPlatformServices.CreateRecentDocuments()): Open Recent and the Dock on macOS, Recent items and the Jump List on Windows, and recently-used.xbel on Linux, the same lists as DesktopHost.NoteRecentDocumentAsync, with each outcome as a PlatformResult. It decides on first use: once a RunicDesktopHost with ServeOnly was built on the provider, or under RUNIC_APPLICATION_SERVE_ONLY=1, it reports Unavailable. With AddRunicPlatformServices(applicationId) Linux names the application by its ID; see Document apps.

• AddRunicPlatformServices() also registers IApplicationPlatformServices, the one instance of DesktopPlatformServices.ForApplication(): the application's FileLauncher opens URIs and files and reveals files without a window, also before the first window opens, behind a status icon and for Windows served under serve-only mode, and its MessageBoxes show boxes that ask for OwnerPolicy.PreferOwner without a window, such as a fatal start-up error. Windows hands them to the shell on an STA thread of the application's own, Linux asks the desktop portal without a parent window (either toolkit or none) and macOS asks NSWorkspace on the main thread. A window shown in an installed browser after a fallback uses it as its own FileLauncher, until the window closes. Code that runs before the container exists calls ForApplication() directly.

  public sealed class HelpLinks(IApplicationPlatformServices platform)
  {
      public ValueTask<PlatformResult<PlatformUnit>> OpenLogFolderAsync(string log) =>
          platform.FileLauncher.LaunchAsync(log, DesktopFileOperation.Reveal);
  }
  

• The secret store and the application database are registered without an application ID, also by AddRunicPlatformServices(applicationId). DesktopPlatformServices.CreateSecretStore(applicationId) and CreateApplications(applicationId) create them for an ID, checked as the overload above checks it; on Linux their portal requests and diagnostics then carry it, and the application database's portal connection registers it as notifications do. Register one before calling AddRunicPlatformServices to use it. Secrets are stored the same way with or without an ID.

• DesktopBridgeWindow<TViewModel>.NativeOwner (a DesktopNativeOwner) is the presentation's INativeWindowOwner, which the services above bind to. The window services (file dialogs, the clipboard, file handoff and message boxes) are created only here, through DesktopPlatformServices.ForWindow; the providers keep them internal. Pass the owner where an API asks for a window, such as WindowsElevationOptions.Owner for the UAC prompt.

  The owner runs provider callbacks on the window's native thread and becomes unavailable when the window closes or the surface replaces it. A presentation without native dispatch still has an owner, but it reports IsAvailable == false. Examples are an installed browser after an embedded-window fallback, or a custom host without a native handle. Applications that open a DesktopWindow themselves create one with new DesktopNativeOwner(window).

• DesktopBridgeTransport connects a DesktopSurface to a WindowContentSession directly, for applications that compose a surface themselves. It is an IBridgeConnectionTransport: Serve delivers the Views protocol 4 requests that the page sends on the one capability __runicViews, BroadcastAsync pushes to every page of the surface and SendAsync to one connection, both as raw data to __runicViewsPush. A connection is one authenticated WebSocket; its Desktop connection id is both its connection and its client key, so a reconnect is a new connection. A Window's IRunicConnections (since 0.16) therefore lists the page's one connection, a new one after each reload, and its Caller is that connection during a page's command or in-page menu click, and null for the native menu bar and host shortcuts (Who is connected, and who called). The requests of one connection are admitted in the order the page sent them. Disposing the transport removes the capability and stops pushes; the surface stays open. The per-route Bind, BindAsync, Publish, PublishAsync and PublishUtf8Async of earlier releases are gone; see Custom window hosts for the transport contract.

The surface owns authenticated browser or embedded WebView sessions and removable capability bindings; the application Window owns its ViewModel scope and logical View lifetimes. DesktopHostOptions and DesktopWindowOptions select the browser or embedded backend; the Runic Desktop guide lists the native prerequisites for each platform.

The package's build targets copy runic-desktop-views.js into www/, also as runic-views.js. It installs __runicBridge: requests go to __runicViews, and pushes arrive on the WebSocket as they are sent, so the script does not poll. Load webui.js (served by the surface) and runic-views.js before the generated client in index.html; the same page then runs on CS-WebUI, whose package copies its own client as runic-views.js. A project that references both hosts sets RunicApplicationHost (desktop or cswebui); see the host of a page. Pages that load runic-desktop-views.js keep working. runic({ desktop: true }) is not needed for a Views page. The adapter uses the same host-neutral client contract as the CS-WebUI adapter, and its build defaults match Runic.Application.Views.CsWebUi, so AddRunicViews() is generated in <RootNamespace>.RunicViewsComposition.

The First Window on Runic Desktop example is a complete application. See the host selection guide to choose between this host and CS-WebUI.

An exception from the application body passed to Run closes the windows, disposes the host and is rethrown by Run; Runic does not log it. The crash reporting guide shows how to log such crashes, capture a dump and keep NativeAOT symbols.

From a command line

An application with a command line, such as my-app ui next to other commands, starts its Window from a Runic.CommandLine command with Runic Command Line 0.7.0-preview.2 or later (see its guide, Start a UI host on the main thread). RunicDesktopHost.Run and DesktopEventLoop.Run must be called on the process main thread before any await, and a command runs asynchronously, so the command does not start the host itself: it hands the host's start back to Main with CommandExecutionContext.ContinueOnCallingThread, and Main returns CommandApp.Run(args) instead of awaiting RunAsync. Run blocks until the command completed, then runs the continuation on the thread that called it and returns its result as the exit code:

using Runic.CommandLine;
using Runic.CommandLine.Generated;

// A synchronous Main, or no await before this line: the thread is the process main thread.
return new CommandApp(GeneratedCommandCatalog.Create()) { Name = "my-app" }.Run(args);

internal static class WindowCommands
{
    [Command("ui", Description = "Open the main window.")]
    internal static async Task Ui(CommandExecutionContext context,
        [Option("--settings")] string? path = null, CancellationToken cancellationToken = default)
    {
        // Asynchronous work and its failures belong to the command, before the host starts.
        AppSettings settings = await AppSettings.LoadAsync(path, cancellationToken);
        context.ContinueOnCallingThread(() => DesktopEventLoop.Run(new DesktopHostOptions(), async desktop =>
        {
            await using var provider = new ServiceCollection()
                .AddSingleton(settings)
                .AddScoped<MainViewModel>()
                .AddRunicViews()
                .BuildServiceProvider();
            var host = new RunicDesktopHost(provider, desktop);
            await using var window = await host.OpenWindowAsync<MainWindow>();
            await window.WaitForCloseAsync();
            return 0;
        }));
    }
}

DesktopEventLoop.Run and new RunicDesktopHost(provider, desktop) let the service provider be created and disposed asynchronously on the event loop. RunicDesktopHost.Run(provider, options, application) works the same way in a continuation for a provider built before it.

The continuation runs only when the command succeeded and was not cancelled, after its output was written and its scope disposed, so capture values, such as settings, rather than the command's scoped services. Help, usage errors and the other commands never start the host, and a failed command returns its exit code without opening a Window. Runic.CommandLine stops handling Ctrl+C before the continuation starts; the Desktop host then handles Ctrl+C and SIGTERM as described above. Under CommandApp.RunAsync, the hosting adapter's RunAsync or a directly used CommandExecutor, CommandExecutionContext.CanContinueOnCallingThread is false and ContinueOnCallingThread throws.

Test such a command with CommandAppTester.Run from Runic.CommandLine.Testing, which runs the continuation on the calling thread, or start the application in serve-only mode with RunicServeOnlyApplication from Runic.Application.Testing.

Hosted applications

A Runic Desktop application, the host, can show the Windows of another Runic Desktop application, the guest, in native windows of its own. Typical hosts are launchers, suite shells and IDE-like applications that run tools as separate processes. Each guest keeps its own process, ViewModels, translations and Runic version, so a guest that crashes takes only its own windows with it. The two talk over the Runic host protocol, runic-host/1. The hosted windows example is a shell that hosts a counter.

Experimental. The host and guest APIs, RunicTestHost and the protocol are experimental: suppress RUNICDESK103. They can change in a minor release, also after 1.0.

Quick start. The guest opts in on a code path of its own. The host starts the guest's executable with the parameter that selects that path:

#pragma warning disable RUNICDESK103 // Hosted application windows are experimental.
// The guest (its Program.cs): only its own `hosted` parameter accepts a host.
if (args is ["hosted"])
    return RunicDesktopHost.Run(provider, new DesktopHostOptions(),
        new RunicDesktopHostOptions { Guest = RunicGuestOptions.FromStandardInput() },
        async host =>
        {
            await using var window = await host.OpenWindowAsync<MainWindow>();
            await window.WaitForCloseAsync();
            return 0;
        });

// The host: each StartAsync starts a guest process for this host session.
await using var tool = await host.HostedApplications.StartAsync(
    new RunicGuestStartInfo("/opt/tool/Tool", ["hosted"]),
    new RunicHostedApplicationOptions { Policy = new ToolPolicy() });

Hosted mode describes the guest side and Hosting another application the host side. Test a guest without a host application with RunicTestHost (a hosted application). An application changes behaviour only when it opts in. An application without a guest code path cannot be hosted, and one that never calls StartAsync hosts nothing.

Opt-in and policy. Runic defines no flag or environment variable for hosted mode, so the processes a guest starts never inherit it. The host decides what a guest may do with IRunicHostedWindowPolicy: which windows open and how, its presentation requests, menus, dialogs and window services. Without a policy, every window, menu and dialog shows unchanged. Window services follow conservative defaults: the clipboard is read and written only for the window the user works in, and only http, https and mailto links and files the user gave the guest are opened. A policy can mark a guest's dialogs, refuse its message boxes or narrow the launcher. The example's CounterPolicy does both.

Limits. RunicHostedLimits, from the policy's Limits, bounds a guest's requests. Its defaults are 20 menu requests a second per window, 80 per guest, one dialog at a time per guest, 10 dialogs per ten seconds, 20 clipboard and monitor requests a second, 5 opened files or links per ten seconds, and 2 requests a second that bring a window to the front or announce text. The protocol also bounds messages (1 MiB), waiting requests (64), menus (8 levels, 1,000 entries) and dialog texts (limits).

Security in short. Both sides opt in. The channel is a loopback WebSocket that only the host that started the guest can join: a nonce on the guest's standard input and a key on its standard output prove it, and an upgrade from a web page is refused. A guest's page gets none of the host's credentials or cookies, and each guest session has its own web view data store. The guest reaches its own windows only. Elevated guests, and guests of another user than their parent, refuse hosted mode. Any process of the same user that knows a guest's parameter can host it; RunicGuestOptions.AcceptHost is a product filter, not a security boundary. A guest words its own dialog and menu texts, so a host that does not trust a guest marks or refuses them in its policy. The security guide has the details.

Platform notes.

• Hosts and guests run on Runic Desktop only. A CS-WebUI, hosted or serve-only application cannot host.
• Hosted windows have no browser fallback: a browser tab would send the user's own 127.0.0.1 cookies to the guest. The host needs an embedded web view. WebView2 and WKWebView are built in. On Linux the host selects one: DesktopHostOptions.Linux.EmbeddedBackend = LinuxEmbeddedBackend.Gtk3WebKit41, or WithGtk4() from Runic.Desktop.Gtk4.
• WebView2 gives each guest session an InPrivate profile in a user data folder of its own, deleted after the session, with a browser process of its own.
• On WKWebView and WebKitGTK, a guest session's data store lives only while one of its windows is open. A guest that opens a window after all its windows closed starts with empty cookies and storage.
• On macOS the one menu bar shows the host's application menu and then the guest's menus while a hosted window is key.
• On Windows a guest runs in a kill-on-close job object, which ends it also when the host crashes. On Linux and macOS it leads a process group, and a guest whose host crashed exits when its standard input ends.

Hosted mode

The application opts in on a code path of its own, reached by a parameter it defines, such as a hidden hosted command. That path runs RunicDesktopHost.Run with RunicDesktopHostOptions.Guest:

#pragma warning disable RUNICDESK103 // Hosted application windows are experimental.
if (args is ["hosted"])
{
    try
    {
        return RunicDesktopHost.Run(provider, new DesktopHostOptions(),
            new RunicDesktopHostOptions { Guest = RunicGuestOptions.FromStandardInput() },
            async host =>
            {
                // When the host goes away while the Window opens, the open throws; Run then returns 0.
                await using var window = await host.OpenWindowAsync<MainWindow>();
                await window.WaitForCloseAsync();
                return 0;
            });
    }
    catch (RunicHostedApplicationException error)
    {
        Console.Error.WriteLine($"Not hosted ({error.Code}): {error.Message}");
        return 1;
    }
}

• Start. Before the body runs, Run reads the host's offer from standard input, opens the host channel on a loopback listener of its own, writes its address and a random key to standard output and waits for the host to connect and prove that it started this process. A failure, such as no offer or a host that RunicGuestOptions.AcceptHost declines, throws RunicHostedApplicationException with its Code and logs event 2010. Hosted mode refuses to start elevated, with DesktopHostOptions.NetworkExposure other than loopback, or, on Linux and macOS, when its real or effective user is not its parent's or it cannot read its parent's (guest-other-user).
• Windows. No window toolkit loop starts, and the application never shows a window of its own. Each Window's page is served as in serve-only mode, and the host opens a window that loads it with a one-time launch address; the host's window policy may refuse it (RunicWindowConfigurationException with hosted-window-refused). The Window's IRunicWindowPresentation (present, minimize, visibility, full screen, document edited, colour scheme, activity) goes through the host. A user close of the host's window asks the Window's guard (GuardClose) first. A presentation request that the host has not answered within 30 seconds reports Failed with Unknown, and an open that the host has not answered by then fails with hosted-window-failed; the application's own event handlers for the presentation run off the channel, so a handler that waits cannot stall it. Recent documents (IDesktopRecentDocuments) report BackendUnavailable.
• Menus and dialogs (menus/1, dialogs/1, when the host lists them). The application's menu bar (DesktopHostOptions.MenuBar, DesktopHost.SetMenuBar) shows in each hosted window, with each item enabled and checked as the Window's command path decides: the root ViewModel (IRunicMenuCommandSource, IRunicMenuCheckedSource), then the application's commands (UseApplicationMenu). A new bar, such as one with titles in another language, and each change of an item's state reach the host; an item the user chooses in the host's bar, or whose shortcut they press, runs through that same path. With services.AddRunicPlatformServices(), the Window's IWindowPlatformServices shows its context menus, file dialogs (IFileDialogs, documents included) and message boxes (IDesktopMessageBoxes) as the host's, owned by the host's window: the application gets the same leases and results as from its own dialogs, opens the selected files itself, and one dialog at a time (another reports ResourceBusy). A dialog the host's policy refuses reports PermissionDenied; one whose window closes reports OwnerClosed; cancelling the call closes the host's dialog. Every menu or dialog reports OwnerUnavailable, as in serve-only mode, when the host does not list its feature.
• Appearance and locale. The Windows' pages show the host's appearance (colour scheme, contrast, forced colours and their palette, reduced motion, text scale, accent colour), never this process's own desktop settings: the windows show on the host's desktop. With AddRunicWindowService, the application's locale (IRunicApplicationLocale) follows the host's, already when the body starts, until the application sets one of its own with SetLocaleAsync; setting null follows the host's again. Each Window that follows the application follows it too, and the host's window takes its locale's direction. RunicDesktopHost.Guest has the host's Locale, its user's Languages (to negotiate against the application's catalogs instead of DesktopLanguages.Preferred) and its Appearance. A follow that fails is logged (event 2023).
• Window services (window-services/1, when the host lists it). The Window's clipboard (IDesktopClipboard: text, HTML, RTF, PNG images and file lists), monitors (IDesktopMonitors, with a watch that follows the host's changes) and file launcher (IDesktopFileLauncher) are the host's, and the files the user drops onto the host's window reach a root ViewModel that is an IRunicFileDropTarget. The host decides each request: by default it reads and writes the clipboard only for the window the user works in (not one the application presented or opened itself until the user switches to it, uses its menus or drops files onto it), opens only http, https and mailto links and the files the user gave the application through its open dialogs or a drop, each for that window, and bounds the rate; a refusal reports PermissionDenied, a turned-away rate ResourceBusy. A page's own copy and paste (Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V) use the host's web view and are not affected. Your first window starts as the application's, not the user's: the application opened it, so a button in it that copies, pastes or opens a link through these services gets PermissionDenied until the user switches away and back, clicks its native menu bar (not on GTK 4 yet) or drops files onto it. The same holds after the application presents, shows, maximizes or opens a window, also when the desktop activates it only later, such as macOS when the user next switches to the host. A host that started the application at the user's request can mark its first window as the user's (RunicGuestStartInfo.UserStarted). The clipboard's watch reports BackendUnavailable: a hosted application is not told when the user copies. Drags out of the window (StartDragAsync), the taskbar badge and progress report OwnerUnavailable, as in serve-only mode; notifications, the status icon, global shortcuts, settings and the secret store stay the application's own. Announcements (AnnounceAsync) go to the host's window, at a bounded rate; an assertive one from a window the user is not working in is made polite. Present and showing a window are rate-bounded too.
• End. When the host asks the application to shut down, or goes away (standard input ends or the channel closes), the Windows close, DesktopHost.ShutdownRequested and RunicDesktopHost.Guest.HostGone are cancelled and Run returns when the body does (event 2011). A Window that is opening or opens after that fails with hosted-host-gone; when the body ends with that failure, or with an OperationCanceledException, Run returns 0 (event 2014): the host going away is the normal end of a hosted application, so the body need not catch it. A body that has not returned 10 seconds later ends the process (event 2012).
• RunicDesktopHost.IsHosted and RunicDesktopHost.Guest (the host's name and version) tell the mode. A hosted application does not claim ApplicationInstance: each host session starts a process of its own.
• Test it without a host application with RunicTestHost from Runic.Application.Testing (a hosted application).

Hosting another application

The host side is IRunicHostedApplications, from RunicDesktopHost.HostedApplications or, after services.AddRunicHostedApplications(), from the services. It starts the guest's executable with the parameter that selects its hosted mode and shows each of the guest's Windows in a native window of the host (window mode):

#pragma warning disable RUNICDESK103 // Hosted application windows are experimental.
var applications = host.HostedApplications;
applications.WindowOpened += (_, e) => Console.WriteLine($"{e.Window.Application.Guest.Name} opened {e.Window.Type}");
await using var tool = await applications.StartAsync(
    new RunicGuestStartInfo("/opt/tool/Tool", ["hosted"]),
    new RunicHostedApplicationOptions { Policy = new ToolWindowPolicy() });
var exitCode = await tool.Exited;

• Start. StartAsync starts the executable directly, never through a shell, with standard input and output piped, standard error and the other output lines in the log (events 2021 and 2022, Debug), and without RUNIC_APPLICATION_SERVE_ONLY and RUNIC_APPLICATION_CLOSE_AFTER_OPEN. On Windows the guest starts suspended, joins a kill-on-close job object and only then runs, so nothing it starts escapes the job, also when the host crashes; a job that cannot be created or joined fails the start. A batch file (.bat, .cmd) is refused with ArgumentException, since cmd.exe would parse its arguments. On Linux and macOS the guest leads a process group of its own, which ends with it; on Linux it inherits no descriptor but its standard streams (glibc 2.34 and later). A host that exits normally ends its guests' groups; a host that crashes or is killed cannot, and its guests exit when their standard input ends, within 10 seconds, while what a guest started itself may outlive it. The start writes the offer, reads the channel line, connects, without a proxy, and checks the guest's proof within StartTimeout (30 seconds); a failure ends the guest's process tree and throws RunicHostedApplicationException (guest-start-failed for an executable that cannot be started, guest-start-timeout, guest-exited, guest-not-hostable, guest-refused, protocol-unsupported; event 2016). A shutdown or disposal of the host while a start is pending fails it with InvalidOperationException and ends the guest.
• Windows. Each guest Window becomes a RunicHostedWindow, whose Presentation is a native DesktopWindow of the host, embedded and without a browser fallback. It loads the guest's one-time launch address top-level from the guest's loopback origin: the host injects none of its credentials, admits no other origin for top-level navigation and gives each guest session a data store of its own that is not persisted. A user's close, and RequestCloseAsync, ask the guest first; the window closes when the guest's Window has. The guest's presentation requests (present, minimize, visibility, full screen, maximize, size, position, document edited, represented file, colour scheme, layout direction, announcements) apply to that window, and its activity, placement and colour scheme go back to the guest; a guest that reads slowly receives the latest placement and activity, not every change. IRunicHostedApplications.WindowOpened and WindowClosed report the windows, one after the other and in order: add the handlers before StartAsync. A window that finishes opening after its guest went away closes at once and raises neither.
• Menus. Each hosted window shows the guest's menu bar, never the host application's own (RunicHostedWindow.MenuBar is what it shows). On Windows and Linux it is the window's own bar, in the window or the desktop's global menu. On macOS the process has one menu bar: while a hosted window is key, it shows the host's application menu, whose About, Settings and Quit and Application-role items stay the host's, then the guest's menus: the guest's File menu in the File menu's place, its Help menu last, its others before the Window menu, and an Application-role menu of the guest as an ordinary menu under its own title. The standard Edit, View and Window menus stay in the host's language; the host's other menus give way until a window of the host is key again, and a shortcut both use is the host's. Shortcuts are matched by the host's native menus, and an item the user chooses runs the guest's command (menu-invoke); DesktopWindow.TryExecuteMenuItemAsync on Presentation chooses one from code. A guest's View or Window menu, titled as the host's standard one, joins it on macOS. The guest's context menus show as native context menus of its window, only while the window is active and inside its web view.
• Dialogs. The guest's file dialogs (open, open several, save, folder, folders) and message boxes show as the platform's own dialogs owned by the guest's window, one at a time; the guest receives the selected paths and opens them itself, and the host keeps no access to them: a sandboxed host or guest (App Sandbox, Flatpak) can receive paths it may not open, as the picker's grant stays with the process that showed it. Closing the window, the guest giving the dialog up or the guest going away closes a dialog that is shown. The titles, texts and button labels are the guest's; see security for marking them.
• Appearance and locale. The guest starts with the host's application locale (IRunicApplicationLocale, after AddRunicWindowService), its user's languages (DesktopLanguages.Preferred) and the appearance its own windows show (from IDesktopSettings), and the host sends each change. A guest Window's locale gives its window the locale's direction, unless the host's window options fix one (RunicHostedWindowRequest.Locale).
• Window services. With window-services/1 a guest uses the host window's clipboard, monitors and launcher, with the host's rights, and receives the files the user drops onto a window whose Window takes them; dropped files without a path, such as macOS file promises, are not forwarded. IRunicHostedWindowPolicy.ServiceAsync decides each request (RunicHostedServiceRequest); by default (IsAllowedByDefault) the host reads and writes the clipboard only for the window the user works in (active, and not within two seconds after any guest's request that can activate one of its windows, such as opening, presenting, maximizing or closing one, nor the first activation of a window the guest asked to activate while the desktop deferred it: IsGuestActivated; writes also within a second after the user left it), lists monitors for any window, and opens only http, https and mailto links and the files the user gave the guest through the host's open dialogs or drops, while each is still the same file, only for the window the user works in. A policy can widen or narrow this, change a launch (such as reveal instead of open) or forward only some dropped paths; see security before widening it. The guest is never told when the clipboard changes, and cannot drag files out of its windows. A guest's windows start guest-activated, its first one included, so a link the user clicks in a fresh window is refused until the user switches to it. When the user started the guest directly, such as from the host's own menu, RunicGuestStartInfo.UserStarted makes the first activation of its first window the user's. It is off by default: the guest chooses when it opens that window, so with it set the guest can open it later, while the user works elsewhere, and still have it counted as the user's.
• Limits. IRunicHostedWindowPolicy.Limits (RunicHostedLimits) bounds a window's menu requests (20 a second by default; Runic's guest sends its latest menus again when one is turned away), the dialogs a guest shows at once, across its windows (one by default; another reports ResourceBusy to a Runic guest), its clipboard and monitor requests (20 a second), the files and links it opens (5 per ten seconds), its requests that can activate a window (present, minimize, set-visible, set-full-screen and toggle-maximized: 2 a second after a burst of 3) and its announcements (2 a second after a burst of 5). The host rebuilds a window's native bar at most every 50 milliseconds, however many changes arrive.
• Permissions. A guest's request for the camera and microphone is granted only as far as the host grants its own windows (RunicDesktopHost.WindowOptions.AllowedPermissions); a host that grants nothing grants a guest nothing. A policy can grant more through RunicHostedWindowDecision.Allow(request.WindowOptions with { ... }).
• Policy. IRunicHostedWindowPolicy decides each window (OpenWindowAsync: refuse, or open with other DesktopWindowOptions such as a saved placement keyed by Guest.ApplicationId) and each presentation request (Present: apply, clamp or refuse; the request a policy returns applies as it is), each menu bar and context menu (Menu: show, show changed entries, such as without an item or with an item of the host's own, whose command is then the host application's, or refuse), each dialog (DialogAsync: show, show with other options of the same kind, such as another initial directory, or refuse) and each window service (ServiceAsync). Without a policy, every window of the guest opens, every request, menu and dialog applies, and window services follow the defaults above.
• End. When the guest exits or crashes, or its channel closes, the host closes its windows, ends its process tree and completes Exited with its exit code (event 2017). StopAsync asks the guest to shut down and ends it after StopTimeout (10 seconds); RequestStopAsync asks each window first; KillAsync ends it at once. The guests still running stop when the host's Desktop shuts down and when RunicDesktopHost.Run returns. A hosted or serve-only application cannot host.

Each engine keeps a guest session's cookies, storage and caches apart from the host's and from other guests':

On WKWebView and WebKitGTK the store lives only while a window of the session is open: a guest that opens a window after all its windows closed starts with an empty store, cookies, localStorage and IndexedDB included. On WebView2 the store lives for the whole session. HTTP authentication, client certificates and the system's proxy and trust settings are the engine's and the user's, not the store's. A custom IDesktopWindowHostFactory shows hosted windows only if its window host implements IDesktopEphemeralDataStoreWindowHost.

Automation

Set RUNIC_APPLICATION_CLOSE_AFTER_OPEN=1 to start a template-shaped application without a user. With it set, RunicDesktopHost closes every window it opens, as soon as the presentation has opened and, with DesktopHostOptions.WaitForConnection, its bridge has connected. Before closing, it writes:

• a warning to standard error, and event 2002 through a registered ILoggerFactory, so an inherited setting is visible;
• RUNIC_APPLICATION_OPENED=<presentation> (for example Embedded, or the browser it fell back to) to standard output.

An application shaped like the runic-app template then sees WaitForCloseAsync return and exits normally. Applications that keep running after a window closes, or that open further windows, are not meant to use it. The template acceptance check uses it to run the GTK 4 template under Xvfb.

Under dotnet runic dev, a full page reload, such as Vite's full-reload after an edit, closes the View's connection and fails a script in flight (IOException, then No authenticated WebUI browser is connected until the page reconnects), so a test waits for the View, for example for an element it renders, instead of assuming that a call lands; @runic-artifex/vite-plugin-runic pre-bundles its development client, so a cold Vite dependency cache no longer reloads the first page.

Without a Vite or Angular development server, dotnet runic dev sets RUNIC_APPLICATION_DEVELOPMENT_ASSETS to the frontend output directory, such as Frontend/dist, which the frontend watcher rewrites. In a Development environment, and when RunicDesktopHostOptions.SurfaceOptions is not set, each window then serves that directory before its www/ folder (which still supplies runic-views.js) and reloads when the directory changes: it navigates to the last HTML page it loaded, or to its start page, without the page's query, hash or history.pushState route, and its Bridge reconnects as after any reload. A connected page is navigated through its Bridge; a window whose page has no Bridge, such as a half-written index.html or a build error page, is navigated through its WebView instead. Neither runs page script. Outside Development the host ignores the variable. Events 2005 to 2007 report it. The dotnet-runic README describes the frontend modes.

Set RUNIC_APPLICATION_SERVE_ONLY=1 to drive the unchanged application from a browser test, with the same contract as on CS-WebUI. RunicDesktopHost then opens no window or browser. Each window creates its surface, writes RUNIC_APPLICATION_URL=<url> to standard output, and serves until a line is read from standard input, a termination signal requests shutdown, or the process ends; then WaitForCloseAsync returns. The URL is the surface's capability URL, and the surface admits one browser. It takes precedence over RUNIC_APPLICATION_CLOSE_AFTER_OPEN. As on CS-WebUI there is no native owner: platform services report OwnerUnavailable, and a Window with GuardClose opens unguarded (event 1053). NativeOwner throws, so bring a Window forward with DesktopPlatformServices.PresentAsync(window, context), which takes the IRunicWindow and reports OwnerUnavailable in this mode and for a Window on another host. ValidateWindow makes the same decision: in serve-only mode it skips the presentation checks, such as webkitgtk-runtime-missing, graphical-session-missing and presentation-unavailable, which describe what this machine lacks to present a window, so an application that validates at startup also starts headless. With a browser fallback, as in the default EmbeddedThenBrowser options, a missing browser stands in for an installed one, so the embedded WebView's findings, such as linux-embedded-backend-not-selected, are skipped too and no browser is needed. It still reports configuration errors, such as window-option-invalid, browser-unsupported or gtk4-provider-missing, which fail every launch that presents a window.

An application that serves its Windows on purpose, such as a --browser command, sets RunicDesktopHostOptions.ServeOnly = true instead (since 0.14): the same mode, without an environment variable that the application's child processes would inherit. RunicDesktopHost.ServeOnly tells which mode a host is in. With either switch, RunicDesktopHost.Run starts no window toolkit loop, so WithGtk4() on a machine without a display reports no gtk4-display-unavailable. Open the served page in the user's default browser with the application's launcher, DesktopPlatformServices.ForApplication(), which needs no window:

return RunicDesktopHost.Run(provider, new DesktopHostOptions().WithGtk4(),
    new RunicDesktopHostOptions { ServeOnly = true }, async host =>
{
    await using var window = await host.OpenWindowAsync<MainWindow>();
    await DesktopPlatformServices.ForApplication().FileLauncher.LaunchUriAsync(RunicDesktopHost.GetSurface(window)!.Url);
    await window.WaitForCloseAsync();
    return 0;
});

A served Window can end with its last browser tab, as a --browser command that opens the URL in the default browser would. The Window's surface counts its connected pages in ConnectionCount, and a connection event's handler already sees the count with that event. A reload disconnects before or after the page connects again, so wait a moment before closing:

var surface = RunicDesktopHost.GetSurface(window)!;
using var connections = surface.SubscribeConnectionEvents(connection =>
{
    if (connection is not { Kind: DesktopConnectionEventKind.Disconnected, Surface.ConnectionCount: 0 }) return;
    _ = Task.Run(async () =>
    {
        await Task.Delay(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1));
        if (surface.ConnectionCount == 0) await window.CloseAsync(TimeSpan.Zero);
    });
});
OpenInBrowser(surface.Url);
await window.WaitForCloseAsync();

The serve-only protocol, the same on both hosts:

• URL. Each window writes one RUNIC_APPLICATION_URL=<url> line to standard output once its surface serves. The first line is the first window's.
• Window. Directly after its URL line, in the same write, each window writes RUNIC_APPLICATION_WINDOW=<url> <type>: its URL again and the full name of its Window class, such as MyApp.SettingsWindow, separated by a space. The type has no spaces: a closed generic Window type is written as its generic definition's full name with its arguments' names without namespaces, such as MyApp.DocumentWindow`1[Report]. Hosts before 0.16 write no such line, and a parser that only reads RUNIC_APPLICATION_URL= lines ignores it. Read the first two space-separated fields; a later release may add more after them.
• Stop. Writing a line to standard input ends serving for every window serving at that moment; end of input, such as </dev/null, does not. On Runic Desktop a window the application opens after that line serves until the next one; on CS-WebUI the line ends the application. On Runic Desktop on Linux and macOS, SIGTERM or Ctrl+C also requests shutdown. On Windows a test cannot send another process a termination signal, and killing it skips the application's cleanup, so write the line.
• Timeouts. Bound both waits, and kill the process tree when the application does not exit after the line.

RunicServeOnlyApplication in Runic.Application.Testing implements it for browser tests. A headless Chromium, as in the First Window on Runic Desktop browser smoke, does not exercise the embedded WebView engine.

To drive the embedded View itself from an in-process test, run script in it through the window's surface and click the View's own controls, such as a dialog's button:

await using var window = await host.OpenWindowAsync<MainWindow>();
var surface = ((DesktopBridgeWindow<MainViewModel>)window.Host).Surface;
using var timeout = new CancellationTokenSource(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10));
var title = await surface.ExecuteJavaScriptAsync(
    "return document.querySelector('h1')?.textContent ?? ''", timeout.Token);

ExecuteJavaScriptAsync needs a connected page; with DesktopHostOptions.WaitForConnection the window has connected when OpenWindowAsync returns. The token bounds the wait. A result larger than 16 MiB of UTF-8 throws a DesktopException with the category LimitExceeded and the code script-result-too-large; it is never cut.