Get the companion

Windows download

Windows 10/11 · x64 Version 0.3.1 4.70 MB installer Tauri · Rust

The companion watches which application and window is in front, sorts that into categories, keeps it in a local SQLite database, and pushes what it sees to the extension over a loopback WebSocket, so a stint spent in Figma, Excel or a call is time your day accounts for. Windows only, and not by oversight: the window monitor is bound to Win32 and the capture engine draws through GDI, so macOS and Linux are a port, not a build flag.

This build ships the hardened device pairing: the local bridge now requires a one-tap pairing token exchange before it will talk to a browser, closing the open-socket limitation earlier builds carried.

It can also capture the screen while the browser is not in front — but that is off by default, redacted with a fail-closed pass when on, written only to your own machine and never uploaded, and auto-deleted after 30 days (90 while clocked in for an org). A fresh install captures nothing until you turn it on.

⬇️ Download for Windows NSIS installer · 4.70 MB · from the desktop-v0.3.1 GitHub release.

Version0.3.1 · Windows x64

Size4,927,360 bytes (4.70 MB)

SHA-25699828808694b6ff8606975c1a52354f61b18d66f78e82f1b70f1378e617fc6a7

SHA-256 (.msi)9969d5dc255294ade3ef1e42db8abd18763eec50c7fb30be422032231a6b384a

Also.msi build (8,175,616 bytes) · release page & checksums

Before you install

It is unsigned. No code-signing certificate is configured yet, so Windows SmartScreen will warn on first run — "More info → Run anyway". Verify the SHA-256 above against the file you downloaded if you want certainty about what you're running.
The local interface is paired, as of this build. The companion opens a WebSocket on 127.0.0.1:9147 for the extension bridge; 0.3.1 requires a one-tap pairing token, exchanged from the extension's Settings pairing card or the tray's "Pair Extension" action, before it will accept a connection. Still loopback-only and never reachable from your network.
Updates are manual. The companion has no auto-update channel of its own yet, so a future fix means downloading a new installer from the release page rather than an in-app update.

Component library

15 surfaces & subsystems · rendered from live companion tokens

The companion has almost no UI on purpose. It is a tray icon, one optional 480×640 window, and a great deal of machinery underneath - because the thing it is trying to be is invisible: if you have to interact with it, it has already failed at its job. So most of what follows is not a screen but a subsystem, shown as the surface through which you would ever actually meet it. The stages here render the companion's own tokens (accent #4a9eff, green #10ac84) and its 8/4 radius scale - it is a different app from the extension, and it does not pretend otherwise.

⏸ Pause Tabbing

🕐 Clock Out

📸 Capture ✓

📊 Activity Log

🛠 Desk Panel

⬆ Check for Updates

✅ Start on Login

🔄 Restart

❌ Exit Completely

📋

Tray menu Live

The companion's only permanent surface - there is no main window at all. Eleven items across three groups: what it is doing now, where to look, and how it starts. The first two relabel themselves against live state (Pause ⇄ Resume, Clock In ⇄ Clock Out), and Capture is a real checkbox that persists to settings.json rather than a dialog.

src-tauri/src/main.rs

tracking

Tabby Desk v0.3.1 (release) - Tabbing

paused

Tabby Desk v0.3.1 (release) - Paused

🟢

Tray icon & tooltip Live

Ships no icon file: the 16×16 circle is rasterized in Rust at runtime, so the colour is state rather than a swapped asset. Green means it is watching, amber means you paused it. The tooltip is the only place the running build number is ever stated, and it says (release) or (debug) so a stray dev build cannot masquerade as the real one.

src-tauri/src/main.rs · make_tray_icon()

⚡ Tabby Desk v0.3.1

● Tabbing

👁 Active Window

Visual Studio Code

TagPicker.jsx - tabatha

💻 development

⏰ Time Clock

04:12:38

since 09:02 · 18m break

📊 Today

4h 12m

Active time

App switches

WebSocket server on ws://localhost:9147

🛠

Desk Panel Live

A 480×640 webview you open from the tray and close again - never shown at launch, because the companion is meant to be forgotten. Six stacked cards polling the Rust side once a second. Its version string is read at runtime rather than hardcoded, which is the fix for a build that spent a release claiming to be v0.1.0.

src/App.jsx

connected

✓ Extension connected

Tabatha is talking to your browser. v6.7.18

disconnected

⚠ Extension stopped responding

Last seen 14:07:22. Open chrome://extensions and check Tabatha is still enabled.

never installed

🧩 Install the browser extension

The companion ships with it. Load it once and they find each other.

%APPDATA%\Tabatha Desktop\extension

1Copy the path above

2Open chrome://extensions

3Enable Developer mode → Load unpacked

🧩

InstallGuide Live

Three states, not two: never installed gets the full walkthrough, but disconnected is deliberately a separate, amber case - "it broke" and "you never set it up" want opposite advice, and collapsing them sends people to re-install something they already have. Chrome refuses programmatic navigation to chrome:// URLs, so the open button copies the URL and says so instead of silently doing nothing.

src/components/InstallGuide.jsx

tracking

👁 Active Window

Figma

Tabatha - Gatekeeper explorations

🎨 design

idle · 5 min threshold

👁 Active Window

Idle

No input for 5m 22s

⏸ not counted

👁

Window monitor Live

Polls the foreground window once a second through the Win32 API and cuts a new session whenever the app or the window title changes - title-level, so two hours in one editor still resolves into the files you were actually in. Idle after five minutes of no input. The whole loop runs inside a panic guard: a crash in one tick is logged and retried on the next rather than taking the tray down with it.

src-tauri/src/window_monitor.rs

clocked out

⏰ Time Clock

00:00:00

not clocked in

clocked in

⏰ Time Clock

04:12:38

since 09:02 · 18m break

on break

⏰ Time Clock

04:12:38

on break since 13:41

⏰

Time Clock Live

The same shift the extension sees, driven from either end. Clocking in is idempotent and clocking out closes every open session rather than the newest - both are v0.2.0 fixes for a real bug: the tray, the extension and the auto-clock could each open a shift, and one stale row left the companion insisting you had been working for eleven days.

src-tauri/src/activity_log.rs

📊 Today

4h 12m

Active time

App switches

18m

Break time

Categories

Top apps

💻Code1h 54m

🎨Figma1h 06m

💬Slack32m

📊Excel21m

📊

Today summary Live

Four tiles and the top five apps. The still-open session is counted live rather than at its next boundary, so the number is right mid-morning instead of only after you switch away. Days roll at UTC, which is a real quirk worth knowing: near midnight in a distant timezone this card and the tray's report disagree, because the report prints local time.

src-tauri/src/activity_log.rs · get_daily_summary()

🕐 Recent Activity

💻Code - TagPicker.jsx22m

🌐Chrome - (handed to extension)14m

🎨Figma - Gatekeeper explorations38m

💬Slack - #flux-dev6m

📊Excel - Q1 charts.xlsx21m

🕐

Recent Activity Live

The last twenty sessions, newest first, each as app · window title · duration. Browser rows are the seam in the whole architecture: the companion sees Chrome is focused but hands the content question to the extension, which knows the tab, its Context and its intent. Two trackers, one timeline, no double-count.

src/App.jsx · get_today_sessions

💻development~30

💬communication~12

🎨design~28

📋productivity~10

📧email~5

🎵media~8

🎮entertainment~6

🌐browser~4

⚙️system~7

❓unknownfallback

🏷

Categorizer Live

Nine categories plus an honest unknown fallback, over roughly a hundred executable names - matched on exact filename, case-insensitively, so a renamed binary lands in unknown rather than being guessed at. Design is the biggest bucket after development, mostly because the Adobe suite is large. The extension's own category engine was ported from this file, which is why a day reads the same on both sides.

src-tauri/src/categorizer.rs

● Connected ws://localhost:9147/tabatha loopback only · 1 client

↑ Companion → extension

APP_SWITCHAPP_SESSION_END COMPANION_STATUSCLOCK_STATE DAILY_SUMMARYIDLE_STATE UPDATE_READYCAPTURE_TAKEN CAPTURE_STATEFILE_WRITTEN

↓ Extension → companion

FOCUS_UPDATECLOCK_IN CLOCK_OUTTOGGLE_BREAK GET_CLOCK_STATEREQUEST_SUMMARY CATEGORY_RULESPING CAPTURE_CONFIGGET_CAPTURE_STATE CAPTURE_FRAMEWRITE_EXPORT

🔌

WebSocket bridge Live

The whole contract between the two products, on 127.0.0.1 only - never 0.0.0.0, so nothing on your network can listen in. Ten message types out, twelve in. If the port is taken the companion logs it and carries on tray-only rather than refusing to start. FOCUS_UPDATE is the interesting one: it splits your focus label into keywords and tags any desktop window whose title matches, so "Q1 charts" in the browser silently claims the Excel file too.

src-tauri/src/ws_server.rs

app_sessions

id · app_name · app_display_name · window_title · category · started_at · ended_at · duration_ms · matched_focus_id · matched_context

clock_sessions

id · clocked_in_at · clocked_out_at · total_break_ms · label · source

clock_breaks

id · clock_session_id → · started_at · ended_at · duration_ms · note

tabatha_activity.db · local SQLite · never leaves the machine unless you sync

🗄

Activity log Live

Three tables and three indexes of local SQLite. The part worth knowing is what happens after a crash or a flat battery: on every start it reconciles orphans - an app session left open is closed at the moment the next one began, not at "now", so a laptop that slept over the weekend does not wake up crediting you sixty hours in a text editor.

src-tauri/src/activity_log.rs

📸 Capture · off by default

%APPDATA%\Tabatha Desktop\captures\<partition>\<YYYY-MM>\2026-07-16T03-12-45-123Z_os_personal_report-xlsx-excel.jpg

skipped while idle skipped when a browser is in front suppressed by rule redaction fails closed min-gap throttle

Partition follows the clock: org while clocked in, otherwise personal - retained 90 and 30 days.

📸

Screen capture Live · opt-in

The OS half of a browser-plus-desktop pair: the extension captures tabs, this captures everything else, and it stands down the moment a browser is in front so the two never race. Disabled until you turn it on. Sensitive-window rules can suppress or redact a region, and redaction fails closed - a rule that resolves to zero pixels suppresses the frame rather than writing an unredacted one. Note this contradicts the companion's own README, which still carries a "no screenshots, ever" line from v0.1.0; the code is the authority and the README is stale.

src-tauri/src/screen_capture.rs

⬆ Update the extension

✓New version is strictly greater than the installed one

✓Zip SHA-256 matches the published manifest

✓Payload really contains manifest.json + background.js

✓Extension key is identical - or refuse

✓Staging dirs can never touch the database file

✓Swap is atomic, with rollback

Tray: "Tabby Desk - Checking for updates…"

⬆

Extension updater Live

Updates the browser extension, not itself - the companion is how Tabatha self-distributes outside the Web Store. Six invariants, each individually tested, and the identity check is the one that matters: a changed extension key means a changed extension ID, which would silently orphan all your stored data, so a key mismatch refuses the update outright. Every outcome is reported through the tray tooltip, because a windowless app has no console to print to.

src-tauri/src/updater.rs

✅ Start on Login

HKCU\…\CurrentVersion\Run → TabathaDesktop

🔗 Protocol handler

HKCU\Software\Classes\tabatha://

Enabled once, on first run only. After that the tray toggle is the only thing that decides.

🔁

Autostart & protocol Live

Two plain registry writes rather than a plugin. It turns itself on the first time it ever runs and then never touches the setting again - guarded by a sentinel file, so no update can quietly re-enable an autostart you deliberately switched off. The tabatha:// handler is registered every start (it is idempotent) and lets the extension relaunch the companion if it finds it gone.

src-tauri/src/main.rs · mod startup

┌────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ TABBY DESK - ACTIVITY REPORT │ │ Thursday, 16 July 2026 │ ├────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ Active time 4h 12m │ │ Break time 18m │ │ App switches 63 │ ├────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ 💻 development 1h 54m 45% │ │ 🎨 design 1h 06m 26% │ │ 💬 communication 32m 13% │ │ 📋 productivity 21m 8% │ │ ⚙️ system 12m 5% │ │ ❓ unknown 7m 3% │ └────────────────────────────────────────────┘

📄

Activity report Live

"📊 Activity Log" in the tray writes this to a text file and hands it to whatever opens .txt. Box-drawing characters and a monospace grid, deliberately: it is meant to be readable in Notepad, pasteable into a message, and legible in ten years without Tabatha installed to open it. This is the report that prints local time while the panel above counts UTC days.

src-tauri/src/main.rs · show_log