Claude Desktop Launcher

Open Source Maintenance Fee

This project requires an Open Source Maintenance Fee from organisations that use the official binary release as part of revenue-generating activity and have annual gross revenue of US$10,000 or more.

• The source stays free under this repository's LICENSE. The fee is not a licence fee.
• Self-compiled binaries are exempt. You may always build from source under the LICENSE.
• Organisations under US$10,000 annual gross revenue are exempt.
• Individuals, hobbyists and personal use are exempt.
• Issues, discussions and pull requests stay open to everyone, fee or not.

Pay the fee via GitHub Sponsors at the Maintenance Fee tier. Full terms: OSMFEULA.txt.

Run multiple isolated Claude AI instances side by side on Windows. Each slot has its own login session, extensions, and MCP connections — switch between work, personal, and research contexts without losing state.

Features

Multiple isolated Claude slots

• Launch up to 100 Claude Desktop instances simultaneously (configurable)
• Each slot uses a dedicated user-data directory (ClaudeSlot1, ClaudeSlot2, ...) — logins, cookies, extensions, and MCP connections are fully separate
• Name each slot (e.g. "Work", "Personal", "Research") — names persist between sessions
• Hide a slot to the system tray without terminating it (MCP connections stay alive); restore it with the Show button

Live resource monitoring

• Per-slot CPU %, RAM, and uptime updated every poll tick
• RAM and CPU totals match Windows Task Manager — the full Electron process tree (renderer, GPU, crashpad, network service) is aggregated per slot
• Per-slot activity signal: "Active now" / "Active Xm ago" / "Idle" based on CPU threshold
• Combined totals row: running instance count, total RAM, total CPU

Thumbnails & preview

• Live window thumbnails captured per slot on every poll tick
• Click any thumbnail to open a full-size lightbox preview
• Toggle thumbnails off via the "Show thumbnails" checkbox if you prefer a minimal view

Embedded usage dashboard

• Claude's usage page (claude.ai/settings/usage) embedded inline as a resizable side panel
• Drag the splitter to resize; right-click the splitter or use the "Usage on left" checkbox to swap sides
• Auth persists across restarts — log in once

Auto-update

• Updates download and install automatically in the background via Velopack
• "Restart to install" prompt appears when a new version is ready, on your schedule
• Opt-out toggle in the settings bar
• Apply-failure detection: if an update fails to apply (e.g. Defender file lock), a banner tells you instead of silently reverting

Requirements

• Windows 10/11
• Claude Desktop installed via the Microsoft Store
• No .NET installation required — the installer bundles everything

Install

Download the latest ClaudeDesktopLauncher-win-Setup.exe from Releases and run it.

The installer puts the launcher in %LOCALAPPDATA%\ClaudeDesktopLauncher\ (no UAC prompt) and creates a Desktop shortcut and Start Menu entry.

SmartScreen warning. Because the installer isn't code-signed yet, Windows shows a "Windows protected your PC" dialog on first run. Click More info → Run anyway. This is a one-time prompt; subsequent auto-updates don't re-trigger it. Code signing is on the roadmap.

Portable install. Each release also ships ClaudeDesktopLauncher-win-Portable.zip — extract and run directly. The portable version does not auto-update.

Upgrading from v1.9.x or earlier? See docs/MIGRATION.md for a one-time migration from the old portable .exe to the installer-based distribution.

Getting started (from source)

git clone https://github.com/LewisIsWorking/ClaudeDesktopLauncher

Open ClaudeDesktopLauncher.sln in Rider or Visual Studio, then build and run ClaudeDesktopLauncher.

Project structure

ClaudeDesktopLauncher/          # Avalonia UI — views, view models, DI wiring
ClaudeDesktopLauncher.Core/     # Business logic — models, services, interfaces
ClaudeDesktopLauncher.Tests/    # xUnit test suite

Tech stack

• .NET 10, Avalonia 12, CommunityToolkit.Mvvm
• Velopack for auto-update and installation
• WMI for process tree scanning
• Win32 P/Invoke for window hide/show, thumbnail capture, icon cache refresh

Development notes

See docs/dev/LEARNINGS.md for the accumulated architectural invariants, hard rules, release checklist, and gotchas for this codebase. Written to be useful to any contributor (human or LLM).

• 200-line file limit on all source files — extract via OOP rather than trimming
• 100% test pass rate required before every push (enforced by a pre-push git hook)
• SOLID / MVVM / event-driven throughout; ViewModels never touch system APIs directly

Roadmap

See ROADMAP.md.