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The desktop app

On Windows, Collie is more than a terminal tool — it's a native app with an optional live wallpaper and a bridge to your real browser. All three are installed by the one-click installer (the last two are opt-in checkboxes) or can be turned on later from the command line.

Native window

collie app

Opens Collie in a real desktop window (WebView2) with the full web GUI inside — chat, the live verification gate, diffs, and the star-map — instead of a browser tab. This is what the Start-menu and desktop shortcuts launch. It falls back to the browser GUI on non-Windows platforms.

Live star-map wallpaper

collie wallpaper --install     # behind your desktop icons, starts at logon
collie wallpaper --stop        # stop the running engine
collie wallpaper --uninstall   # remove the logon autostart

A live desktop background that renders Collie's star-map. On Windows it draws behind your icons via a WebView2 engine (built once on first run from the shipped C# source — no .NET SDK needed); elsewhere it degrades to a borderless full-screen window. Per-user, no admin.

Real-browser bridge

collie browser-bridge            # run the bridge in the foreground
collie browser-bridge --install  # start it at logon

Lets Collie's browser_* tools drive your already-logged-in Chrome, instead of a fresh headless browser that isn't signed in to anything. It works with a small Chrome extension that polls a localhost bridge:

  1. Run the bridge (collie browser-bridge, or install it at logon).
  2. Load the extension from harness/browser_ext (Chrome → Extensions → Load unpacked). The installer bundles it; developers point Chrome at the folder in the collie they're running.
  3. The extension's popup shows a status dot — green means Collie can drive the tab.

Load the extension from the collie you actually run

If Chrome loads the extension from a different checkout than the collie you're running, every fix looks like it did nothing. The popup warns on a version mismatch — the bridge reports the version it expects, the extension reports the version Chrome loaded, and they must match.

Security

The bridge is localhost-only and refuses any request missing its CSRF header; it checks Origin and Host. Untrusted page content Collie reads is fenced as data (prompt-injection defense).

Uninstalling

The installer's Uninstall entry (or Add or remove programs) stops the wallpaper, removes both logon autostarts, and deletes the app — no leftovers.