Desktop Base¶

The Desktop base bundles the G6 TUI, browser GUI, FastMCP server and license activation into a single binary entry point.

Overview¶

The desktop binary (g6) wraps the CLI TUI, browser GUI, and MCP server with production features: Stripe-based licensing and diagnostics. It is distributed as a wheel (g6_desktop-1.0.0.whl) or standalone binary.

# Launch the browser GUI (default mode)
g6 --gui

# Launch the TUI (same interface as g6 --tui)
g6 --tui

# Start the embedded MCP server (262 tools)
g6 --mcp

# Start the REST API server locally (binds 127.0.0.1:8010)
g6 --rest

# Activate a license
g6 --activate

In a development source checkout, the same launcher is available as a module — e.g. python -m mvp.desktop --gui (see Installation → From source).

Modes¶

Exactly one mode flag is required.

Relationship to other bases¶

The desktop binary reuses existing bases rather than reimplementing them:

• --gui starts bases/mvp/gui_api/ (FastAPI sidecar) + serves projects/g6_gui/out/ (static export) + opens browser
• --tui imports G6App from bases/mvp/cli/ -- the same 11-tab TUI documented in CLI Base
• --mcp imports create_server() from bases/mvp/mcp/ -- the same FastMCP server documented in MCP Base
• --gui-api starts the FastAPI backend only (for custom frontend setups)
• --rest runs main() from bases/mvp/rest/ -- the same FastAPI server documented in REST Base, bound to loopback by default
• --activate and --diagnostics are desktop-only features

g6_desktop
  ├── --gui      ──>  bases/mvp/gui_api/ + projects/g6_gui/out/ (browser)
  ├── --tui      ──>  bases/mvp/cli/  (G6App)
  ├── --mcp      ──>  bases/mvp/mcp/  (FastMCP server)
  ├── --gui-api  ──>  bases/mvp/gui_api/  (FastAPI sidecar only)
  ├── --rest     ──>  bases/mvp/rest/  (FastAPI REST server, loopback)
  ├── --activate    (desktop only)
  └── --diagnostics (desktop only)

GUI mode¶

When started with --gui, the desktop launcher:

1. Selects available ports for the API (default 8001) and frontend (default 3002)
2. Generates a session token via secrets.token_urlsafe(32)
3. Starts the GUI API as a subprocess with the token
4. Starts a static file server for the GUI frontend export
5. Opens the browser with the token appended as a query parameter

Port fallbacks: if the preferred port is busy, the launcher tries alternatives (8001-8003, 8080, 3001 for API; 3002-3003, 3010-3012 for frontend).

Desktop mode also loads local runtime settings from ~/.g6/.env. The GUI Settings view can save or clear OPENROUTER_API_KEY there, so non-technical users can add their own OpenRouter key without editing shell profiles or project .env files.

See GUI documentation for full details on the browser workbench.

License activation¶

The --activate flow:

1. Prompts for API key and passphrase
2. Collects hardware fingerprint (CPU, hostname, MAC, OS)
3. Derives an encryption key via PBKDF2 (100k iterations)
4. Validates with the licensing server
5. Encrypts and persists the license locally (~/.g6/license.enc)

g6 --activate
# Enter API key: g6_live_...
# Enter passphrase: ********
# License activated: premium tier, expires 2027-04-22

Tiers control which MCP tools are available when running in --mcp mode (see MCP middleware).

Installation¶

pip install dist/g6_desktop-1.0.0.whl
g6 --tui

# Windows PowerShell
$env:PYTHONPATH="components;bases"; python -m mvp.desktop --tui

# Bash
PYTHONPATH="components;bases" python -m mvp.desktop --tui

Extra dependencies¶

Beyond the core CLI, the desktop base requires:

These are included in the g6_desktop wheel but must be installed separately when running from source.

Source files¶

See also¶

• GUI Documentation -- the browser workbench available via --gui
• GUI API Reference -- the FastAPI backend powering the GUI
• CLI (TUI) Documentation -- the TUI interface available via --tui
• MCP Server Documentation -- the MCP server available via --mcp
• Bases Overview -- all delivery mechanisms