A lightweight Electron alternative powered by GTK and Rust.
Taku is a lean desktop runtime designed to host modern web interfaces inside a native GTK window, backed by WebKitGTK — without the weight of Chromium or the baggage of full Electron stacks.
- 🧠 Zero-bloat philosophy — just Rust, GTK, and your own HTML/JS.
- 🪟 Native GUI with GTK4, no Chromium embedding.
- 🌀 Full Tailwind + React support via local WebKit-powered WebView.
- 📦 Simple integration — no Vite, no PostCSS overhead, just static files and a build script.
- 🧰 Own your runtime — no scaffolding magic, no hidden process trees.
Electron apps use Chromium + V8, meaning every app bundles a full browser engine.
Taku uses WebKitGTK, which includes:
- 🧠 JavaScriptCore — the engine behind Safari (instead of V8)
- 🎨 WebKit renderer — like a leaner, native-flavored browser
This means your JS still runs fast — but without Node.js or V8. You're working with the same engine used by GNOME Web (Epiphany), and you don't need to ship 100MB of Chromium to get a GUI.
my-taku-app/
├── .taku/ # Git or project hooks
│ ├── hooks/ # hooks for Git or project events
│ │ ├── pre-commit # Example: pre-commit hook
│ │ └── post-merge # Example: post-merge hook
│ ├── out/ # Replaces Cargo's 'target' dir
│ ├── tasks/ # Custom tasks for Taku
│ │ ├── build.sh # Build script for Taku
│ │ └── deploy.sh # Deploy script for Taku
│ └── schema.json # Custom tasks for Taku
├── assets/ # Staged assets (e.g., images, fonts, stylesheets, etc.)
├── dist/ # Compiled code and assets
├── src/
│ ├── backend/
│ │ ├── main.rs # Entry point (GTK init)
│ │ └── ui.rs # GTK window + WebView logic
│ │
│ ├── cli/ # CLI source files (e.g., .rs or .ts)
│ │ └── main.sh # Bootstrap script for CLI
│ └── frontend/
│ ├── input.css # Tailwind entry
│ └── tailwind.config.js # Tailwind setup
├── Cargo.toml # Root Rust dependencies
├── main.sh # Bootstrap script for Taku app
├── setup.sh # "Makefile/Dockerfile-like" `bash` setup script"
├── package.json # Project-level Node dependencies
├── yarn.lock # Yarn lockfile
└── .gitignore # Ignore rules for Git
---
## 🧪 Getting Started
```sh
curl https://github.com/imgnxorg/taku/raw/main/setup.sh | sh -o setup.sh # Builds Tailwind CSS and Rust app
./setup.sh # Runs the setup script
```
This will:
- Install Rust and Node.js dependencies
- Build the Tailwind CSS styles
- Compile the Rust backend
- Prepare the project structure
---
## 🚀 Running Your Taku App
```sh
cargo run # Launches GTK window
```
You should see your `public/index.html` rendered inside a GTK window styled with Tailwind. React works out of
the box if you include it in your HTML.
---
## 💡 Philosophy
Electron is powerful, but too heavy. Taku gives you a native runtime shell — just enough to run your ideas.
Build the rest yourself, the way you want.
> Because sometimes all you need is a window, a stylesheet, and your own mind.
---
## 🔭 What’s Next — `gittaku.com`
Taku is the local runtime. [**Gittaku**](https://gittaku.com) will be the full framework:
- 🧩 **GUI + GitHub Integration** — visual + semantic view of your repo
- 🧠 **Abstraction layer** over Git, React, and desktop logic
- 🧭 **Unified project model**: version control, UI, and local runtime under one structure
- 📡 **Web-first mindset** with optional native delivery
> Gittaku isn’t just a platform — it’s the Git-native dev console your tools never gave you.
---
**Made with 🥄** by people who like to start at the beginning.Example JSON Schema for a Taku project:
{
"name": "taku",
"description": "A lightweight Electron alternative powered by GTK and Rust.",
"version": "1.0.0",
"main": "src/backend/main.rs",
"scripts": {
"start": "cargo run",
"build": "taku/tasks/build.sh",
"deploy": "taku/tasks/deploy.sh"
},
"dependencies": {
"tailwindcss": "^2.2.19",
"postcss-cli": "^8.3.1"
},
"devDependencies": {
"@tailwindcss/postcss7-compat": "^2.2.19"
},
"assets": {
"images": ["assets/images/**/*"],
"fonts": ["assets/fonts/**/*"],
"stylesheets": ["assets/stylesheets/**/*"]
}
"hooks": {
"pre-commit": "taku/hooks/pre-commit",
"post-merge": "taku/hooks/post-merge"
},
"name": "taku-wav-editor",
"description": "Waveform editor with CLI and GUI support.",
"frontend": {
"entry": "src/frontend/input.css",
"style": "tailwind",
"routes": ["home", "edit", "export"]
},
"backend": {
"entry": "src/backend/main.rs",
"runtime": "tao-wry",
"bridge": "src/backend/ui.rs"
},
"cli": {
"entry": "src/cli/main.sh",
"commands": [
{ "name": "reverse", "description": "Reverse the waveform" },
{ "name": "speedup", "description": "Speed up audio (atempo)" },
{ "name": "slowdown", "description": "Slow down audio (atempo)" },
{ "name": "normalize", "description": "Normalize volume levels" },
{ "name": "compress", "description": "Apply compression to audio" }
]
},
"tasks": {
"build": "taku/tasks/build.sh",
"deploy": "taku/tasks/deploy.sh"
},
"hooks": {
"pre-commit": "taku/hooks/pre-commit",
"post-merge": "taku/hooks/post-merge"
},
"entities": {
"AudioFile": {
"type": "strong",
"attributes": {
"id": { "type": "int", "primary": true },
"path": { "type": "string" },
"name": { "type": "string" },
"sampleRate": { "type": "int" },
"duration": { "type": "float" },
"channels": { "type": "int" }
}
},
"Transform": {
"type": "strong",
"attributes": {
"id": { "type": "int", "primary": true },
"fileId": {
"type": "int",
"relation": { "target": "AudioFile", "mandatory": true }
},
"type": { "type": "string" },
"parameters": { "type": "json", "optional": true },
"timestamp": { "type": "datetime", "default": "now" }
}
}
}
}