Glaze

Build desktop apps with a Racket backend and a web frontend. A Tauri-like framework for Racket — write your app logic in Racket, build your UI with HTML/CSS/JS, and ship a desktop application.

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Why Glaze?

Racket's racket/gui works but is hard to style into a modern product-grade UI. Glaze takes a different approach: serve a local web app from Racket and display it in the system browser (Phase 1) or an embedded WebView (Phase 3).

You get:

• Racket for logic — the full power of Racket's macro system, contracts, pattern matching
• Web for UI — Tailwind, Svelte, React, or any web framework
• JSON API bridge — Racket macros auto-generate API endpoints

Requirements

Dependency	Purpose
Racket	7.0 or later (includes raco)

Quick Start

1. Clone

git clone https://github.com/turinglambdaai/glaze.git
cd glaze

2. Install

raco pkg install glaze

3. Create a new project

raco glaze init myapp
cd myapp

4. Run

racket main.rkt

Your browser opens to http://127.0.0.1:8080 with a working page.

CLI Commands

raco glaze init <name># Create a new Glaze project
raco glaze dev # Start dev server with auto-open browser
raco glaze help# Show help

Project Structure

A new Glaze project looks like this:

myapp/
├── main.rkt # Racket entry point
└── public/
└── index.html # Frontend

main.rkt starts a local HTTP server serving files from public/ and opens the browser:

#lang racket/base
(require glaze)
(define-values (port server)
(start-dev-server #:public-dir"public"))
(printf "Glaze app running at http://127.0.0.1:~a\n" port)
(open-browser (format "http://127.0.0.1:~a" port))
(with-handlers ([exn:break?
(lambda (e)
(stop-server server)
(printf "Server stopped.\n"))])
(sync never-evt))

Monorepo Structure

glaze/
├── glaze-lib/ # Core library (server, API, browser launcher, assets)
├── glaze-cli/ # CLI tool (raco glaze init / dev)
├── glaze-doc/ # Documentation (Scribble)
├── glaze-test/ # Tests
└── info.rkt # Multi-package root

API

start-dev-server

Starts a local HTTP server that serves static files from a directory.

(start-dev-server #:port8080#:public-dir"public")
;; Returns (values port shutdown-proc)

stop-server

Stops the dev server.

(stop-server shutdown-proc)

open-browser

Opens a URL in the system default browser (cross-platform: Windows, macOS, Linux).

(open-browser "http://127.0.0.1:8080")

define-api

Macro for defining JSON API endpoints.

(define-api (my-handler request)
(json-response (hasheq 'status"ok")))

Roadmap

• Phase 1 — Local HTTP server + system browser
• Phase 2 — Frontend asset bundling, system tray, app packaging
• Phase 3 — Native WebView embedding (WebView2 / WKWebView / WebKitGTK)

License

Licensed under the MIT License.