AOTrino

AOTrino

Electron-like desktop apps on .NET Native AOT + WebView2. One executable, no runtime to install, no Chromium to ship, Windows already has both. x86, x64 and ARM64.

A window is a real HWND, the UI is a web page, and the two talk over a typed bridge.

Getting started

dotnet new install AOTrino.Templates

dotnet new aotrino        -o MyApp    # a plain HTML page, no build step
dotnet new aotrino-react  -o MyApp    # React + @aotrino/react
dotnet new aotrino-fluent -o MyApp    # Fluent UI + @aotrino/fluent

cd MyApp
dotnet run
dotnet publish -r win-x64 -c Release  # the single exe, about 11 MB

Or add it to a plain WinExe project:

<PropertyGroup>
  <TargetFramework>net10.0-windows10.0.19041.0</TargetFramework>
  <OutputType>WinExe</OutputType>
  <PublishAot>true</PublishAot>
  <!-- everything under WebRoot\dist is embedded in the exe and extracted at startup -->
  <AOTrinoEmbedWebRoot>true</AOTrinoEmbedWebRoot>
</PropertyGroup>
<ItemGroup>
  <PackageReference Include="AOTrino" Version="1.2.0" />
</ItemGroup>

using AOTrino;

[System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshalling.GeneratedComClass]
public partial class MainWindow : AOTrinoWindow
{
    public MainWindow() : base("My app") { }

    // expose .NET to the page; every member is async on the JS side, even a property read
    protected override void RegisterHostObjects() => AddHostObject("app", new MyApi(this));
}

The package brings the build logic with it: WebRoot\dist embedding, npm install/npm run build for a bundler front end, a default application manifest (DPI awareness and common controls), and the Windows SDK projection AOTrino is compiled against.

Requirements

To build and run: the .NET 10 SDK. The WebView2 runtime is already on any up-to-date Windows, an AOTrino app offers a download link if it isn't.

To publish the single exe: also the MSVC linker, because the SDK compiles to native code but doesn't ship a linker (dotnet publish otherwise stops with "Platform linker not found"). No IDE needed:

winget install Microsoft.VisualStudio.BuildTools --override "--passive --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.VCTools --includeRecommended"

Add --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Tools.ARM64 for ARM64, or tick Desktop development with C++ if you already have Visual Studio. See https://aka.ms/nativeaot-prerequisites.

The rest

Twelve samples with screenshots, four optional levels (plain page → @aotrino/client → @aotrino/react → @aotrino/fluent), and the docs, the bridge, the security defaults, theming, front end, maintenance, are on GitHub:

https://github.com/aelyo-softworks/AOTrino

MIT licensed. Free software, provided as is, without warranty of any kind.