Bootdeck

Your whole work environment, one click away.

Open your editor, terminal, dev servers, web pages and folders together, in the right order.
Then see what launched, what is running and what failed.

Download for Windows  ·  Website and demo  ·  Linux guide  ·  Contributing

Why Bootdeck

Every morning starts the same way: open the editor in the right folder, open a terminal, run npm run dev, open localhost:3000, then the same dashboards and docs. Seven steps by hand, and as many chances to forget one.

Bootdeck turns that routine into a preset. Press Launch and everything opens, one item after another, with a clear status for each: launched, running, opened or failed (and why).

Features

• Presets for every project. One per project, client or routine, with a name, an icon and a description.
• Four kinds of items. Applications (with arguments and a working folder), web pages (in your default browser), folders (in the file explorer) and commands (with live output, exit code and a Stop button).
• Launch in order, with a status per item. When something fails, you see why ("command not found", missing program or folder) and get a link to fix the item.
• Variables. Write {project} or {port} once and use them in any field. Bootdeck asks for the values at launch and validates them, so no shell special character can slip into a command.
• Commands that clean up after themselves. Commands stop when Bootdeck closes, so a dev server never keeps a port busy in the background. On Windows, this holds even if the app crashes.
• Alerts in the background. If a dev server stops with an error while you are on another screen, a notification tells you.
• History. The last 200 launches, with the values used and the result of each item. Launch again in one click.
• Keyboard first. Ctrl+N new preset, Ctrl+S save, Ctrl+Enter launch, Esc back, Ctrl+, settings.
• Local only. Presets live in a readable JSON file on your disk. No account, no cloud, no telemetry.

Presets	Editor and variables	Launch history

Install

Windows

Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.

1. Download Bootdeck_<version>_x64-setup.exe from the latest release.
2. Run it. No administrator rights are needed: Bootdeck installs for your user only.
3. Open Bootdeck from the Start menu and create your first preset.

The installer is not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may warn you. Click More info, then Run anyway, or build it yourself. Bootdeck needs WebView2, which comes with Windows 11; on Windows 10 the installer adds it if it is missing.

Linux (preview)

Bootdeck builds and runs on Linux, but no package is published yet. The Linux guide explains how to build it (.deb, .rpm or AppImage) and what differs from Windows. Feedback from real Linux desktops is very welcome.

macOS

Not supported yet. The code is shared with macOS but has never been built there: contributions are welcome.

Getting started

1. Create a preset with Ctrl+N: give it a name and an icon.
2. Add items in the order they should open: an application (code with the argument .), a command (npm run dev in ~/Projects/my-app), a web page (http://localhost:3000), a folder.
3. Launch with Ctrl+Enter. Each item shows its status. Commands keep running, with their output one click away.

Variables

A preset can declare variables that are asked at each launch and usable in every item field: ~/Projects/{project}, http://localhost:{port}. One preset then works for all your projects.

Type	Accepts	Example
text	letters, digits, ., -, _	my-saas
path	an absolute path or one starting with ~	~/Projects/my-saas
port	a number from 1 to 65535	3000

• A default value can use the variables declared before it: ~/Projects/{project}.
• {{ and }} write literal braces. {Upper} or {"json": 1} are not variables.
• Shell special characters are never accepted in a value, so a value can never add a command.

Your data

Everything stays in readable JSON files on your computer:

OS	Folder
Windows	%APPDATA%\dev.bootdeck.desktop\
Linux	~/.local/share/dev.bootdeck.desktop/

• presets.json holds your presets. The exact path is shown in Settings. If the file ever becomes unreadable, Bootdeck does not touch it: it offers to set it aside (presets.invalid-<timestamp>.json) and start from an empty list.
• sessions.json holds the launch history, separately. If it becomes unreadable, it is set aside and restarted automatically, without ever touching your presets.

Privacy and security

A launcher runs commands on your machine, so it has to earn that trust:

• Nothing leaves your computer. No account, no telemetry, no update server. The only network activity is the web pages you choose to open, in your browser.
• Commands run only when you click Launch. You write them; nothing starts on its own, and no remote content can trigger a command.
• Locked down. Minimal Tauri permissions and a strict Content Security Policy: the interface cannot load code from the internet. Every input from the interface is validated again in Rust.

Found a vulnerability? Please report it privately: see SECURITY.md.

Build from source

Requirements: Node.js 24+, Rust stable and, on Windows, Visual Studio 2022 with the "Desktop development with C++" workload. Linux requirements are in the Linux guide.

git clone https://github.com/garerim/bootdeck.git
cd bootdeck
npm install
npm run dev      # the app with hot reload
npm run build    # the Windows installer, in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/nsis

npm run dev:web runs the interface alone in a browser, with a simulated system and demo presets: handy to work on the UI without launching anything for real.

Built with

Tauri 2 and Rust for the native side (process management, Windows Job Objects, atomic storage), React 19, TypeScript, Vite, Tailwind CSS 4, shadcn/ui, Zustand and Zod for the interface. Tested with Vitest, cargo test and Playwright. The architecture and the test strategy are described in CONTRIBUTING.md.

Contributing

Bug reports, ideas and pull requests are welcome. Testing on Linux and macOS is especially helpful. Start with CONTRIBUTING.md, and please follow the code of conduct.

License

MIT © 2026 garerim