Desktop auto-update

The OpenJarvis desktop app ships with Tauri's updater plugin, which checks for new versions on launch and every 30 minutes. When a newer signed build is available, the app prompts the user to download and install it.

How it works

on launch / every 30 min
        │
        ▼
GET https://github.com/open-jarvis/OpenJarvis/releases/download/desktop-latest/latest.json
        │
        ▼
Parse manifest: { "version": "X.Y.Z", "platforms": { ... } }
        │
        ▼
If manifest.version > installed_version:
   download signed .dmg / .deb / .msi from manifest.platforms[target].url
   verify against the minisign pubkey baked into the app
   prompt user to install

The frontend code lives in frontend/src/components/Desktop/UpdateChecker.tsx; the Tauri wiring is in frontend/src-tauri/tauri.conf.json under plugins.updater.

How releases reach the update endpoint

The Desktop Build & Release GitHub Action (.github/workflows/desktop.yml) publishes signed binaries plus a latest.json manifest to the desktop-latest GitHub release on every push to main. The tauri-action step with includeUpdaterJson: true generates the manifest automatically.

Two release streams exist:

desktop-latest (rolling pre-release): updated on every push to main. This is the channel the desktop app currently polls. Users on this channel get the most recent build the CI produced.
desktop-vX.Y.Z (tagged stable): created when someone pushes a desktop-v* git tag. Has the same artifacts but is marked as a proper release rather than a pre-release.

The current updater endpoint points at the rolling desktop-latest stream so that bug fixes (especially security and telemetry-policy changes) reach users without waiting for a manual stable tag. A future release may introduce a stable channel that points at desktop-v* tags only.

Signing

Binaries are signed by tauri-action using the minisign key pair referenced via these GitHub Actions secrets:

Secret	Purpose
`TAURI_SIGNING_PRIVATE_KEY`	Private key (PEM-formatted minisign)
`TAURI_SIGNING_PRIVATE_KEY_PASSWORD`	Passphrase for the private key

The matching public key is baked into the app at tauri.conf.json:plugins.updater.pubkey. If you ever need to rotate the key, replace the public key in the JSON file and update both secrets atomically — mismatched keys cause every update download to fail signature verification with no recovery path other than a manual reinstall.

Disabling the updater locally

For frontend development, set VITE_OPENJARVIS_NO_UPDATER=1 in your shell before running npm run tauri dev. Vite injects any VITE_-prefixed env var into import.meta.env, and the UpdateChecker.tsx component honors it to skip the 30-minute poll.

export VITE_OPENJARVIS_NO_UPDATER=1
npm run tauri dev

This is purely a dev escape hatch — it has no effect on production builds (where import.meta.env.VITE_OPENJARVIS_NO_UPDATER will be undefined unless you explicitly set it at build time).

Verifying a release manually

# Download the latest manifest and confirm it parses cleanly
curl -fsSL https://github.com/open-jarvis/OpenJarvis/releases/download/desktop-latest/latest.json | jq .

# Fields:
#   version       — semver string, must match the tag (without leading "v")
#   notes         — release notes string
#   pub_date      — RFC3339 timestamp
#   platforms     — map keyed by "<target>-<arch>" e.g. "darwin-aarch64"
#                   each entry has { signature: "...", url: "..." }

A 404 on the manifest URL means the most recent desktop CI run didn't complete or didn't have signing secrets — check the Desktop Build & Release workflow logs.

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