netbird/client/flutter_ui/README.md

NetBird Flutter UI

This is the migration workspace for a Flutter-based replacement for client/ui. The existing Go/Fyne UI remains the production UI until this package reaches feature and release-pipeline parity.

Scope

The first target is the desktop UI only. The NetBird daemon, service lifecycle, network engine, and daemon gRPC API stay in Go.

Initial parity target:

• tray/menu-bar entry with connection status and connect/disconnect actions
• settings and feature flags backed by DaemonService.GetConfig and SetConfig
• profile management
• network and exit-node selection
• daemon event subscription and desktop notifications
• login/session-expired flow
• debug bundle flow
• enforced-update progress window
• Windows, macOS, and Linux packaging integration

Bootstrap

Flutter and Dart are not committed into this repository. After installing the Flutter SDK, run:

cd client/flutter_ui
bash tool/bootstrap.sh
bash tool/generate_proto.sh
flutter run -d macos -- --daemon-addr=unix:///var/run/netbird.sock

Use -d windows or -d linux on those platforms. The Windows daemon address is currently tcp://127.0.0.1:41731.

For UI-only development without a daemon, run:

flutter run -d macos -- --fake-daemon

Layout

• lib/main.dart: app entry point and command-line flag parsing
• lib/src/app_shell.dart: first-pass desktop shell
• lib/src/daemon_client.dart: daemon boundary with fake and gRPC-backed clients
• lib/src/models.dart: UI-facing models independent from generated protobufs
• lib/src/generated/: generated Dart protobuf and gRPC files
• tool/bootstrap.sh: creates Flutter desktop platform folders once Flutter is installed
• tool/generate_proto.sh: generates Dart gRPC bindings from client/proto/daemon.proto
• MIGRATION.md: parity plan and release integration checklist