crosslink serve: dashboard frontend not included in cargo install

[jasikpark]

Bug

crosslink serve starts the API server successfully but serves no web UI — the root URL returns 404 with an empty body. Safari redirects to about:blank.

The installation docs only mention cargo install crosslink, and the web dashboard guide presents crosslink serve as a single command that opens in the browser.

Investigation

Looking at routes.rs, the dashboard is only served when --dashboard-dir is provided:

if let Some(dir) = dashboard_dir {
    use tower_http::services::ServeDir;
    app = app.fallback_service(ServeDir::new(dir));
}

Without --dashboard-dir, there's no fallback service, so / returns 404.

There's no dashboard/ directory in the crate, no rust-embed or include_dir! for bundling assets, and no build step in the docs. The --dashboard-dir flag exists in crosslink serve --help but there's nothing to point it to.

Also, types.rs has #![allow(dead_code, unused_imports)] with a comment saying "these types are pre-declared as the API contract for later phase agents" — suggesting the React frontend hasn't been built yet.

Expected behavior

Either:

1. crosslink serve should serve a bundled dashboard (embed assets at compile time), or
2. The docs should mention that the dashboard frontend needs to be built separately and passed via --dashboard-dir, or
3. crosslink serve without --dashboard-dir should print a clear message explaining the dashboard isn't available

Environment

• crosslink 0.5.1 via cargo install crosslink
• macOS (Darwin 25.3.0)

[jasikpark]

Update: dashboard exists in repo but doesn't compile

The dashboard/ directory exists in the repo (React + Vite + TypeScript), but npm run build fails with multiple TypeScript errors:

• AgentSummary type drift (id property missing, last_heartbeat type mismatch)
• UsageChart.tsx recharts formatter type incompatibility

Looks WIP — the API backend types and frontend types have drifted. The dashboard isn't included in the crate because it can't be built yet.

For cargo install users, crosslink serve silently serves nothing. A warning message when --dashboard-dir isn't provided would help.

[maxine-at-forecast]

n.b.: My take architecturally is that we should split the crosslink serve frontend part into a separate repo, as this allows a more flexible architecture for plugging the web frontend into crosslink (for example, for being able to look at multiple projects from one frontend).

The current web dashboard is a sketch that was helpful in seeing where this could go ux-wise, but I think the architecture of where this piece should live is still something we should work through @dollspace-gay.

[dollspace-gay]

Will have to think on how it wants to do this

[jasikpark]

Would be interesting if it was shipped as a Tauri application that allowed you to add a list of crosslink projects to the dashboard

[dollspace-gay]

Would be interesting if it was shipped as a Tauri application that allowed you to add a list of crosslink projects to the dashboard

Thats a really good idea.