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epic: Desktop Frontend — the full frontend as a native desktop app, the NetScript way #840

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@rickylabs

Epic — Desktop Frontend (beta.11)

Part of #327 (thin-client desktop lane). No closing keyword.

Owner-ratified 2026-07-17 (Option A): beta.11 delivers the full frontend as a desktop app, the NetScript way — exactly how NetScript re-invented Fresh. Native-first: lean on deno desktop's own packaging formats (MSI/.app/.dmg/AppImage/.deb/.rpm) and native Deno.autoUpdate() (bsdiff, signed manifests, staged swap + self-healing rollback on macOS/Linux), and invest the freed room in wrapping desktop capabilities with NetScript DX.

Product story (thin-client): ship the packaged window to consumer machines while services stay in the vendor's cloud (services__* discovery at remote URLs) — the eis-chat#150 option-(b) topology productized. No PM dependency, no local graph.

Windows update posture: native apply is still unsupported upstream ("patches are downloaded and staged, but the launcher does not yet swap them in" — tracked in denoland/deno#35269 platform gaps). v1 = documented manual-update fallback (download new installer) + staged-detection UX; the full-stack snapshot updater (#830/#834 + #825, beta.14) covers Windows auto-update for combined artifacts; if upstream ships apply first, the native path converges for free.

One release-server lineage: the server ships here serving the NATIVE latest.json (+ bsdiff patches, Ed25519 envelope); the graph release manifest (beta.14) is a designed superset — same crypto, one lineage.

Sub-issues

Design source: PR #822 (rfc.md) + run .llm/runs/rfc-single-deployment--orchestrator/.

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