Antchat for Windows

Native Windows client for ANT v4 chat rooms + terminals. Built with Tauri 2 + Svelte 5 + Bun + Vite.

Companion to Jktfe/antchat (native macOS) — both apps speak to the same v4 server (http://localhost:6174 for dev, Tailscale funnel for remote).

Install

Via Scoop (recommended — bypasses Windows SmartScreen automatically):

scoop bucket add antchat https://github.com/Jktfe/scoop-antchat
scoop install antchat-app

Direct .exe download from GitHub Releases also works, but Windows SmartScreen will show an "Unrecognized app" warning on first launch (the binaries are not Authenticode-signed — see Distribution below).

Login

You'll need a dev-tier licence code. Format:

NEW-MODEL-ANT-DEV-<your-email>

Together with your email + password, the app stores a 7-day token in Windows Credential Manager. Same token survives both app restart (client-side persistence) and v4 server restart (server-side SQLite store).

What's in the app

• Multi-room chat — every ANT v4 chatroom you're a member of, with live message updates over SSE.
• Composer + reactions — same UX as the v4 web frontend.
• Room Tools panel — 9 of 11 sections live (Plans, Tasks, Asks, Focus mode, Linked rooms, Interviews, Artefacts, Screenshots, Attachments); Participants + Room memory stubbed pending dedicated server endpoints.
• ant:// deep links — system-level handler joins you into the right room.

Distribution

Unsigned NSIS installer, deliberately. The decision (JWPK msg_mtpqhnd0bx):

"no I'm not buying a signing certificate, we got a scoop repo working previously; can we use something similar?"

Scoop verifies via SHA256 manifest hash, not certificate validation — so installation via scoop install antchat-app runs in Scoop's install context and doesn't trigger SmartScreen. Users who download the .exe directly will see the "Unrecognized app" prompt; clicking "More info → Run anyway" lets them through.

Reputation builds slowly as more users run the unsigned binary; SmartScreen warnings fade over time. If broader public distribution becomes a priority, an EV Authenticode cert (~£300/yr) would close the gap immediately. Until then: Scoop is the path.

Architecture

┌─────────────────────┐    SSE + REST    ┌─────────────────────┐
│  Antchat.exe        │  <──────────>   │   v4 server          │
│  (Tauri webview)    │                  │   (rooms+DB+SSE)    │
└─────────────────────┘                  └─────────────────────┘
        │ Tauri IPC                                ▲
        ▼                                          │ ant CLI
┌─────────────────────┐                            │
│  Rust commands      │                            │
│  - keychain         │                  ┌─────────────────────┐
│  - deep links       │                  │  Claude Desktop /    │
│  - file picker      │                  │  Codex / etc        │
└─────────────────────┘                  │  (via ant-mcp)      │
                                          └─────────────────────┘

• Visual half: Antchat.exe shows live room state from v4 server's SSE stream.
• Agent half today: the Scoop install depends on the ant CLI. Agents can route terminal mentions with ant router start --room <roomId> --handle <@agent>.
• MCP registration: not shipped yet. The app must not write Claude Desktop config until a real packaged MCP server exists and the Windows Store/non-Store Claude config paths are both handled.

This is the experience JWPK described in msg_qvxz2c761k: "Mark or James... see a visual update of what was happening, as well as their agents, Claude Desktop / Codex / whatever, being able to interact with the MCP in the CLI."

Development

bun install
bun run tauri dev      # launch in dev mode
bun run tauri build    # produce NSIS installer at src-tauri/target/release/bundle/nsis/

Requires Rust toolchain (rustup default stable) + Visual Studio Build Tools (C++ workload).

Release pipeline

1. Bump version in package.json + src-tauri/Cargo.toml + src-tauri/tauri.conf.json.
2. git tag v<version> && git push --tags.
3. .github/workflows/release-windows.yml builds the NSIS .exe, publishes a GitHub Release with the binary + SHA256 in step summary.
4. .github/workflows/scoop-bump.yml fires on successful release completion, re-hashes the asset (ground-truth verify), opens an auto-PR against Jktfe/scoop-antchat to bump bucket/antchat-app.json.
5. Merge the auto-PR → users get the new version on next scoop update antchat-app.

End-to-end auto-flow mirrors the Mac side (Jktfe/antchat → Jktfe/homebrew-antchat). Required secrets:

• HOMEBREW_TAP_GITHUB_TOKEN — fine-grained PAT scoped to Jktfe/scoop-antchat (Contents:write + Pull requests:write).

License

MIT — see shared/api-types.ts header for the v4 server contract this client codes against.

Provenance

This repo was forked from Jktfe/ant-native/macos (private, dormant) on 2026-05-19 as wta-01 of the windows-tauri-antchat-2026-05-19 ANT plan. See ORIGIN.md for full lineage.