Building from source

Trove is open source under the MIT license. This page gets you from a fresh clone to a running desktop build.

Prerequisites

Tool	Version	Why
Node.js	≥ 24	Runs the workspace tooling. Use nvm use — .nvmrc pins it.
pnpm	≥ 10	The workspace package manager. Install via Corepack.
Rust	stable	Compiles the Tauri core. Install with rustfmt and clippy.
Go	≥ 1.23	Only needed to build the collector sidecar (pnpm build:collector).

You’ll also need the platform-specific Tauri system dependencies — see the Tauri prerequisites guide for macOS, Windows, and Linux.

Tip

Enable pnpm through Corepack so the version matches the workspace:

corepack enable && corepack prepare pnpm@latest --activate

Clone and bootstrap

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/Intevity/trove.git
   cd trove

2. Use the pinned Node version and install dependencies:

   nvm use
   pnpm install

   The first pnpm install also installs the lefthook git hooks via the prepare script — Prettier + ESLint on staged files at commit time, and pnpm typecheck && pnpm test at push time.

3. Build the workspace packages the app imports from their dist/:

   pnpm build

   This compiles @trove/shared, @trove/collector-presets, and the rest. Skip it on a fresh clone and the app fails to resolve them.

Build the collector sidecar

Trove bundles a custom OpenTelemetry Collector binary built with ocb. You build it once per platform; both steps are gitignored outputs, so every contributor builds locally for their host.

1. Build the binary (≈ 1–2 min on first run — it downloads and compiles the collector components):

   pnpm build:collector

   scripts/build-collector.sh resolves your host Rust target triple, installs the pinned ocb via go install if it isn’t already on PATH, and writes the binary to resources/otelcol/dist/<triple>/trove-otelcol[.exe].

2. Stage the binary where Tauri’s externalBin resolver expects it:

   pnpm bundle:sidecar

   This copies the binary into packages/app/src-tauri/binaries/trove-otelcol-<triple>[.exe]. Tauri strips the suffix at bundle time, so the runtime sees a plain trove-otelcol next to the app executable.

Caution

The app can’t spawn the collector until both build:collector and bundle:sidecar have run at least once on the current host. If tauri:dev starts but the collector never goes healthy, that’s the usual cause.

Run the app

Dev (hot reload)

Boot the desktop app with the Vite dev server and Rust hot reload:

pnpm --filter @trove/app tauri:dev

Local dev build

Produce an installable local build (unsigned). This is the standard loop after a UI change:

pnpm build:app

build:app runs scripts/build-app.mjs, which builds an unsigned bundle, installs it, and relaunches the app.

Production build

To produce signed, distributable bundles, the Tauri build runs directly:

pnpm build:app:release   # pnpm -F app tauri build

Caution

build:app:release blocks on the signing-key prompt and is meant for release work, not the dev loop. For day-to-day iteration use pnpm build:app. Releases themselves run through CI — see Releasing.

Release outputs land in packages/app/src-tauri/target/release/bundle/:

Platform	Output
macOS	macos/Trove.app, .dmg
Linux	.deb, .rpm, .AppImage
Windows	.msi, NSIS installer

Run the checks

Before opening a PR, run the same checks CI runs:

pnpm lint
pnpm format:check
pnpm typecheck
pnpm test
cargo clippy --manifest-path packages/app/src-tauri/Cargo.toml --all-targets -- -D warnings
cargo test --manifest-path packages/app/src-tauri/Cargo.toml

See Testing for the coverage gate and Contributing for the PR conventions.

Testing Vitest, coverage, and the ≥95% shared-schema gate.