Zync

A self-hosted, desktop-style Git workspace client: a single Rust binary that serves a fast React web UI — commit graph, diffs, branches, remotes, and live sync — over your Git repositories on disk.

Linux and macOS (x86_64 and arm64):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/prongbang/zync/main/install.sh | sh

This installs the zync binary (the web UI is embedded in it). Then run it and open http://127.0.0.1:58271:

ZYNC_SECRET_KEY="$(openssl rand -base64 32)" zync serve

A system git (and ssh for SSH remotes) must be installed. Override the version or install location with ZYNC_VERSION and ZYNC_INSTALL_DIR.

Zync requires a login by default. Two ways to start it:

Quick local run, no login (single-user) — the simplest way to try Zync on your own machine:

ZYNC_SECRET_KEY="$(openssl rand -base64 32)" ZYNC_AUTH=disabled zync serve

Then open http://127.0.0.1:58271 — it opens straight in, no sign-in. This mode has no authentication, so only use it on a trusted machine / localhost — don't expose it on a network without auth.

With a login (multi-user, or anything reachable beyond localhost) — set ZYNC_ADMIN_USER (the login email) and ZYNC_ADMIN_PASSWORD on first start to create the admin account:

ZYNC_SECRET_KEY="$(openssl rand -base64 32)" \
  ZYNC_ADMIN_USER="you@example.com" \
  ZYNC_ADMIN_PASSWORD="a-strong-password" \
  zync serve

Then open http://127.0.0.1:58271 and sign in with that email and password. The admin is created once, in zync.db (path via ZYNC_DB) — later starts ignore ZYNC_ADMIN_*, so don't delete the DB or change ZYNC_SECRET_KEY afterwards. If you start without ZYNC_ADMIN_* (and without ZYNC_AUTH=disabled), follow the one-time /setup?token=... link (valid ~24h) that the server logs on boot instead.

From another machine on your LAN — the server only binds to 127.0.0.1 by default. Set ZYNC_BIND=0.0.0.0:58271 to accept connections from the network, then open http://<host-ip>:58271 from another device. Only do this on a trusted LAN — with ZYNC_AUTH=disabled that also means anyone on the network has full unauthenticated access. With a login over plain HTTP, also set ZYNC_COOKIE_INSECURE=1 (the session cookie is Secure by default); for real exposure, prefer a TLS reverse proxy, see docs/DEPLOY.md.

ZYNC_SECRET_KEY="$(openssl rand -base64 32)" ZYNC_AUTH=disabled ZYNC_BIND=0.0.0.0:58271 zync serve

docker compose up --build

Then open http://127.0.0.1:58271. Mount host Git projects under /workspaces in docker-compose.yml and add the mounted path in the UI. Set the same ZYNC_ADMIN_USER/ZYNC_ADMIN_PASSWORD (or ZYNC_AUTH=disabled) in docker-compose.yml for first-run sign-in, as above.

Requires Rust and bun:

cd web && bun install && cd apps/web && bun run build    # build the web UI
cargo build --release -p zync-server --features embed-ui # embed it into the binary
ZYNC_SECRET_KEY="$(openssl rand -base64 32)" ./target/release/zync serve

Production deployment, backups, and the HTTP API are documented in docs/DEPLOY.md, docs/BACKUP.md, and docs/API.md.