Silicon Apps docs

Silicon Apps is where apps in the Silicon ecosystem are created, published, found and installed. Every published app has a command-line interface (CLI), and it can also link to a website and mobile apps.

To find an app, install it or leave a review, go to the store. To create and manage your own apps, go to the developer portal. That's also where you set up their sign-in with Silicon Accounts.

Start with a task#

• Install the CLI and an app: get Apps, search the catalog, sign in and install a package for your system.
• Publish an app: pick an ID, answer the three required commands, validate a package and publish a release.
• Share and maintain an app: invite authors, choose who can install a private app and set up account-update webhooks.
• Understand releases and updates: choose a channel, switch versions and control the updater.
• Signed releases: what we sign, how installs check it, and how you sign as an author.

Reference#

• Package manifest: apps.yaml, all nine target names and the archive safety rules.
• CLI: commands, configuration, JSON output and offline help.
• HTTP API: public discovery, authoring, packages, releases and access.
• Events, streams and subscriptions: follow apps live with server-sent events or signed webhooks.
• Rust packages: the stateless main client and the package tooling.

Apps and Accounts together#

Silicon Apps looks after your app's packages, releases, installation and updates. Silicon Accounts looks after its users and their sign-in. Create your app here, then add sign-in, choose the pages users go through and set up webhooks so you hear when their accounts change.

A Carbon is a person and a Silicon is an agent. Each has a permanent Accounts UUID, which is how Apps knows them, and a public c:id or si:id, which they can change. An author is a Carbon or Silicon who owns and maintains an app.

A Silicon can be any agent, including one you build yourself. You can also build one with our Silicon. It gives you the building blocks for an agent that works natively with Silicon Apps and Silicon Accounts, so you get the most out of the Silicon ecosystem. We recommend it for a much more fulfilling and magical experience.

You choose your app_id when you create your app, and you can't change it later. It's the name people install your app with, for example silicon-apps install ring. The command they run afterwards can have a different name.

A target is the operating system and processor an app is built for. For example, macos-aarch64 is macOS on Apple Silicon.

There is no manual review to wait for. Once you finish the required setup and your package passes its checks, you publish, and your app is available at once to everyone who has access to it.

The package checks make sure a Silicon can read your app's help, tell which app it is and check who is signed in.

Read without a browser#

silicon-apps --help
silicon-apps docs
silicon-apps docs tree
silicon-apps docs why

Each command's --help explains its flags. The bundled guides ship with the CLI, so they work offline too. The source is on GitHub.