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Maintainer tools (VS Code extension)

The Local Desktop Dev extension brings the whole develop → debug → release loop into VS Code (and Cursor, VSCodium, …). Install it from Open VSX: Cursor, VSCodium and Windsurf find it by searching for "Local Desktop Dev". In VS Code, download the .vsix from that page and use Extensions › … › Install from VSIX. Then open this repository.

Everything lives in the Local Desktop icon on the activity bar.

Devices​

  • USB devices show up automatically. For Wi‑Fi, click Pair over Wi‑Fi (QR code) and scan it from Developer options → Wireless debugging → Pair device with QR code.
  • The device in the status bar is the one used by F5, the commands and the agent tools. Click it to switch.
  • Run environment check (Local Desktop: Check Environment) tells you what's missing from the toolchain.

Debugging with F5 is described in How to develop locally?.

Releases & CI​

  • See the latest release, its downloads, and whether the Google Play upload succeeded.
  • The 🚀 button builds a signed APK on GitHub Actions for the current branch, then offers to install it on your device. Push your branch first.
  • For your branch's pull request you can set the release:* label (it shows the version it will produce) and edit the release notes, which are the PR description.

Website​

  • Browse blog posts and docs, create a post with New Blog Post, and preview it live.
  • Publish opens a pull request with your website changes. Website-only PRs don't need a release label.

Chat​

A lightweight maintainer chat built on GitHub Discussions in this repository, so everyone already has an account.

  • Channels marked 🔒 private are encrypted on GitHub, so they aren't readable on github.com. Anyone with the extension can read and post in them: this keeps casual readers out, it isn't secret. Who posted and when is public.
  • Channels marked 🌐 public are ordinary discussion comments that anyone can read.
  • A message posted from github.com into a private channel is shown with an "Unencrypted" badge.

One-time setup (admins)​

  1. Run Local Desktop: Set Up Maintainer Chat… and follow the steps. It enables Discussions, asks you to create the "Chat" category (GitHub has no API for that), and creates the first channel.
  2. Run Local Desktop: Set Up Realtime Updates (Webhook)…. It creates a repository webhook that pings an ntfy topic, so chat and CI updates arrive within seconds instead of on the next poll. You can subscribe to the same topic in the ntfy phone app for push notifications.

Forks​

The extension works in forks of Local Desktop (for example elementary-mobile): it reads the package name and build setup from the fork. Releases & CI and Website use the repository of your origin remote (set localdesktop.repository to override), and actions whose workflow the fork doesn't have are hidden. Chat always uses the main Local Desktop repository, so there is one team chat.

Coding agents​

The extension ships an MCP server and a CLI that let coding agents use the device: read logs, get crash reports, take screenshots, tap and type, and record and analyse audio. Claude Code and Cursor pick it up from .mcp.json / .cursor/mcp.json in this repository. For other agents, run Local Desktop: Set Up Agent Tools (MCP)…. See AGENTS.md for the tool list.

Working on the extension​

The extension lives in vscode-extension/ (TypeScript, built with esbuild, tested with vitest).

cd vscode-extension
pnpm install
pnpm run build      # or `pnpm run watch`
pnpm test           # unit tests, headless

To try your changes, open the vscode-extension/ folder in VS Code and press F5 (Run Extension). The Extension Development Host opens the repository root, where the extension does its work.