WSL Container Manager

A Docker-Desktop-style GUI for WSL containers — that never lies to you about what it can do.

Documentation · Install · Architecture · Security · Contribute

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What it is

wslc-gui puts the native wsl.exe and wslc.exe command surface behind one GUI: containers, images, distributions, storage, deployment, and a guided .wslconfig editor.

It ships as a single ~80 MB executable. No installer. No runtime dependencies beyond the WebView2 that Windows already has.

The problem it solves

WSL now runs containers natively through wslc — no Docker Desktop, no licence, no daemon. But the only interface is a CLI whose surface is still moving: some verbs are documented, some exist only in the binary, and what you get depends on which WSL build you happen to have.

So you end up with a terminal, a lot of --help, and no idea whether the thing you're about to type exists on your machine.

The idea that makes it different

The app invents no commands.

Every button maps to a CLI invocation that Microsoft documents, or that your installed wslc binary has proven it supports by printing it in --help. Nothing is guessed. Nothing is emulated.

That has real consequences you can see:

• A verb your wslc build doesn't have is a greyed-out button that tells you which verb it needs — not a mysterious failure.
• A compose file that asks for something wslc can't do gets an itemised list of exactly what was dropped and why — not a silent partial deploy.
• Volumes have no size column, because wslc volume inspect doesn't report one and we won't invent a number.
• Every failure shows you the real stderr, verbatim.

It is for developers on Windows who want their containers managed without a black box in the middle.

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Key features

• Containers — list, stop, start, delete, logs, inspect, exec, prune, with live wslc stats (CPU and memory joined straight into the table).
• Deploy — Quick run with a live command preview that shows the exact wslc run line before you commit to it; plus Stack mode, which compiles a compose-subset YAML into an ordered plan, shows it, deploys it sequentially, and exports standard docker-compose.yaml. Imports docker-compose and Kubernetes manifests — and tells you, item by item, what it couldn't honour.
• Resources — distributions (resize, move, export, import, sparse, unregister), real ext4.vhdx paths and sizes read from the registry, container-session disks, swap, volumes. This page works fully even with no wslc installed.
• Settings — a guided .wslconfig editor with the full documented key catalogue, Windows-11-only keys disabled with the reason shown on Windows 10, and a backup taken before every write.
• Honest by construction — capability-gated verbs, stderr passed through verbatim, double-gated destructive operations, and a security model built for the fact that a loopback server that can delete your distro is a real attack surface.

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Screenshots

Deploy — the command preview is the command

Nothing is hidden. The exact wslc run line assembles as you type, and that is what gets executed. Docker Desktop hides the command it runs; this shows you the argv before you press the button.

Containers — live wslc stats, joined into the table

CPU and memory come from wslc stats, parsed and merged into the rows. When wslc reports no stats, the tiles say "no stats reported" rather than showing you a zero.

Resources — real paths, real sizes, no wslc required

Distribution ext4.vhdx paths and sizes read straight from the registry, wslc container-session disks, swap, and volumes. This page works fully on a host with no wslc at all.

Images — pull with tag discovery, inspect, prune

Settings — the guided .wslconfig editor

Every documented key, with its description and default. Note safeMode, greyed out with a Win11 badge: this is a Windows 10 host, and the app tells you exactly why the control is disabled rather than quietly hiding it.

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Requirements

Windows	10 build 19041+ (some .wslconfig keys are Windows 11 only — shown, disabled, with the reason)
WSL 2	Required. The container pages additionally need a WSL release that ships wslc — check with wslc version. Without it, the app still runs and Resources/Settings work fully.
WebView2	Ships with Edge. If missing, the app falls back to your browser rather than failing.

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Getting started

Just run it

1. Download wslc-gui.exe from the latest release (or from the build workflow artifacts).
2. Double-click it.

That's it. A window opens on the Containers page and a tray icon appears.

Optional: make the first launch work offline

Drop the two WebView2 DLLs from the webview_deno 0.9.0 release next to the exe:

wslc-gui.exe
dll/
├─ webview.dll
└─ WebView2Loader.dll

Without them, the first launch (and only the first) downloads those two files.

Build it from source

You need Deno 2.9+. That's the whole toolchain — no Node.js, no npm.

git clone https://github.com/TykoDev/wslc-gui.git
cd wslc-gui\app

deno task build:web    # SPA → frontend/dist   (must come first — compile embeds it)
deno task compile      # → dist/wslc-gui.exe

.\dist\wslc-gui.exe

Hack on it

Two terminals, from app/:

deno task dev:server    # API on :8747 — prints a tokened URL

deno task dev:web       # SPA + HMR on :5173, proxying /api → :8747

Open http://127.0.0.1:5173/#t=<the token from terminal 1>. You need that fragment — it carries the session token.

deno task test    # 166 tests, ~1 second

There is no .env to set up. Configuration is the GUI (Settings → Application) or .wslconfig (Settings → WSL) — nothing else.

→ Full setup, editor config and troubleshooting: Local development

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Your first container

With wslc present:

1. Deploy → Quick run. Type nginx:latest, add a port (8080:80).
2. Watch the command preview assemble the exact line before you run it:

   wslc run -d -p 8080:80 --name web nginx:latest
   

3. Run container. Then open Containers — it's there, with live CPU and memory.

No hidden step. That preview is the command.

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Documentation

→ Full documentation

Installation · Configuration · Local development	Tutorials
Build & release · Observe a running instance · Run the tests · Plan a change	How-to guides
Architectural overview · Security model	Explanation
API endpoints · Data model · Environment variables · Commands & scripts · Dependencies · Docker & Compose compatibility	Reference

Building on it? Start with AGENTS.md — it's the condensed technical brief, written for both humans and coding agents.

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How it's built

React 19 SPA in a WebView2 window, a Deno HTTP server in a Worker (because webview.run() blocks the main event loop), and exactly one function in the entire codebase that spawns a child process — with a binary allowlist, argument arrays instead of a shell, and every user input validated at the sink.

→ Architectural overview · Security model

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Contributing

Contributions are welcome — from a typo fix to a whole new page. You don't need to be a Deno expert or a Win32 expert.

Parsing bugs are especially valuable. wsl.exe and wslc.exe output varies across versions, languages and hosts, and we can't test them all. If a distro name or container table renders wrong, the raw output is the fix — and it becomes a test fixture.

Equally valuable: a paste of wslc --help (and container / image / run / volume --help) from a WSL version we haven't seen. The capability model is built on exactly that.

→ CONTRIBUTING.md · Code of Conduct · Changelog

Found a security issue? Please don't open a public issue — see SECURITY.md.

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Licence

Licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0. See LICENSE for the full text.

Copyright (C) 2026 TykoDev

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms
of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either
version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY;
without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
See the GNU General Public License for more details.

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_{Not affiliated with Microsoft or Docker. wsl.exe and wslc.exe are Microsoft's; this is a GUI in front of them.}