# Installation (/installation)


## macOS

Download the disk image and drag Tidebreak to Applications.

[Download for macOS (Apple Silicon)](https://github.com/brightwave-inc/tidebreak/releases/latest/download/Tidebreak-macos-apple-silicon.dmg)

Releases ship an Apple Silicon (`aarch64`) build only. There is no Intel
build; on an Intel Mac, build from source.

The macOS app is signed and notarized, so it opens without a Gatekeeper
override. Each download has a `.sha256` sidecar on the same release if you want
to check it:

```sh
shasum -a 256 -c Tidebreak-macos-apple-silicon.dmg.sha256
```

An installed macOS build keeps itself current. It checks for a newer signed
release in the background and asks before restarting.

## Windows and Linux

There is no prebuilt package for either. Build from source.

Windows installers shipped through v0.34.0, but the Windows release build is
paused: releases are macOS-only until it comes back. Nothing about Windows
support has been withdrawn, and the code that produces the installer is still
in the tree — it is the build that is parked, for cost reasons. A Windows user
on the last packaged release has no upgrade path other than building.

## Build from source

You need the Rust toolchain pinned in `rust-toolchain.toml` (rustup picks it
up automatically), [pnpm](https://pnpm.io), the Tauri CLI, and CMake.

```sh
cargo install tauri-cli --version "^2"
```

CMake is required because the desktop app compiles a local speech-to-text
engine (`brew install cmake` on macOS; the `cmake` package on Linux).

Then, from a clone of the repository:

```sh
scripts/dev.sh
```

That installs the UI dependencies and opens the app window. Arguments are
forwarded to `cargo tauri dev`.

On Linux you also need the platform WebView dependencies (WebKitGTK); see the
[Tauri prerequisites](https://v2.tauri.app/start/prerequisites/).

## Where your data lives

Tidebreak owns one application data directory, created on first launch:

| Platform | Path |
| --- | --- |
| macOS | `~/Library/Application Support/io.brightwave.tidebreak` |
| Windows | `%APPDATA%\io.brightwave.tidebreak` |

Inside it:

| Item | What it holds |
| --- | --- |
| `tidebreak.db` | The SQLite database: chats, messages, turns, event history, document metadata, and canonical text |
| `blobs/` | The original bytes of every document you attached |
| `tidebreak.lock` | Proof that one process owns this directory |

Provider API keys are **not** in that directory. They go to your OS credential
store (the login keychain on macOS) under the service name `tidebreak`.

<Callout type="warn">
While Tidebreak is pre-1.0, opening a database written by an older build can
rebuild it from scratch rather than migrate it. Do not treat this directory as
durable storage for anything you cannot lose. Export what you care about.
</Callout>

## Running it headless

The same server the desktop app embeds can run on its own:

```sh
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-... cargo run -p tidebreak-cli -- serve
```

It prints a loopback URL and a per-launch bearer token. See
[Running headless](/headless) for the other commands.