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Getting Started

GeoLibre Desktop is an npm workspaces monorepo. The main app lives in apps/geolibre-desktop and is built with Tauri, React, TypeScript, and MapLibre GL JS.

Prerequisites

  • Node.js 22 or newer
  • Rust toolchain for desktop builds
  • Linux desktop build dependencies from the Tauri v2 prerequisites

Install

git clone https://github.com/opengeos/GeoLibre.git
cd GeoLibre
npm install

Bun users can run bun install. The root trustedDependencies list allows the known install scripts for core-js, @google/genai, and protobufjs.

Run the browser UI

npm run dev

Open http://localhost:5173. The map and browser vector import support local vector files that DuckDB-WASM Spatial can read, with direct handling for GeoJSON, zipped Shapefiles, and KMZ archives. Use Add Vector Layer or drag files onto the app. The browser UI can also add URL-based services and datasets such as XYZ, WMS, GeoJSON URLs, vector tiles, COG rasters, ArcGIS services, FlatGeobuf, PMTiles, Zarr, LiDAR, and Gaussian splats.

Desktop filesystem dialogs, local MBTiles, local raster file reads, project save/open, and other filesystem operations require Tauri.

Run with Docker

The repository includes a Dockerfile for the browser version of GeoLibre. It builds the Vite app and serves the production files with nginx:

docker build -t geolibre .
docker run --rm -p 8080:80 geolibre

Open http://localhost:8080. The containerized browser UI supports web-capable workflows, but desktop filesystem dialogs, local MBTiles, local raster file reads, project save/open, and other Tauri-only features require the desktop app.

The published image is available from GitHub Container Registry:

docker pull ghcr.io/opengeos/geolibre:latest
docker run --rm -p 8080:80 ghcr.io/opengeos/geolibre:latest

For deployments under a URL subpath, pass the app base at build time:

docker build --build-arg GEOLIBRE_APP_BASE=/geolibre/ -t geolibre .

The container always serves the app from its root path. The build argument only sets the URL prefix that the app expects, so subpath deployments also require a reverse proxy in front of the container that strips the prefix before forwarding requests (for example, nginx proxy_pass http://geolibre/; with a trailing slash).

Run the desktop app

npm run tauri:dev

Build

npm run build
npm run tauri:build

Optional imagery credentials

The Street View plugin can use Google Street View and Mapillary imagery. Create apps/geolibre-desktop/.env.local and set one or both provider credentials:

VITE_GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY=your_google_maps_api_key
VITE_MAPILLARY_ACCESS_TOKEN=your_mapillary_access_token

For Google Street View, enable the Maps Embed API for the key in Google Cloud. For Mapillary, create an app in the Mapillary developer dashboard and use its client access token.

Restart npm run dev or npm run tauri:dev after changing environment variables.

Optional Python sidecar

The optional FastAPI sidecar is reserved for heavier processing workflows and is not required for the desktop UI.

cd backend/geolibre_server
python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e .
uvicorn geolibre_server.app.main:app --host 127.0.0.1 --port 8765