Install
Stellar is a desktop app. Install it, open it, and the board lives on your machine — there is no service to subscribe to.
Stellar is a desktop app. There is no service to subscribe to: you install it, open it, and the board lives on your machine.
The packages are on the repository releases, which is the source of truth — this page keeps no file and has no second download list to drift from that one.
| System | File |
|---|---|
| Fedora, RHEL and derivatives | Stellar-<version>-x86_64.rpm |
| Debian, Ubuntu and derivatives | Stellar-<version>-amd64.deb |
| Any Linux | Stellar-<version>-x86_64.AppImage |
| macOS (Apple Silicon) | Stellar-<version>-arm64.dmg |
| Windows | Stellar-<version>-x64.exe (installer) or -x64-portable.exe (single file) |
Fedora and derivatives
$ sudo dnf install ./Stellar-<version>-x86_64.rpmDebian and Ubuntu
$ sudo apt install ./Stellar-<version>-amd64.debAppImage
Single file, no installation:
$ chmod +x Stellar-<version>-x86_64.AppImage
$ ./Stellar-<version>-x86_64.AppImagemacOS
The published .dmg is arm64 — Apple Silicon (M1 and later). There is
no build for Intel.
The app is not signed by Apple. On first launch, macOS refuses by default: right-click the icon → Open, and confirm. Opening by double-click the first time does not work — that is the system’s default behavior for an unsigned app, not a Stellar defect.
Windows
The -x64.exe is the installer. The -x64-portable.exe is a single file,
with no installation — to update, download the new version and replace the
file.
How the app updates itself
Stellar checks the GitHub releases and tells you when a new version exists. Nothing is downloaded or installed on its own: the download and the swap happen when you click the update notice.
What changes per format:
| Installation | How it updates |
|---|---|
.rpm / .deb |
asks for the administrator password (the package swap is done by the system manager) |
.AppImage |
replaces its own file |
| Windows (installer) | the installer replaces itself |
| Windows (portable) | does not update itself: download the new version and replace the file |
| macOS | swaps the app bundle (new feature, in testing) |
These versions do not update themselves — they lack the configuration
file the updater reads, and no future version can fix that from the inside,
because the one that would read the file is the old build. Install once by
hand, downloading the new .rpm over it; from then on the update
works again.
Stellar refuses to open a second window over the same database, on purpose: two processes writing to the same place collide on card identifiers. If you try, the second instance exits saying exactly that in the terminal, instead of closing silently.
Where your data lives
The database and the board assets live in your configuration folder, and the API keys in the operating system keychain:
| Path | What it is |
|---|---|
~/.config/stellar |
boards, cards, tasks, reports and sprints |
board-assets/ |
images and PDFs pasted onto the canvas |
| system keychain | API keys, encrypted by the OS |
None of it leaves your machine. There is no telemetry, and none of this information is sent anywhere. The per-file breakdown is in the reference.
License
Stellar is free software under GPL-3.0-or-later — the full text is in
the repository’s
LICENSE file. You
may use, study, modify and redistribute the app under the terms of that
license.