Desktop App Guide
The SidStack desktop app (built with Tauri) provides 7 views for managing your project intelligence. Navigate between views using keyboard shortcuts or the sidebar.
Quick Start
- Download and install SidStack for your platform
- Open the app and click “Open Project” to select your project folder
- If not initialized, the app will prompt you to run
sidstack init - Explore the Project Hub, create tasks, and start building
System Requirements
12.0+ (Monterey)
Ubuntu 20.04+ or equivalent
10 (1803+) or 11
4 GB minimum, 8 GB recommended
Tauri 2.x (Rust backend + React frontend), SQLite database, Zustand state management, Tailwind CSS
Views
Project Hub
Central dashboard for project overview and navigation. Displays a capability tree showing your project's governance structure, entity references, and module relationships at a glance.
- -Capability tree visualization showing project structure (modules, skills, principles, workflows)
- -Entity reference panel with cross-linked knowledge documents, tasks, and tickets
- -Project health indicators including governance compliance and knowledge coverage
- -Quick navigation to any module, document, or entity in the project
- -OKR progress overview with quarterly breakdown
- -Recent activity feed showing task completions, new documents, and status changes
Task Manager
Full-featured task management with four view modes and integrated governance. Tasks are automatically linked to governance rules, quality gates, and impact analysis.
- -Two view modes: List and Kanban board
- -Smart filtering presets: Actionable (default), Blocked, Recent, Epics, All
- -Task detail panel with status, progress, notes, governance links, and acceptance criteria
- -Task types: feature, bugfix, refactor, test, docs, infra, security, perf, debt, spike
- -Priority levels (low, medium, high) with visual indicators
- -Status workflow: pending > in_progress > completed (or blocked, failed, cancelled)
- -Governance auto-linking based on task type and assigned module
- -Quality gate validation before task completion (typecheck, lint, test)
Knowledge Browser
Browse and search your project's knowledge base. Knowledge documents are stored in .sidstack/knowledge/ and organized by type and module for persistent AI context.
- -Tree view with documents organized by module and type
- -Document preview panel with rendered markdown content
- -Full-text search across all knowledge documents
- -Filter by document type: business-logic, api-endpoint, design-pattern, database-table, module, index, governance, spec, and more
- -Filter by status: draft, active, review, archived
- -Document metadata display: tags, related documents, dependencies
- -Module-level statistics showing document counts and coverage
Ticket Queue
External issue intake system. Import tickets from Jira, GitHub, Linear, or create them manually. Triage, review, and convert approved tickets into tracked tasks.
- -Status workflow: new > reviewing > approved > in_progress > completed (or rejected)
- -Ticket types: bug, feature, improvement, task, epic
- -Priority levels: low, medium, high, critical
- -External source tracking (Jira, GitHub, Linear, manual, API)
- -Labels and external URL references for linking back to source systems
- -One-click conversion from ticket to governed task with automatic type mapping
- -Reporter tracking and assignee management
- -Session launch from ticket context for immediate AI-assisted work
Training Room
Lessons-learned system for continuous improvement. Capture incidents, extract lessons, generate reusable skills, and codify mandatory rules. Each module maintains its own training session.
- -Incident tracking: report mistakes, failures, confusion, and slowdowns with severity levels
- -Lesson extraction from incidents with problem, root cause, and solution fields
- -Lesson approval workflow: draft > reviewed > approved > archived
- -Skill generation from approved lessons (procedure, checklist, template, rule types)
- -Rule creation with enforcement levels: must (mandatory), should (recommended), may (optional)
- -Rule enforcement modes: manual, hook (automatic), gate (blocking)
- -Feedback tracking: record whether skills/rules helped, were ignored, or hindered work
- -Applicability scoping by module, agent role, and task type
Settings
Project configuration and preferences. Manage project paths, MCP server settings, governance options, and integration configurations.
- -Project path and name configuration
- -MCP server connection settings
- -Governance toggles (enable/disable principles, skills, workflows)
- -Database path configuration (SQLite location)
- -Integration settings for external services
- -Theme and display preferences
Worktree Status
Git branch and status overview accessible from the sidebar. Shows current branch, uncommitted changes, and recent commit history for the active project workspace.
- -Current branch display with branch switching
- -Uncommitted changes summary (staged, unstaged, untracked)
- -Recent commit history with author and message
- -Multi-worktree support for parallel development
- -Quick status indicators in the sidebar
Keyboard Shortcuts
Navigation & Workspace
Sidebar
The left sidebar provides quick access to all 7 views with icons and labels. The active view is highlighted. Worktree status is displayed at the bottom of the sidebar showing current git branch and status. The sidebar can be collapsed to save screen space.
Command Palette
Press ⌘K to open the command palette. Search for any action, navigate to views, open documents, or run commands. Fuzzy matching helps you find what you need.
Multi-Project Support
Switch between multiple SidStack-enabled projects using the project selector at the top of the sidebar. Each project maintains its own SQLite database, knowledge base, tasks, tickets, and governance configuration.
Data Storage
All data is stored locally in the .sidstack/ directory within your project. Tasks, tickets, incidents, lessons, skills, and rules are persisted in SQLite. Knowledge documents are markdown files on the filesystem. No cloud services or external dependencies required.