Windows

Windows and WSL2

Govard is developed and tested on Linux, and runs on macOS. On Windows, the supported path is WSL2: install Govard inside the distribution, not on the Windows host.

This page states what is supported, what is not, and why, so you can decide before spending an afternoon on it.

What works on native Windows

• The binary builds. GoReleaser publishes windows/amd64 and windows/arm64 archives on every release.
• npm installs it. npm i -g @ddtcorex/govard downloads the matching archive and extracts it with PowerShell; the govard shim then runs.
• Host-side commands that do not touch containers work: govard version, govard capabilities, govard doctor and govard help.

What does not

• CI does not exercise Windows. Every workflow runs on ubuntu-latest, so the Windows build is compiled rather than tested. Treat it as unsupported until that changes.
• The desktop app is Linux only. It needs GTK 4 and WebKitGTK 6.0, and the release pipeline builds it for linux/amd64 alone.
• .test domains and HTTPS are not automated. Govard writes the Unix hosts file and trusts its local CA in the Unix system store. On Windows you would have to add entries to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts and import the CA into the Trusted Root store by hand.
• install.sh does not run. It is a bash script that calls uname; use npm or the release archive instead.

WSL2, the supported path

Run everything inside the distribution:

# inside the WSL2 distribution
npm i -g @ddtcorex/govard
govard version
govard svc up        # proxy, database UI, mail catcher
govard init
govard env up

Two things to know:

• Docker: install Docker Engine inside the distribution, or enable Docker Desktop's WSL integration for that distribution. Either way Docker must be reachable from inside WSL2, which is how Govard talks to it.
• Browsing from Windows: the .test domains resolve inside the distribution. To open them from a Windows browser, add the same host entries to the Windows hosts file, or browse the distribution's IP directly.

Reporting a Windows problem

Open a bug report and include govard doctor output. Since Windows is not in CI, a report with the exact command and version is what makes a fix possible.