Mantou

Native desktop apps in TypeScript, on Bun. Your app runs in a Bun Worker; a Rust core loaded with bun:ffi owns the window and draws the UI on the GPU with wgpu. No webview.

Early development. The threading model works on Linux, macOS and Windows. Solid-style JSX, flexbox layout, text, text input, scrolling, rounded corners and borders, clipping, presses, keys and the wheel work.

import { Text, View, createSignal, run } from "mantou-ui";

function App() {
  const [on, setOn] = createSignal(false);
  return (
    <View style={{ width: 120, height: 48, borderRadius: 8, justifyContent: "center", backgroundColor: on() ? "#16a34a" : "#4b5563" }} onPress={() => setOn(!on())}>
      <Text style={{ color: "#ffffff", fontWeight: 600, textAlign: "center" }}>{on() ? "On" : "Off"}</Text>
    </View>
  );
}

run(() => <App />);

Try it

Needs Bun 1.4.4 and Rust.

bun install

bun run build:core

bun run counter

For a bigger app, Mantou Mail is a three-pane mail client built on Mantou as a package.

Use it in an app

bun add mantou-ui

bunx mantou run src/main.tsx

The native core comes prebuilt for Linux (x64, arm64), macOS (arm64, x64) and Windows (x64). Elsewhere, or with mantou-ui from GitHub (bun add github:dunkbing/mantou), build it once with bunx mantou build-core (needs Rust).

Set "jsx": "preserve" and "jsxImportSource": "mantou-ui" in tsconfig.json, and preload mantou-ui/preload for bun test (bunfig.toml). Found a bug or need a feature? Open an issue.

Docs

The design, the protocol and test results are in website/ (Astro + Starlight, on Bun):

bun run docs

Working on the code, as a person or an agent? Start with AGENTS.md.