How I Built a Desktop AI App with Tauri v2 + React 19 in 2026

I wanted to build one app that does AI chat, image generation, and video generation — all running locally, no cloud, no Docker, no terminal. Just a .exe you download and run. The result is Locally Uncensored — a React 19 + TypeScript frontend with a Tauri v2 Rust backend that connects to Ollama for chat and ComfyUI for image/video generation. It ships as a standalone desktop app on Windows (.exe/.msi), Linux (.AppImage/.deb), and macOS (.dmg). This post covers the real technical challenges I hit and how I solved them. If you're building a Tauri app that talks to local services, manages large file downloads, or needs to auto-discover software on the user's machine, this is for you. The Stack Frontend: React 19, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS 4, Framer Motion, Zustand Desktop Shell: Tauri v2 (Rust backend) Build: Vite 8 (dev mode), Tauri CLI (production builds) AI Backends: Ollama (text), ComfyUI (images/video), faster-whisper (voice) The app runs in two modes: npm run dev serves it in a brows