I built Raincast, describe an app, get a tauri desktop app

[tihiera]

Hey everyone! I've been working on Raincast, an AI-powered app generator that builds real, shippable Tauri 2 applications from natural language.

You describe what you want in plain English, and Raincast generates the full app: React frontend, Rust backend commands, and Tauri config. Not a mockup — a compiled, distributable binary.

What it generates:

• 9 layout templates (dashboard, editor, chat, file manager, media player, etc.)
• Rust backend with Tauri commands for file I/O, shell execution, system monitoring, network calls
• Native window chrome with macOS vibrancy, overlay title bars, custom sizing
• Live preview with hot reload while building
• One-click ship to a standalone binary

Result from prompt:

"Build a local AI chat app that connects to a llama.cpp server running on my machine. Chat interface with streamed responses, a model picker, and a collapsible dev console showing connection status and server logs."

The interesting Rust bit: In dev mode, Raincast builds a proxy binary. It parses the generated Rust source using AST extraction to find every #[tauri::command] function, then generates a standalone CLI that dispatches to the same functions via stdin/stdout. So the preview behaves like the real app (file system, shell, system info all work) without compiling the full Tauri binary each time.

AI providers: Claude Sonnet 4.6, Gemini 3.1 Pro, more coming (PRs welcome for OpenAI Codex, xAI, DeepSeek, Mistral)

Install (macOS):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tihiera/raincast/main/scripts/install-macos.sh | bash

Windows and Linux binaries on the releases page.

Links:

• GitHub: https://github.com/tihiera/raincast/releases
• Landing page: https://raincast.app

Built with Tauri 2, React 19, TypeScript, and Rust. Free and open source (MIT).

Would love feedback from the Tauri/Rust community, especially on the proxy binary approach and the generated Rust command patterns.

One question: Has anyone explored embedding a Rust compiler (or a subset of it) inside a Rust binary so that end users can compile generated apps without needing a separate Rust toolchain installed?