Windows and WSL

A Project runs on its Execution Target: Windows itself (the default), or a WSL distro such as Ubuntu. Add Project asks which.

On Windows itself

Commands run in cmd.exe with your user environment read fresh at every start, so a toolchain you just installed is found without restarting localhost. Version managers that only work through a PowerShell profile (fnm or mise in activate mode) aren’t seen; their shim modes, nvm-windows and Volta are.

In WSL

Pick the folder under Linux in the folder picker (\\wsl.localhost\<distro>\…). Commands, detection and the Ports view run inside the distro, as on Linux. A folder on a Windows drive also works, through /mnt/c/…, but is much slower.

The first time a distro is used, localhost copies a small helper, localhostd, into ~/.local/share/localhost/windows/ there; it is replaced when localhost updates, and stops every Service it started when localhost quits.

Open in Browser uses localhost:<port>, which WSL forwards to Windows by default. If a Service in WSL is Running but the browser can’t reach it, check that %UserProfile%\.wslconfig doesn’t turn localhostForwarding off, then run wsl --shutdown and start it again.

Terminal, editors and the tray

• Open in Terminal uses Windows Terminal (with the distro’s profile for WSL Projects). VS Code, Cursor, VSCodium and Windsurf open WSL folders through their WSL remote.
• Windows puts a new app’s tray icon in the overflow (the ^ next to the clock). To keep it on the taskbar, turn localhost on in Settings › Personalization › Taskbar › Other system tray icons. Left-click it to open the window, right-click it for the menu.

Uninstall

Uninstall from Settings › Apps › Installed apps, then remove the copies in each distro with rm -rf ~/.local/share/localhost/windows.