Desktop App Status

No. Wenlan's main workflow works through Claude Code or Codex commands, MCP tools, and the wenlan CLI. The local daemon owns captures, pages, sessions, and retrieval either way.

Use the desktop app when you want the richest source-cited wiki view, graphical review and curation, or guided Remote Access for web AI clients.

The main Wenlan repo owns the daemon, business logic, CLI, MCP server, shared wire types, Claude Code plugin, Codex plugin, and the app/ desktop crate.

That is the runtime path documented on this website: setup, capture, recall, handoff, distill, pages, data paths, diagnostics, and releases.

The desktop app now lives under app/ in the main Wenlan repository and is version-locked to the workspace release train. The older split wenlan-app repository is historical, not the current release source.

The app crate owns the Tauri 2 desktop shell, sidecar packaging, app-to-daemon bridge, updater metadata, source integrations, and Remote Access controls. Release artifacts and updater metadata now come from the unified Wenlan release.

The released desktop app starts wenlan-mcp in Streamable HTTP mode with --no-auth on loopback and exposes it through a temporary HTTPS tunnel. Possession of the URL grants access. The Remote Access panel gives you the URL, connection health, reconnect controls, and the exact setup path for ChatGPT and Claude.ai; stop Remote Access when you are not using it.

ChatGPT uses a New Plugin configured with the Remote Access Server URL and Authentication set to None. Claude.ai uses Wenlan from the 7xuanlu/wenlan marketplace. Treat both as direct access to your own runtime, not proof of a public ChatGPT Apps Directory listing.

The desktop app should be treated as a client over the daemon, not a second source of truth. The daemon owns the database, pages, sessions, and retrieval behavior.

That boundary is what lets Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Claude Desktop, Gemini CLI, ChatGPT, Claude.ai, terminal commands, and the optional GUI build on the same source-backed wiki.

The main daemon, CLI, MCP server, core, shared types, and plugin files are Apache-2.0.

The optional app/ desktop crate is AGPL-3.0-only inside the same repository. Check the crate license before reusing app code or contributing across that boundary.