tldraw desktop

A desktop editor for .tldr files, built with tldraw and Electron.

Download

Get the latest release from the Releases page.

Platform	Download
macOS (Apple Silicon + Intel)	tldraw-{version}-universal.dmg
Windows x64	tldraw-{version}-win-x64.exe
Windows ARM64	tldraw-{version}-win-arm64.exe
Linux x64	tldraw-{version}-linux-x64.AppImage or .deb
Linux ARM64	tldraw-{version}-linux-arm64.AppImage

Auto-updates

The app checks for updates on launch. When a new version is available, you'll be prompted to download and install it.

Local Canvas API

The desktop app runs a local HTTP server that exposes a Canvas API for programmatic access to your tldraw documents. This enables integrations with AI coding assistants and other tools.

The server starts automatically when the app launches (default port 7236, falls back to a random port if taken). Connection details are written to:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/tldraw/server.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%/tldraw/server.json
• Linux: ~/.config/tldraw/server.json

The server.json file contains:

{
  "port": 7236,
  "pid": 12345
}

API endpoints

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/	API documentation (plain text)
GET	/api/llms	tldraw SDK documentation (llms-full.txt)
GET	/api/doc	List all open documents (supports ?name= filter)
GET	/api/doc/:id/shapes	Get all shapes on the current page
GET	/api/doc/:id/screenshot	Screenshot of the canvas as JPEG
POST	/api/doc/:id/exec	Execute arbitrary editor code
POST	/api/doc/:id/actions	Execute structured canvas actions

Screenshots

GET /api/doc/:id/screenshot supports query parameters:

• size - small (768px), medium (1536px), large (3072px), full (5000px)
• bounds - Crop to specific area: bounds=x,y,w,h

Actions

POST /api/doc/:id/actions accepts a JSON body with an actions array. Each action has a _type field:

create, update, delete, clear, move, place, label, align, distribute, stack, bringToFront, sendToBack, resize, rotate, pen, setMyView

Example usage

# Read server connection info
cat ~/Library/Application\ Support/tldraw/server.json

# List open documents
curl http://localhost:7236/api/doc

# Get shapes from a document
curl http://localhost:7236/api/doc/{id}/shapes

# Take a screenshot
curl http://localhost:7236/api/doc/{id}/screenshot?size=medium -o screenshot.jpg

# Execute editor code
curl -X POST http://localhost:7236/api/doc/{id}/exec \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"code": "return editor.getCurrentPageShapeIds().size"}'

Development

Source code lives in the tldraw-internal monorepo at apps/public/desktop/.

License

This project is not open source. All rights reserved.