Desktop Manager

Desktop Manager is infrastructure that other RobOS apps call. You normally do not open it.

At the current commit node --check packages/desktop-manager/main.js fails: line 571 uses await inside a callback that is not async, so the app cannot start from the repository until that is fixed.

What it does

App registry and launcher. main.js lists the apps (id, label, description, category) and how to start each one: electron <APP_BASE>/<id> with --no-sandbox --disable-gpu --disable-dev-shm-usage. APP_BASE defaults to /usr/local/share/robos and can be set with ROBOS_APP_BASE.
Watchdog. Every 3 seconds it checks the apps marked keepAlive (notifications, robos-toast, desktop-widgets, git-login-manager and robos-desktop) and restarts any that stopped. A client can pause and resume this per app.
Tray icon. The tooltip shows the unread count from ~/.config/robos/notifications.json. Clicking the icon opens the Notifications Center.
Pass-lock reminder. After onboarding is complete, it checks the GPG agent every 15 seconds and posts a sticky “Pass store locked” notification when the password store locks.
Socket server. One JSON message per connection.

Socket protocol

The socket is at $ROBOS_DM_SOCKET if set, otherwise $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/robos-dm.sock (usually /run/user/<uid>/robos-dm.sock), with /tmp/robos-dm-<uid>.sock as a fallback. It is created with mode 600. Send one JSON object, then close the write side. These keys are handled:

Key	Effect
`ping`	Replies `{pong: true, time}`
`getApps`, `status`, `getUnread`, `listDesktops`	Registry, running processes, unread count, files in `~/.config/robos/desktops/`
`launch`, `kill`	Start or stop an app by id
`notify`	Add a notification (`title`, `body`, `icon`, `source`, `sticky`, `action`, `category`, `tier`)
`pauseKeepAlive`, `resumeKeepAlive`	Control the watchdog for one app id
`getVoicePrompts`, `getAppContext`, `voiceDictate`	Hooks used by RobOS Voice

Example, the same call the built-in “Restart RobOS Taskbar” skill uses:

node -e "const s=require('net').connect('/run/user/'+process.getuid()+'/robos-dm.sock',()=>{s.write(JSON.stringify({launch:'robos-desktop'}));s.end();});"

Status window

The window has tabs for Apps & Services, Socket IPC Console, Notifications and Watchdog Supervisor. It is created hidden and only shown when ROBOS_DEMO_SHOW=1 or ROBOS_TEST=1 is set, which is meant for tests and demos.

Source: packages/desktop-manager.

More in Desktop & Command Center

App Launcher A searchable grid of the desktop applications installed on the machine, including the RobOS apps. Desktop Customizer A slash-command console that changes GNOME settings (clock, taskbar, theme, shortcuts, startup apps) and keeps git-backed snapshots to roll back. Desktop Dashboard A full-screen window that sits at desktop level and shows a grid of widgets; today it contains one clock and date widget. Desktop Shell Full-screen top bar and bottom dock for RobOS on a GNOME/X11 session, replacing the GNOME panel while it runs. Desktop Widgets A transparent panel on the right edge of the desktop with five status widgets: active task, system stats, AI agent, work journal and security. Dev Central Your daily task list: issues from your task servers as an epic tree, with buttons to start design or implementation agents and to open the related PR. Dev Discussions A chat-style view of discussion threads attached to tasks and pull requests, stored in a local cache with optional posting to GitHub. Icon Manager Shows the icon of every installed RobOS app, lets you replace one, and rewrites the apps' installed icon.svg and .desktop Icon= lines. Manager Dashboard Team metrics for one GitHub repository: open issues, merged PRs, PR cycle time, deploy frequency, approval rate, tasks by stage and PRs per developer. Notifications Center Shows the notification history stored in ~/.config/robos/notifications.json, with filters by category, tier and date, and edits the notification preferences. Package Manager Prototype screen for listing apps and daemons with start, stop and health-probe buttons. It shows built-in sample data. RobOS Audio Player Open-source audio player, custom playlist engine, procedural focus soundscapes, and zero-cloud Google Cast smart speaker streaming. RobOS Dashboards Create KGraph graphical dashboards from card layouts where each widget is any RobOS component, embeddable via and castable to Smart TVs RobOS GNOME Desktop App Installer Install, manage, and repair GNOME Desktop shortcuts, App Grid launchers, multi-scale icons, and Dock favorites for all RobOS apps. RobOS Home Speaker Smart speaker intercom, walkie-talkie voice notes, neural TTS broadcast, custom audio streaming, and soundboard. RobOS Preferences Settings window for RobOS apps: optional AI API mode, agent tiers, prompt security, GitHub accounts, IDE, notifications, journal and theme. RobOS Smart TV Studio Pair Smart TVs, build & sideload Developer Mode TV apps (LG webOS, Samsung Tizen, Google TV/ADB, Roku), serve the 10-foot D-Pad TV Portal (:19210), and stream 4K games. Search Indexer Builds plain-text lists of file paths under folders you choose, which RobOS text areas search for @-mentions. Software Center Install and manage coding-agent CLIs, IDEs, browsers, game tools and utilities on Windows or Linux. System Logs Viewer Viewer for the structured logs that RobOS apps write to ~/.config/robos/logs, with search and level filters. Toast Daemon Shows overlay toast windows for new entries in ~/.config/robos/notifications.json, with tiers, categories, do-not-disturb and anti-spam limits. Workspace Manager Window showing a sample multi-repo task workspace with sync, teardown and open-in-IDE buttons that return canned results. Discovery helpers exist in the code but are not wired to the window.