Debugging

Developer tools

Open the inspector for a window from the renderer:

await ow.invoke('window', 'openDevTools', window.__owWindowId)

or from the main process:

win.webContents.openDevTools()

You can also trigger it from a menu item with the toggleDevTools role.

Logs

The kernel writes to its stdout/stderr; ow dev shows them inline because the CLI runs the kernel with inherited stdio.
Native modules can log through the host (g_host->log) and via ow::log in the kernel.
The Node sidecar logs to the same console.

Set OW_DEBUG=1 for verbose kernel logging where available.

Crash reports

Install the crash reporter to capture native crashes (segfaults, aborts) with a backtrace:

const dir = await ow.invoke<string>('crashreporter', 'install')
// logs go to $XDG_CACHE_HOME/owear/crashes/crash-<pid>.log

const last = await ow.invoke<string | null>('crashreporter', 'lastCrashLog')

It handles SIGSEGV, SIGABRT, SIGFPE, SIGBUS, and SIGILL, writes the signal + backtrace() frames, then re-raises the signal so a core dump is still produced. See crashreporter.

Introspecting modules

import { listNativeModules, nativeModuleInfo } from '@owear/core'

const mods = await listNativeModules()
// [{ name, version, origin, builtin, functions, functionNames }]

From the renderer you can reach the same data through the control protocol; but listNativeModules in the main process is the easy path. If a module is missing, check OW_MODULES_DIR and whether its optional system dependencies were present at build time.

Common problems

Symptom	Likely cause / fix
`OW_CONTROL_SOCKET not set`	You ran the kernel directly instead of `ow dev`/`ow build`; set the variable or use the CLI
`BrowserWindow created before app.whenReady()`	Move window creation inside the `whenReady().then(...)` callback
`ow: timeout <mod>/<fn>`	The module is not loaded, or the native function blocked. Check `OW_MODULES_DIR`
Window opens but blank	Dev server was not ready, or `base` in `vite.config.ts` is not `'./'`
Module not found on Linux	Stock modules live in per-directory paths and the loader does not recurse; ensure `OW_MODULES_DIR` lists each module directory
Dialogs/tray don't appear in CI	They need a real desktop; these are `VERIFY-ON-REAL-DESKTOP`
`globalShortcut` fails	You are on Wayland; X11 only

Running the app against a built bundle

ow build
OW_ASSETS_DIR=dist OW_APP_MAIN=dist/main.js OW_MODULES_DIR="…" ./owear

ow build prints this exact line with your paths filled in.

Next steps

Testing — unit and E2E suites.
Environment variables.