TNTStack

The scaffolded project includes a pre-configured Tauri application in apps/native/ that produces native desktop binaries for Windows, macOS, and Linux. The recommended approach is CI-first: push your code, create a release, and let the GitHub Actions workflow build for all three platforms in parallel. Local builds are useful for development and testing on your own machine.

Prerequisites

Local desktop builds require platform-specific C++ build tools or SDKs. Follow the official Tauri Prerequisites Guide to set up your OS before running any local builds.

Local Build

Command	What it does
`pnpm tauri dev`	Starts the Next.js dev server and opens the Tauri window with hot reload.
`pnpm tauri build`	Produces a release build for your current OS.

Output goes to apps/native/src-tauri/target/release/bundle/.

Local builds only produce binaries for your current operating system. To build for Windows, macOS, and Linux simultaneously, use the CI workflow.

CI Build

The build-desktop.yml workflow is called by build-apps.yml (manual dispatch). It dynamically builds a runner matrix from the platform toggles you select.

Platform	Runner	Targets	Output
macOS	`macos-latest`	`aarch64-apple-darwin`, `x86_64-apple-darwin`	`.dmg`, `.app`
Linux	`ubuntu-22.04`	Default	`.deb`, `.rpm`, `.AppImage`
Windows	`windows-latest`	Default	`.msi`, `.exe`

The matrix is not hardcoded. build-apps.yml passes boolean flags (build_windows, build_macos, build_linux) and the workflow constructs the matrix at runtime, so you only build what you need.

What the Workflow Does

Checks out the code at the specified release tag
Installs system dependencies (Linux needs libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev, patchelf, etc.)
Sets up pnpm, Node.js 20, and Rust stable with the target architecture
Installs frontend dependencies and caches Rust + pnpm
Runs tauri-action which builds the app and uploads assets to the GitHub Release

tauri-action step

- uses: tauri-apps/tauri-action@v0
  env:
    GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
  with:
    tagName: ${{ inputs.tag_name }}
    releaseName: ${{ inputs.tag_name }}
    assetNamePattern: "[name]_${{ inputs.tag_name }}_${{ matrix.os_name }}_[arch][ext]"
    projectPath: "apps/native"
    includeRelease: true
    includeUpdaterJson: true

Release Assets

After a successful build, these assets appear on the GitHub Release:

Platform	Assets
Windows	`[name]_[tag]_windows_x64.exe`, `.msi`
macOS (ARM)	`[name]_[tag]_macos_aarch64.dmg`, `.app.tar.gz`
macOS (Intel)	`[name]_[tag]_macos_x64.dmg`, `.app.tar.gz`
Linux	`[name]_[tag]_linux_amd64.AppImage`, `.deb` `[name]_[tag]_linux_x86_64.rpm`

Bundle Configuration

apps/native/src-tauri/tauri.conf.json (bundle)

{
  "bundle": {
    "active": true,
    "targets": "all",
    "icon": [
      "icons/32x32.png",
      "icons/128x128.png",
      "icons/128x128@2x.png",
      "icons/icon.icns",
      "icons/icon.ico"
    ]
  }
}

targets: "all" builds every format supported by the current platform. The icon array covers all required sizes: .ico for Windows, .icns for macOS, .png for Linux.

Replace the default icons in apps/native/src-tauri/icons/ with your own before releasing. Tauri requires specific sizes for each platform.

Desktop Builds