Headwater Nightly 9b48cdd

Unsigned development builds from commit 9b48cddd3195ef1fb7f95f30c236caab55a5041a. These artifacts are not notarized or signed by a trusted developer certificate and may trigger operating-system security warnings.

Security status

Desktop signup and restore privately redeem the daemon's rotated one-time enrollment code and continue into sign-in without terminal input; the raw code is never exposed to the renderer, logs, command-line arguments, or files. Main-generated, operation-bound, short-lived bootstrap proofs protect signup, restore, and initial OAuth registration. Broader tray/background policy, abrupt-process recovery, failure UX, and full packaged create/restore acceptance scenarios remain unfinished. Treat identities created with these alpha builds as disposable while that work remains incomplete.

Choose a download

Linux x64 Flatpak (.flatpak) - recommended

Use this on Linux when Flatpak is available and you want Headwater isolated from the rest of your home directory. It requires the Freedesktop 24.08 runtime; Flatpak downloads that shared runtime during the first installation if necessary.

Install and run it with:

flatpak remote-add --user --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
flatpak install --user ./Headwater-*.flatpak
flatpak run social.pleroma.Headwater

Data is stored separately from the AppImage build under ~/.var/app/social.pleroma.Headwater/config/Headwater/. The daemon identity and account state are inside its daemon/ directory. This sideloaded bundle has no update remote, so download and reinstall a newer nightly manually.

Linux x64 AppImage (.AppImage)

Use this when you want a single executable or do not have Flatpak. It is not sandboxed and has the same access as any program you run. The AppImage file is portable, but your Headwater identity and settings are not stored inside it.

Run it with:

chmod +x ./Headwater-*.AppImage
./Headwater-*.AppImage

Data is stored under $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/Headwater/ when that variable is set, or ~/.config/Headwater/ by default, with daemon identity and account state in daemon/. Some distributions require FUSE to launch AppImages; ./Headwater-*.AppImage --appimage-extract-and-run is a fallback. AppImage nightlies do not update automatically.

Windows x64 installer (.exe)

Run the NSIS installer and choose an installation directory. Windows SmartScreen may warn because the installer is unsigned. Data is stored under %APPDATA%\Headwater\, with daemon identity and account state in daemon\. Install newer nightlies manually over the existing application; uninstalling the application may leave this data in place.

macOS Apple silicon (.dmg)

This build requires an arm64 Apple silicon Mac. Open the DMG and drag Headwater into Applications. The app is ad-hoc sealed for bundle integrity but is not Developer ID signed or notarized, so macOS may require explicit approval before its first launch. Data is stored under ~/Library/Application Support/Headwater/, with daemon identity and account state in daemon/. Replace the application manually to update; application data remains separate from the app bundle.

Data and verification

The data directories contain your local identity, account database, and authentication secrets. Do not treat a nightly artifact as a backup, and do not delete its data directory unless you intend to remove that identity. Flatpak and AppImage use different data locations and do not automatically share or migrate identities.

Compute the selected download's hash with sha256sum "Headwater-...AppImage" or sha256sum "Headwater-...flatpak" on Linux, shasum -a 256 "Headwater-...dmg" on macOS, or Get-FileHash -Algorithm SHA256 .\Headwater-...exe in PowerShell. Replace the abbreviated name with the exact downloaded filename and compare the result with that file's line in SHA256SUMS.txt. Checksums detect download corruption; because they are published beside unsigned artifacts, they are not proof of publisher identity.