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Quick Start

Get Sillview running, connected to a backend it manages for you, and showing your data.

macOS-first

Sillview is developed and packaged for macOS (Apple Silicon). The makers produce macOS artifacts; other platforms are not built today.

Option A — install a release

The simplest path is a prebuilt app.

  1. Download the latest .dmg (or .zip) from the Releases page.
  2. Open the .dmg and drag Sillview to Applications.
  3. Builds are unsigned today, so on first launch macOS Gatekeeper will warn. Right-click the app → Open, then confirm. You only need to do this once.

On first launch Sillview unpacks the bundled kasas binary, generates its config, starts it on a private loopback port, and connects automatically — there's nothing else to install or run.

Option B — run from source

You'll need Node.js 22+ and, to build the bundled backend, Go 1.25+ with a checkout of ../kasas beside this repo.

git clone git@github.com:paulmeier/sillview.git
cd sillview
npm install
npm run sync:kasas   # build the kasas binary and bundle it (needs ../kasas + Go)
npm start            # build + launch the app (dev)

Prefer the make shortcuts (run make help for the full list):

make install         # npm dependencies
make kasas           # download the prebuilt kasas binary instead of building it
make dev             # launch against the real, managed backend

make kasas downloads the matching prebuilt binary from the public kasas GitHub Release (checksum-verified) — handy if you don't have Go or the kasas source.

No backend, no data? Use mock mode

To work on the UI without kasas or any of your own data, run make mock (or npm run start:mock). See Offline Mock Mode.

What happens on first launch

Sillview bundles and manages kasas rather than asking you to run a server:

  1. It copies the bundled binary to a stable, writable path under the app's data directory.
  2. It generates a config.toml with a random dashboard token and a SQLite database, all under that data directory.
  3. It starts kasas on http://127.0.0.1:8080, waits for /readyz, and connects automatically using the generated token.

See Managed kasas Backend for the full lifecycle, file layout, and how Sillview self-heals an orphaned backend.

Connect your accounts

Sillview manages the backend, but data sources (banks via SimpleFIN, exchange addresses, CSV import, etc.) are configured in kasas itself for now. Open kasas's own web UI at http://127.0.0.1:8080 and add a source there; Sillview will show the data once it syncs. In-app source setup is a planned follow-up.

Build your first dashboard

  1. Click the marketplace button to browse widgets by category.
  2. Add a widget — it drops onto the grid at its default size.
  3. Drag widgets by their header and resize from the corner to arrange them.
  4. Your layout is saved locally and restored next launch.

Next: tour the Settings & Backend dialog, or read how Dashboards & Widgets work.