Getting Started with Tauri

You can also add Tauri to an existing web project. Install the CLI as a dev dependency and run tauri init; it creates the src-tauri folder and asks for your dev server URL, the folder with your built assets and your build commands.

npm install -D @tauri-apps/cli@latest
npx tauri init

Running in development mode

Move into the project folder, install dependencies and start the app.

cd tauri-app
npm install
npm run tauri dev

tauri dev first runs the beforeDevCommand from the configuration (usually the Vite dev server), then compiles the Rust core and opens the app window. The first run builds every Rust dependency and can take a few minutes; after that only changed code is recompiled. Frontend edits are hot-reloaded in place, while Rust edits trigger a rebuild and an app restart.

In development builds you can open the WebView developer tools by right-clicking and choosing Inspect, or with Ctrl+Shift+I on Windows and Linux and Cmd+Option+I on macOS.

The template frontend calls a Rust function named greet like this. Chapter 3 explains the mechanism in detail.

import { invoke } from "@tauri-apps/api/core";

const input = document.querySelector<HTMLInputElement>("#greet-input")!;
const output = document.querySelector<HTMLParagraphElement>("#greet-msg")!;

document.querySelector("#greet-form")!.addEventListener("submit", async (event) => {
  event.preventDefault();
  output.textContent = await invoke<string>("greet", { name: input.value });
});

Editor setup

In VS Code, install the rust-analyzer and Tauri extensions. tauri.conf.json references a JSON schema, so configuration keys autocomplete as you type. Because the Rust code lives under src-tauri, rust-analyzer may not find it when you open the repository root; point it there in .vscode/settings.json.

{
  "rust-analyzer.linkedProjects": ["src-tauri/Cargo.toml"]
}

Everyday CLI commands

When a build fails or no window appears, run tauri info first to check for missing system dependencies.

Summary

• Tauri development needs Rust, the platform WebView libraries and, for web frontends, Node.js.
• Create a project with npm create tauri-app@latest and run it with npm run tauri dev.
• The first build is slow; later builds only recompile what changed.
• Install rust-analyzer in your editor and reach for tauri info when something looks wrong.