The owner path
Install it, sign in with Dust, connect your workspace.
One app, one server, one link between the two products. Ten minutes on a machine that can reach your staging environment, and no Node, no database and no model key on the reader’s side.
1 · Get the app
The desktop app renders one server’s dashboard and talks to it. It is published by the instance that runs the harness, and the list below is that instance’s own metadata rather than a copy maintained here.
Each file’s SHA-256 is printed beside it. The download route checks the bytes against that hash before it sends the first of them, so a truncated or substituted file does not arrive.
2 · Install it
These builds are unsigned. Nothing is notarised with Apple and nothing carries a Windows code signature, so both operating systems will try to stop you the first time you open the app. That is the operating system working correctly, and the way past it is two clicks.
- macOS: right-click the app in Finder, choose Open, then Open again in the dialog. A double-click the first time is refused.
- Windows: SmartScreen will say it protected your PC. Choose More info, then Run anyway.
Certificates cost money every year for software that is free and rebuilt often. The honest trade is to say so and to publish the hash, which is why the hash is on the row above.
3 · Point it at a server
The app is a client. It keeps no database, holds no model key, and runs no part of the agent — all of that is on the server it is pointed at.
- The packaged build starts out pointed at qa.dust.observer, the instance run for early access.
- You can point it at your own server instead. The app only accepts an address once that server answers on /health, so a typo fails immediately rather than halfway through a run.
- An address can also be supplied before the app starts, through QA_DESKTOP_SERVER, which takes precedence over whatever was chosen in the app.
The desktop app pointed at a server, with the workspace link it established shown in the app
1440 × 900
4 · Sign in with Dust, connect your workspace
Signing in is a handover, not a second account. The app opens your system browser, Dust asks you to confirm, and Dust hands back a signed assertion over an observer:// link that the app redeems. The harness ends up linked to a workspace; no account is created on it.
- Auto-linking is on by default, so the workspace appears without an administrator doing anything.
- A narrowed, expiring token can also be minted by hand from Dust’s Settings → QA harness, which is where the tracker configuration files are handed back as well.
- The credential is scoped to that one workspace and expires, so it cannot be used against another team’s project after it leaks or ages out.
Choose where the work lives
This is the decision a reviewer will ask about, so it belongs in front of you rather than in a footnote.
Use the instance that is already running
Fastest way to see the whole loop. The app talks to qa.dust.observer, and the runs, captures and reports live on that server rather than on your infrastructure — which makes “who else can read this server?” the question to settle before you pick it.
Run your own instance
Your infrastructure, your database, your model keys. It is one deployment with Postgres, and it is the only option where no third party holds the findings at rest.
- Build it from source
- Put it behind your own network controls
What arrives
- A verification report on the issue: every criterion, its state, the checks that ran, and each finding with its evidence.
- A leadership render of the same issue, with the criterion identifiers and raw evidence left out.
- The findings themselves, filed against the criteria they violate, with steps to reproduce.
- A verification matrix across runs, so a regression shows up as a change in state rather than a new document.
See both renders of one issueThe pack for your IT and security colleagues
Free, with a metered AI allowance
Free during early access. The AI features run on a small per-user daily allowance that your administrator enables.
The allowance exists so that running the agent can never quietly become an unmetered bill. Everything outside the AI features — the tracker, the criteria, the findings, the reports, the event log — has no meter on it at all.
- macOS · Apple silicon94 MB · version 0.1.0
6554d7ef0ef2a70271376f10cb8bd532b908e7f5c3d2ab9f1ebfa07026c76d37
- macOS · Intel98 MB · version 0.1.0
8f7a924edc38465b0aeb702ba70ac71ca2d8d542d76b90317341a1ac0745f49e
- Windows · x6478 MB · version 0.1.0
57bb8bca2cd146fe7db874e5aabff9f79fda2c9bde2aad9657da398c8f06bcfd
Published by app.dust.observer — this list is that server’s own metadata, snapshotted when the site was last built.