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Building the dist

Hive is a Tauri v2 app: a Rust backend (crates/ + app/) with a React/TypeScript frontend (web/). The bundler is the Tauri CLI.

Prerequisites

  • Rust (stable) + Bun (frontend package manager).
  • The Tauri CLI: cargo install tauri-cli --version "^2" (or use the dev dependency in web/).
  • Platform toolchains for whatever you bundle (Xcode CLT on macOS; MSVC on Windows; GTK/WebKit dev packages on Linux — see below).

Build the desktop app

From the repo root:

cargo tauri build

This runs the frontend build (bun run --cwd web build) and compiles the Rust app in release, then bundles for the host OS. Output lands under target/release/bundle/ (or target/<triple>/release/bundle/ for a cross target):

Host Bundles
macOS macos/Hive.app, dmg/Hive_*.dmg
Windows nsis/Hive_*-setup.exe (.msi needs the WiX toolset)
Linux appimage/*.AppImage, deb/*.deb, rpm/*.rpm

For a fast dev loop instead of a bundle: cargo tauri dev.

Cross-building from one machine

You can produce most targets from a single Mac:

  • macOS Intel (from Apple Silicon): native cross, no emulation — 
    rustup target add x86_64-apple-darwin
cargo tauri build --target x86_64-apple-darwin
    (Universal: --target universal-apple-darwin.)
  • Linux (any host, via Docker): build in a rust:bookworm container with the Tauri deps (libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev libappindicator3-dev librsvg2-dev patchelf libsoup-3.0-dev); reuse the already-built web/dist and skip the JS rebuild with --config '{"build":{"beforeBuildCommand":""}}'.
  • Windows (from macOS/Linux, via Docker): cross-compile with cargo-xwin to x86_64-pc-windows-msvc and let Tauri's NSIS bundler run on Linux — cargo tauri build --runner cargo-xwin --target x86_64-pc-windows-msvc --bundles nsis. Produces the NSIS .exe; the .msi still needs a real Windows host.

Linux system dependencies

On a Linux build host (or container):

sudo apt-get install -y \
  libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev libappindicator3-dev librsvg2-dev \
  patchelf libsoup-3.0-dev

After download (unsigned bundles)

Builds are unsigned unless you supply signing credentials, so first launch needs a nudge:

  • macOS: right-click → Open (or xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Hive.app).
  • Windows: SmartScreen → More info → Run anyway.
  • Linux: chmod +x Hive_*.AppImage && ./Hive_*.AppImage (add --appimage-extract-and-run on hosts without FUSE).

Signing & notarization

Not wired into the default build — it needs real credentials and is a release-engineering step:

  • macOS — Developer ID cert + notarytool (set APPLE_* env vars; Tauri signs/notarizes during tauri build).
  • Windows — Authenticode cert via bundle.windows.certificateThumbprint or a bundle.windows.signCommand.
  • Linux — .deb/AppImage are usable unsigned; sign repos/packages as needed.

See docs/packaging.md in the repo for the full matrix.

Building just the relay

The relay is a separate binary in the same workspace:

cargo build -p hive-relay --release      # → target/release/hive-relay
# or run it directly:
cargo run -p hive-relay

See Self-hosting a relay.