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FilDOS is pre-1.0 and doesn’t ship packaged installers yet, so running it today means building from source. It’s a single npm install away.
Once signed, packaged builds are published they’ll appear on the Releases page.

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Prerequisites

1

Node.js 22 or newer

Required — FilDOS relies on the built-in node:sqlite module, which needs Node 22 / Electron ≥ 35.
2

npm

Ships with Node. Used for install and all project scripts.

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Run the desktop app

1

Clone the repository

2

Install dependencies

This also installs the git pre-commit hook.
3

Start the dev server

electron-vite starts with HMR for the renderer; the main and preload processes rebuild on change.
Semantic search in FilDOS

Semantic search — meaning + name search, fused into one ranked list.

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Build a production bundle

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Optional: connect a cloud drive

Cloud-provider OAuth credentials (Google Drive, Dropbox) are optional and only needed if you want to test those integrations locally. Copy .env.example to .env and fill in the values. See Cloud Drives for details.

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Verify your setup

Run the checks to confirm everything is wired up correctly:
All three should exit with no errors on a clean clone.

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Next steps

Search by Meaning

Download an embedding model and start indexing your files.

Ask AI

Pick a local LLM and chat with your documents.

File Management

Keyboard shortcuts, drag-and-drop, and the undo stack.

Architecture

How the process boundary and IPC contract hold the app together.