The Windows desktop is a separate native MSVC build of the GPUI workspace, with Direct3D 11/DirectWrite rather than Metal or Vulkan. Its coordinator and CLI remain in WSL 2. Set PHUX_WSL_DISTRO to select a distribution; --phux is a Linux executable path and --socket a Linux socket path.

A development Windows app requires an explicit isolated socket and does not discover the installed server by default. Windows-native qualification must exercise the packaged .exe and real window input, not the Linux TUI or the macOS/Linux headless renderer fixtures.

These notes are for testing development builds; released packages use the desktop installer. Ctrl-Shift-P/T/W/F are palette, new terminal, close pane, and find; Ctrl-Shift-C/V copy and paste; Ctrl-Shift-D and Ctrl-Alt-D split; Ctrl-Shift-R reconnects. Plain Ctrl-C/Z/D stay with the shell. Closing the app detaches; the WSL processes keep running. The local Changes panel and the external Unix developer socket are not available for WSL checkouts. Use Git in the terminal and the in-app Performance Monitor instead. The build logs to %LOCALAPPDATA%\phux-desktop\logs\desktop.log.