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Desktop Material is an independent Material Design 3 (M3 Expressive) remake of GitHub Desktop. It is a fork of desktop/desktop (MIT) with the entire application shell rebuilt around Material Design 3 — animated light/dark theming, dynamic type and color tokens, and a browser-like, tabbed workspace — while keeping GitHub Desktop's complete Git workflow intact underneath.
On top of that shell, Desktop Material ships multi-provider accounts and organizations, automation,
GitHub Actions and logs, agent access, searchable graph History, multiple stashes, pull-all,
multi-window workflows, per-account repository tabs, Git-backed settings and notification bulk
triage, configurable bottom-right error notices, and a non-modal dialog framework. Its Material
first-run experience, adaptive toolbar, profile-backed
app identity, favorite/portable tabs, and layered appearance controls let the workspace respond to
both the active profile and the selected repository. Initialized submodules can
open as temporary repositories without entering the saved repository list, with
a profile-customizable Back control that returns to the persisted root. The
completed parity roadmap turns audited Git, gh, REST, and GraphQL capabilities
into named app functions rather than a searchable command or endpoint catalogue.
Status: Desktop Material is in active development, with the complete M0–M19 roadmap and the verified post-M19 adaptive customization maintenance release published on
main. Its exact production build, off-screen interaction review, compact/zoomed geometry checks, and inspected screenshot evidence are recorded alongside the implementation ledger and historical receipts inPLAN.mdandHANDOFF.md. The July 19 temporary-submodule and delivery-hardening implementation first exposed a macOS symlink/junction error-ordering defect and correctly emitted no release. Correction98d93cccpassed its full CI matrix and publishedv3.6.3-beta3-b0000000165. This documentation receipt at6e09ed8ethen passed CI 29698301745, CodeQL 29698301718, and Pages 29698301739, and publishedv3.6.3-beta3-b0000000166with all five required Windows update assets.
The automated release currently supports x64 Windows. From Windows PowerShell 5.1 or PowerShell 7, run this one line in a normal, non-administrator shell:
Microsoft.PowerShell.Utility\Invoke-RestMethod 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/codingmachineedge/desktop-material/main/script/install-windows.ps1' | Microsoft.PowerShell.Utility\Invoke-ExpressionThe tracked script resolves the newest published release from this exact repository, requires the matching GitHub SHA-256 asset digest, checks any Authenticode signature, installs silently for the current user, and cleans up its temporary download. Current builds are unsigned; the script reports that fact and refuses an unsupported architecture or an unverified download. See the User Guide for details and the manual-download path.
| Page | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Install on Windows | Fully automatic PowerShell install, integrity checks, architecture limits, and manual download. |
| User Guide | Task-oriented walkthrough for the Material welcome, appearance scopes, adaptive toolbar, accounts, guided Git/GitHub functions, organizations, tabs, automation, Actions, History, stashes, pull-all, multi-window, and the MD3 shell. |
| Guided Feature Gallery | One distinct screenshot for each of 58 named visual functions and states, with automated missing/duplicate coverage checks. |
| Automation | Scheduled commit & push and pull, layered overrides, safety guards, and merge-all branches/worktrees. |
| Submodules | The simplest page in the wiki — what submodules are (toy boxes inside toy boxes), pre-clone badges, the Submodule Manager, configuration, fixes, and submodule vs subtree, all in pictures. |
| Regex Guide | Filter chips, substring/regex modes, the regex builder, and the search surfaces that use them. |
| Developer Guide | Architecture for contributors — Electron windows, store/dispatcher flow, dugite, profile repos, agent server, CLI routing, and SCSS tokens. |
| Agent API | Shipped MCP, local REST, stdio proxy, and CLI access for safe AI-agent control. |
| Living parity roadmap | Completed named-function delivery waves, current maintenance, and production acceptance gates. |
The M0–M19 portions below have their existing production receipts. Post-M19 maintenance extensions are described separately and do not borrow those older receipts as acceptance evidence.
- Material Design 3 Expressive shell with animated light/dark theming and M3 color tokens: an app bar with an inline pill menu, a left icon navigation rail (Changes with a badge, History, Branches, Settings, account avatar), a floating pill toolbar with repository and branch chips and a sync pill, and floating radius-24 workspace cards with tri-state checkboxes, tonal status chips, token-based diff colors, and an inverse-surface undo banner. When space tightens, Build & Run moves into More first and Commit & Push follows; widening restores both actions before their labels can clip.
- Browser-like repository tabs — per-account and bound to repos, with inline rename, favorites, persistent pin/manual/sorted order, and per-tab title styling (bold/italic/underline, size, font family, alignment, and separate text and background palettes or custom colors) in a Word-style editing surface. Drop repository folders to open/switch tabs, or export/import the current tab session with aliases, pins, favorites, order, and appearance.
- Multi-account — multiple identities per host; each account carries its own tabs, repos, and settings. GitHub organizations expose their complete repository lists and can be selected when publishing. GitLab endpoints use PAT authentication and Bitbucket uses app passwords; both providers can browse and clone repositories without exposing credentials to the renderer or agent API.
-
Per-account settings in a local git repo — every settings or tabs change, including the
versioned appearance defaults, auto-commits. Open
Edit → Settings History… (
Ctrl+Alt+Z) for a non-modal timeline with lazy diffs, undo, redo, and restore; each history action appends an audit commit.
Open Settings → Appearance to set the 13 app defaults carried by the active profile: accent
palette, surface palette, surface depth, interface font, code and diff font,
motion, toolbar labels, toolbar density, repository-list density, tab density,
tab width, tab close-button visibility, and default-off Desktop Material feature
highlighting. The optional discovery treatment adds an accent edge plus an M or Material
badge only to explicitly reviewed fork-only navigation, toolbar, settings, menu, and command entry
points; it does not change their behavior or label upstream/mixed controls. All 13 settings are
captured in that profile's local Git history, so switching profiles switches the appearance context
and Settings History can audit or restore it.
For a project-specific workspace, open Repository settings → Appearance. Its six optional
overrides are accent palette, surface palette, toolbar labels, toolbar density, tab
density, and tab width. Each unset field inherits the active-profile default. The overrides
live in the repository's local .git/config; they are not committed or shared with collaborators.
Per-tab text and background palettes, custom colors, and recent colors remain profile tab data
rather than repository overrides.
The same page now includes a live App identity editor. It can replace the in-app name and logo, then tune logo shape, size, inset, rotation, border, shadow, and colors plus name font, width, weight, case, size, spacing, opacity, emphasis, highlight, and effects. The identity follows the active profile and its local Git history, restores across restart, and deliberately does not rename the signed executable or operating-system icon. Right-clicking an appropriate shell or repository surface offers its customization route and identifies the exact profile or local Git repository whose history owns that setting.
The first-run page uses the same Material type, color, shape, elevation, and responsive rules as the main shell. GitHub.com, Enterprise, and continue-locally routes stay inside one focused task card; the tonal workspace preview hides when a compact window needs the space.
- Non-modal dialogs that float without blocking the app, drag by their headers, cascade, and come to front on focus. Preferences is an MD3 940×660 dialog with a left rail, an Active chip, and a pill footer; the repository and branch pickers are MD3 side sheets.
- Notification and error triage — search and type-filter Local notifications, select the visible result set, apply history-backed read/unread/delete actions, or confirm Clear all. GitHub inbox items have account-scoped search and bulk read/done controls. Acknowledgement-only errors default to dismissible red bottom-right notices and can be switched to blocking dialogs in Notifications settings; errors with a real retry, authentication, or remediation choice stay modal.
- Automation — schedule guarded commit-and-push and pull at the global level, override either setting per account or repository, run commit-and-push immediately, and merge all branches or worktrees with per-target progress and Copilot-assisted conflict handling.
- GitHub Actions — filter runs by workflow, branch, event, or status; load later run pages while preserving them across polling/Refresh; re-run a complete run or failed jobs; switch current or historical attempts; load bounded job pages; search exact job logs; review pending environments; approve or reject eligible deployments; approve an eligible fork run; dispatch a workflow; and load later artifact pages before a native download with local digest comparison and explicit attestation-presence context.
- Agent access — opt in from Settings to start a token-gated MCP/REST server on a random loopback-only port. A stdio proxy and command-line client expose the same bounded commands for repositories, tabs, Git operations, automation, and workflow dispatch.
- Guarded tab close and arrangement — preserve the original regex Close Tabs Containing… action and add a case-insensitive literal Close all tabs except those containing… review with live kept/closed/protected counts, a bounded preview, and empty/zero-match protection. Pinned tabs form a protected leading group; drag, keyboard moves, and stable one-shot label/opened/status sorts persist the resulting order without continuously reacting to later status changes.
- Actions cancellation — show Cancel run only for queued, running, waiting, or pending runs; name the exact workflow/run and available ref/actor/commit context; revalidate repository, account, run, and live status before one normal cancellation request; suppress duplicates; then refresh until a terminal state with explicit authentication, SSO, or conflict recovery.
- Reviewed rebase — search a target branch, review current→target with ahead/behind state and a bounded replay preview, and run only after fresh dirty/conflict/operation and exact-ref checks. Cancellation remains available before mutation, conflicts reuse continue/abort, and Desktop Material never force-pushes automatically.
- Repository account propagation — Provider Triage reads the exact account saved in Repository Settings and reacts immediately when that binding changes. One usable exact provider/endpoint match may bind an unassigned repository; multiple matches require Use this account; signed-out, stale, permission, and organization-SSO states route to recovery without silently replacing a valid explicit binding.
-
Bounded GitHub sign-in scopes — request
repo,user,workflow,notifications, andread:orgfor implemented repository, workflow-file, inbox, and read-only organization features, while excluding unrelated destructive and administrative scope families. - Compact responsive corrections — Repository Tools scrolls to its diagnostics/results at short heights; Remote Manager protects readable name/URL/control widths before stacking; Regex Builder reflows its category/token grid and scrolls its body while keeping the tester and footer reachable, without page-level horizontal clipping.
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Searchable navigation and contextual actions — search open tabs by label, alias, path, or URL;
filter the Arrange surface; scope cloned repositories by exact account and service; and open the
same selection-aware History commit actions by right-click, More actions, Context Menu, or
Shift+F10. Every button also receives a shared hover/focus hint. - Clone-style Add Submodule — open Repository settings → Submodules → Add submodule… to use the same GitHub.com, Enterprise, URL, and GitLab/Bitbucket selection model as Clone, then review a safe repository-relative path and optional branch with exact-account routing, bounded progress, cancellation, and managed-list refresh.
- Deepen shallow history — Repository Tools detects the shallow boundary, reviews a bounded or complete deepen, runs the bundled Git recipe, and rechecks the repository state. The production fixture expanded from 3 visible commits to all 15.
- Create a pull request — choose the exact repository, account, base, and current head; compose the title and Markdown body; choose draft state; review; and submit without a raw command or API editor.
- Actions artifacts — select a workflow run and artifact, review size/expiry/source context, save through the native file picker, compare the downloaded SHA-256 with GitHub's digest, reveal the file, and distinguish attestation presence from cryptographic verification.
- Actions pagination — use purpose-built Load more runs and Load more artifacts controls. Provider-side filters, exact-account routing, cancellation, retained-page retry, and shifted-page de-duplication stay behind the workflow; no command, REST path, or GraphQL editor is exposed.
- Actions run inspector — choose the latest or a historical attempt, load 50-job pages through a named retry, open or re-run the exact loaded job, inspect pending environments and review history, submit a bounded deployment decision, and confirm eligible fork approval. Locked environments explain why they cannot be selected instead of exposing an API mutation editor.
- Effective branch rules — inspect reviews, checks, deployments, merge queue, signatures, history, update/delete/force policy, bypass context, and source rulesets. Signed-out and ambiguous repository-account states route to the relevant settings screen.
- History power tools — search commits by title, message, tag, or hash and toggle a commit graph that renders ancestry lanes beside the filtered history.
- Multiple stashes — create and keep multiple entries, select one to inspect its files and diffs, then restore or discard that exact stash.
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Repository power tools — pin and group repositories, pull all with a per-repository result,
use branch presets and default-branch controls, set a repository-specific editor, shallow-clone
with a commit-depth control, manage cone-mode sparse checkout, and multi-clone in parallel or
sequence with URL-only import/export. These are named, validated workflows rather than a raw Git,
gh, or API-command catalogue. - Multi-window workflows — open a repository or worktree in a separate window; each window keeps its own selected repository and persisted tab state while commands route to the correct window.
- Notification centre — a Git-backed Local view plus an account-aware GitHub inbox with All/Unread and participating-only filters, including a complete no-signed-in-account state.
- Clipping-safe scaling — choose 50–200% UI scaling; auto-fit caps the effective scale when a small window cannot contain the requested size. The latest Actions run-inspector gate reached a requested 200% base through five actual menu actions and safely auto-fit to 96% while preserving every title-bar, navigation, attempt, job, deployment, confirmation, and log control.
- No page-level sideways scrolling — task forms wrap text and stack controls when space narrows. Horizontal scrolling is reserved for spatial content such as code, diffs, and logs when needed.
- Pages accessibility gate — the current gallery passes headless accessibility checks at 960×660 and 390×844, with zero axe violations, matching document/body widths, and no horizontally outside elements.
