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The desktop app

Templetry Desktop does everything the CLI does, plus browsing your repositories. Windows (installer or portable), Linux and macOS (universal). It embeds the engine — there is no separate CLI to install and no server involved.

On Windows, SmartScreen will warn about the installer: the builds are not code-signed yet. Choose More info → Run anyway, or use the portable exe.

Build

Create a project:

  1. Pick a form from the catalog sidebar. Every form shows its taxonomy — what it is (kinds, in brass), what it is written in, what it is built on — and the sidebar filters on it: click kind chips to narrow, or type to search across names, descriptions and all three axes.
  2. Fill the form — it is generated from the template's manifest, so it always matches the template: variables with their patterns, feature checkboxes, and a preset row when the template offers combinations. Features that declare requires or conflicts say so, and the actions stay blocked until the combination is valid — the engine refuses to guess which side you meant, and neither does the app.
  3. Preview renders the project in memory and lets you read any file before writing anything.
  4. Verify build goes one step further: it renders your inputs to a temporary directory and builds them inside the manifest's container, streaming the log. Needs Docker; nothing is installed on your machine and nothing is written to your folders.
  5. Choose the destination and create.

The destination picker offers three kinds:

  • A namespace from a signed-in account — the app creates the repository for you and pushes.
  • Any git host — paste the URL of an empty repository you created yourself; the app renders, commits and pushes. This works with every git server that exists.
  • Local only — no remote at all.

Cloud

Your repositories across every signed-in account — GitHub, GitLab and Gitea/Forgejo alike — with:

  • a template chip on repos the engine can render (they carry a template.yml), and inside the preview each form it found, with the name, description and taxonomy read from its manifest,
  • a cloned chip on repos already on your disk, with Folder instead of Clone,
  • a preview per repo: description, languages, branches, the latest CI runs or pipelines with their status, and a reader for the README and any markdown docs.

Cloning authenticates as the account the repository came from, so private repos on any signed-in forge clone too.

Local

Every repository under your repositories folder, found recursively and grouped by the folders they live in. Per project:

  • branch, remotes, last commit and whether the working tree is clean,
  • a chip when there is something to pull — the template moved past what the project recorded, or an applied piece did (each piece tracks its own source, so a fix released in a common piece shows up here),
  • Preview update → the same diff/merge cycle as the CLI, file by file, before writing,
  • a Pieces panel: everything the project can adopt — the pieces its own form ships plus the common ones from your catalogs that fit its stack — with the variables each takes and one click to adopt.

Accounts

Settings → Accounts:

  • GitHub signs in from the top bar with the OAuth device flow — no password, no token to manage.
  • GitLab and Gitea/Forgejo take a personal access token per host (gitlab.com, codeberg.org, your company server). Tokens are validated against the API and stored in the OS keyring, never in the settings file — exports stay shareable.

Why a token rather than OAuth for those: their device flows require registering an application on each instance, which cannot be shipped centrally for self-hosted servers. A token works everywhere from the first minute.

Settings worth knowing

  • Repositories folder — where clones and new projects go, and what the Local section scans.
  • Catalogs — add any registry.json; your catalog behaves exactly like the official one.
  • Appearance — theme, accent, density, interface scale, preview layout.
  • Export / Import — settings travel as JSON without tokens.

Updates

Settings → About checks published stable releases and can install a new version in place (Windows; elsewhere download from releases). The embedded engine is not separately updatable — it ships inside the app, so a newer engine arrives with a newer app.