Desktop App

A standalone Electron app that wraps the agent. Use this when you don't want to live in VS Code or the terminal — for non-developers who need a turnkey GUI to run scheduled apps, browse outputs, and manage credentials visually.

Install

Download the latest installer from the InsightWorker releases page:

macOS: InsightWorker-x.x.x.dmg — drag to Applications
Windows: InsightWorker-Setup-x.x.x.exe — run installer
Linux: InsightWorker-x.x.x.AppImage — make executable, run

macOS unsigned warning: the current build is unsigned. On first launch, macOS shows "InsightWorker can't be opened because Apple cannot verify it". Right-click the app → Open → Open in the dialog. This only needs to happen once.

First-time setup

The app's onboarding wizard walks you through:

Pick an LLM provider — Bedrock, OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.
Enter credentials (or skip if AWS SSO/IAM role is already on your machine)
Pick a working directory — where the agent's edits land
Optionally enable the daemon for scheduled apps

All settings persist to ~/.insightworker/.env. The CLI and VS Code extension share the same config; setting things up here means they all work.

Layout

Area	What it does
Sidebar	Switch between Chat, Editor, Schedules, History, Settings
Chat	Same agent loop as the CLI/VS Code, with a desktop-friendly UI
Editor	Built-in Monaco editor for reading/editing files in the working dir
Schedules	Visual schedule management — add, edit, dry-run, pause apps
History	Browse past agent runs by date and status
Settings	Edit `.env` values without leaving the app

Updates

The app auto-checks for updates via electron-updater. When a new version is available, you'll see a prompt; click Download then Restart and Install.

To force a check: InsightWorker → Check for Updates in the menu bar.

Single-instance lock

The app uses a single-instance lock so opening it twice focuses the existing window instead of spawning a new one. (Earlier builds had a bug where launching from Spotlight kept opening new windows; this is fixed in a recent build.)

If you suspect a stuck lock, kill all InsightWorker processes and reopen.

Schedules pane

The Schedules pane is the visual front-end for the daemon. From here you can:

Add a new scheduled app (cron expression + skill name + args)
Dry-run a schedule to verify it triggers correctly
Pause / Resume schedules
View past runs with their full transcript

Behind the scenes this writes to ~/.insightworker/schedules.yaml — same file the CLI's insightworker schedule add writes. If you prefer terminal-managed schedules, the daemon picks up changes either way. See workflows-and-scheduling/daemon-mode.md.

Where data lives

What	Path
Settings	`~/.insightworker/.env`
Schedules	`~/.insightworker/schedules.yaml`
Session transcripts	`~/.insightworker/sessions/`
Skills	`~/.insightworker/skills/`
Working dir (your code/data)	Configured in Settings

The desktop app does not silo data — everything's in ~/.insightworker/ and shared with the CLI and extension.