Getting started · Desktop isolated mode

Desktop isolated mode

Keep the app and your dev server out of each other's way. Since v0.3.0 the desktop app runs its own bundled server on its own port with its own data profile, and that is the default, including on upgrades from older releases. Building RepoOps from source and using the installed app never collide. Turning the mode off is the opt-in: the app then attaches to a server already running on this machine, and only one with the same version and build.

Start here if you want to install the desktop app and point it at your first repo: Install.

What isolated mode does

With Run my own separate server on in Settings (on by default), the desktop app does not probe for an existing server. It spawns its bundled server on its own port, chosen by a free-port scan starting at 4100 (clear of the 4000 range a dev server uses), and points it at a data profile of its own.

The isolated data profile is a sibling of your base data directory, the same path with a -desktop suffix, so repo-dashboard becomes repo-dashboard-desktop beside it. An explicit REPO_DASHBOARD_DATA_DIR is suffixed the same way, so the isolated profile never shares state with a from-source run.

Your data on the first run

The first time the app starts on the isolated profile, RepoOps seeds it from your standard one so you are not starting from a blank slate. It imports a safe subset:

  • Your accounts, tracked repos, and settings.
  • A copy of the data-dir .env (per-repo export tokens).

Telemetry and caches start fresh and accumulate on their own; historical records stay in the original profile. If the import fails partway, the app logs the failure and starts with whatever already reached the new profile; it does not roll the copy back, and it does not import again once that profile has a database. A change to the toggle takes effect on the next restart, never as a hot swap.

Turn it off, or check which server you are on

Open Settings, App, the Desktop server section (next to Launch RepoOps at login). It shows the current mode and port, the desktop and server versions and build fingerprints with whether they verified, the toggle, and a Restart RepoOps to apply prompt after a change. With the toggle off, the app attaches only to a server whose version and application build match its own; a mismatch or a setup failure stops startup rather than attaching elsewhere.

Also steadier in v0.2.7

  • Windows autostart. The login Scheduled Tasks for the dashboard and the capture daemon launch through the hidden launcher, so there is no console window flashing at logon.
  • Source-mode auto-update. Server runtime writes no longer dirty the disposable runtime worktree, so a running app stops wedging its own update behind a dirty-tree check.
  • Update banner. Update prompts are audience-aware: the desktop shows a quiet auto-updating state, a browser sees a new-version notice.

Read more

Last updated