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Radarboard

A calm operating surface for code, ops, revenue, growth, and shipping signals

Year2026
RoleCreator, Product Designer & Lead Developer
PlatformmacOS, Web, Developer Platform
TypeDesktop Product
Radarboard dashboard screenshot placeholder

Overview

Radarboard is a local-first desktop board for the work people run. It brings revenue, product analytics, incidents, releases, pull requests, sponsorship, reviews, SEO, roadmap activity, notifications, and extension-driven workflows into one operating surface.

The Problem

Product operators live inside a fragmented control room

Indie hackers, maintainers, creators, and small teams often keep GitHub, Vercel, Stripe, RevenueCat, Sentry, OpenPanel, Linear, App Store Connect, Resend, BetterStack, Google Search Console, and other tools open just to understand what changed.

  • Important signals are scattered across too many service dashboards
  • Revenue, reliability, shipping, growth, and feedback are hard to read together
  • Small teams need operational context without building a custom internal tool
  • Desktop workflows need local data boundaries and predictable release infrastructure
  • Extending a dashboard safely requires clear integration, widget, plugin, and MCP contracts

The Solution

A desktop board that turns operational signals into one workspace

Unified Dashboard

A customizable dashboard combines revenue, analytics, reliability, shipping, growth, feedback, and roadmap signals in one interface.

Extension System

Integrations, widgets, and plugins are built behind SDK boundaries so first-party and community extensions can grow without blurring ownership.

Desktop Beta

The macOS desktop app wraps the Next.js app in a Tauri shell with native window behavior, tray integration, updater metadata, and local app data.

AI Assistant

A built-in assistant is designed to analyze trends, anomalies, briefings, and cross-service relationships across connected data sources.

Local-first Operations

Operational data is designed to belong on the user machine first, with optional service connections, encrypted credentials, and clear extension boundaries.

Community Extension Path

Public docs, SDK references, scaffolding commands, and a community extension repository support external integrations, widgets, and plugins.

Radarboard desktop app screenshot placeholder
Radarboard widgets screenshot placeholder
Radarboard extension catalog screenshot placeholder
Radarboard assistant workflow screenshot placeholder

Technical Implementation

A large pnpm and Turborepo monorepo spanning web, desktop, SDKs, and extensions

Technology Stack

Desktop
  • Tauri v2
  • Rust
  • System tray
Web
  • Next.js
  • React
  • TypeScript
Data
  • SQLite
  • Turso option
  • API routes
Extensions
  • Integration SDK
  • Widget SDK
  • Plugin SDK
Assistant
  • MCP tools
  • LLM adapters
  • Assistant UI
Tooling
  • pnpm
  • Turborepo
  • Biome
Release
  • GitHub Releases
  • Homebrew tap
  • Tauri updater

Desktop Shell Around the Real App

The desktop app spawns the Next.js standalone server on a random local port and loads it in a native webview, keeping API routes, SSE streams, SQLite, and assistant features aligned with the web app.

Descriptor-driven Extensions

Integrations connect services, widgets render dashboard cards and panels, and plugins add deeper tools, settings, and workflows through explicit descriptor contracts.

SDK and Catalog Infrastructure

The repo includes SDK packages, extension scaffolding commands, quality checks, generated extension catalogs, documentation, and community extension flows.

Release Engineering

The public beta path includes macOS CI, desktop release workflows, updater metadata, release notes, and Homebrew cask synchronization.

Results

Radarboard has a public source repository, documentation, a desktop beta release path, and a verified extension architecture. Product usage metrics should still come from verified analytics before being published.

21+
Documented integrations
20+
Documented widgets
10
Documented plugins

Verified Signals

Impact

A foundation for running product operations from one local-first surface

  • Reduces dashboard switching by grouping code, ops, growth, revenue, shipping, and reliability signals
  • Gives small teams and solo operators a productized control room instead of a custom internal dashboard
  • Creates a contribution model for integrations, widgets, plugins, and community extensions
  • Turns desktop release infrastructure, docs, SDKs, and extension quality checks into part of the product

What I Learned

  • 01An extensible product needs strict contracts before it needs more extensions
  • 02Desktop distribution is product work: signing, updater metadata, release notes, and install paths affect trust
  • 03Local-first positioning is clearest when data ownership, credentials, and extension boundaries are explicit
  • 04Public documentation and scaffolding are part of the developer experience, not a separate afterthought

Explore Radarboard

See the local-first desktop board for code, ops, growth, and shipping signals