GitHub Desktop WSL

Think of it like the VS Code Remote WSL extension but for GitHub Desktop. A fork of GitHub Desktop that makes WSL repositories work properly — 16-50x faster git operations, working SSH keys, and no more CRLF issues.

Download the latest release — installs side-by-side with official GitHub Desktop

The problem

Official GitHub Desktop can't handle repos inside WSL. When you open a \\wsl.localhost\... path:

• Git commands are unusably slow — Desktop runs Windows git.exe, which accesses WSL files through the 9P protocol. Every file stat, read, and open is a round-trip across the VM boundary.
• SSH keys don't work — Desktop injects a Windows-only SSH_ASKPASS binary that breaks SSH inside WSL.
• File operations fail — Checking merge/rebase state, reading diffs, writing .gitignore — all go through 9P and are either slow or broken.
• Deleting repos fails — Windows Recycle Bin doesn't support WSL UNC paths.

The solution

This fork runs a lightweight daemon inside WSL that executes git and file operations natively. Desktop talks to it over TCP instead of going through 9P.

Official Desktop (slow path):
  Desktop → git.exe → Windows kernel → 9P → VM boundary → WSL → ext4
  (every file operation is a round-trip)

This fork (fast path):
  Desktop → TCP → daemon → git (native) → ext4
  (one round-trip per command, git has direct disk access)

The daemon is bundled inside the installer. When you open a WSL repo, it's deployed and started automatically. There's nothing to configure.

Why a daemon and not a git shim?

The simpler approach is to replace Desktop's bundled git.exe with a shim that calls wsl.exe -e git. Projects like wsl-git-bridge and my own earlier wsl-git-shim do this. It works, but has limitations:

Spawn overhead — Every command pays ~92ms to launch wsl.exe, even a trivial git rev-parse. The daemon is a persistent process, so it has ~2ms overhead (TCP round-trip + framing). Over a typical Desktop refresh cycle (10-20 commands), that's ~1-2 seconds vs ~20-40ms.

File operations aren't covered — Desktop doesn't just run git. It also reads diffs, checks merge/rebase state, reads and writes .gitignore, checks submodule paths — 8 different files do direct filesystem operations. A git-only shim leaves all of these going through 9P. The daemon handles them natively.

Breaks on Desktop updates — Desktop ships its own bundled git.exe inside each version's Squirrel package. Every update creates a new app-<version> directory with a fresh git.exe, so a replaced shim gets wiped. This fork is a separate app — updates come from its own release channel.

	Daemon (this fork)	Git shim
Per-command overhead	~2ms	~92ms
File operations (diffs, merge state, .gitignore)	Native	Still 9P
Survives Desktop updates	Yes	No
Install	Run installer	Replace git.exe manually

Performance

Three ways to run git on a WSL repo, benchmarked across repo sizes:

Spawn overhead

Before any git work happens, each approach has a fixed cost:

Approach	Overhead
Native git (daemon)	1 ms
git.exe (9P)	46 ms
wsl.exe -e (shim)	94 ms

Git operations by repo size

Operation	Small (21 files)			Medium (334 files)			Large (2,373 files)
	Daemon	git.exe (9P)	Shim	Daemon	git.exe (9P)	Shim	Daemon	git.exe (9P)	Shim
git status	2 ms	50 ms (25x)	93 ms (46x)	2 ms	51 ms (25x)	93 ms (46x)	3 ms	50 ms (16x)	92 ms (30x)
git log	2 ms	50 ms (25x)	92 ms (46x)	2 ms	51 ms (25x)	91 ms (45x)	2 ms	49 ms (24x)	93 ms (46x)
git diff	2 ms	49 ms (24x)	90 ms (45x)	2 ms	48 ms (24x)	91 ms (45x)	2 ms	50 ms (25x)	92 ms (46x)
git branch	1 ms	50 ms (50x)	93 ms (93x)	1 ms	49 ms (49x)	92 ms (92x)	2 ms	49 ms (24x)	90 ms (45x)
git rev-parse	1 ms	51 ms (51x)	92 ms (92x)	1 ms	49 ms (49x)	92 ms (92x)	1 ms	49 ms (49x)	92 ms (92x)
git for-each-ref	1 ms	51 ms (51x)	96 ms (96x)	1 ms	51 ms (51x)	92 ms (92x)	2 ms	50 ms (25x)	91 ms (45x)

Benchmarks: 11 iterations, median, WSL2 on Windows 11 (kernel 6.6.87.2). Full benchmark script and results.

Real Desktop workflows

These are the actual sequences Desktop runs during common operations:

Workflow	This fork	Official Desktop	Speedup
Open / switch to a repo	16 ms	173 ms	11x
Populate branch list + dates	6 ms	88 ms	14x
View last commit diff	4 ms	44 ms	10x
Pre-fetch checks	3 ms	82 ms	26x

The "open repo" workflow includes git status, for-each-ref, 4 pathExists checks, readFile, and git log.

Why the difference is so large

git.exe running on a WSL repo has a ~50ms floor for any operation — that's the cost of accessing files through 9P across the VM boundary. A wsl.exe -e git shim avoids 9P but pays ~92ms to spawn wsl.exe per command — actually slower than 9P for typical Desktop operations. The daemon has ~2ms overhead (TCP round-trip + message framing). The actual git work is the same; the difference is entirely in how commands are dispatched and files are accessed.

A typical Desktop refresh runs 10-20 commands. With git.exe that's 500-1000ms of pure overhead. With a shim it's 920-1840ms. With the daemon it's 20-40ms.

Install

1. Download GitHubDesktopWSLSetup-x64.exe
2. Run the installer
3. Open any WSL repository

That's it. The app:

• Detects WSL paths automatically (\\wsl.localhost\... or \\wsl$\...)
• Deploys the daemon to ~/.local/bin/ in your WSL distro on first use
• Starts the daemon via --daemonize (forks to background)
• Reconnects automatically if the daemon crashes
• Falls through to normal Desktop behavior for Windows repos

SmartScreen may warn on first install (the fork is unsigned). Click "More info" then "Run anyway".

How it works

Components

wsl-git-daemon (C, ~550 lines, zero dependencies) A persistent daemon that runs inside WSL. Listens on TCP 127.0.0.1 on a random port. Handles:

• Git commands — forks git with proper pipes for stdout/stderr/stdin
• File operations — read, write, stat, pathExists, unlink via direct syscalls
• Security — token-based auth, localhost-only connections

wsl.ts (TypeScript, ~420 lines) The Desktop-side client. Responsibilities:

• Path detection — identifies \\wsl.localhost\... and \\wsl$\... paths, extracts distro name
• Lifecycle management — deploy binary, start/restart daemon, health check
• Protocol client — binary length-prefixed frames over TCP
• Drop-in wrappers — wslReadFile(), wslPathExists(), etc. that route to daemon for WSL paths and fall through to native fs for Windows paths

core.ts patch (1 check) All git commands in Desktop flow through git() in core.ts. A single if (isWSLPath(path)) routes WSL repos through the daemon while leaving Windows repos completely untouched.

Wire protocol

Frame: [type: 1 byte][length: 4 bytes big-endian][payload: N bytes]

Client → Daemon:
  INIT  (0x01)  JSON { token, cmd, args, cwd, stdin, path }
  STDIN (0x02)  Raw bytes (for writeFile content, empty = EOF)

Daemon → Client:
  STDOUT      (0x03)  Raw bytes (git output / file content)
  STDERR      (0x04)  Raw bytes
  EXIT        (0x05)  4-byte exit code
  ERROR       (0x06)  UTF-8 error message
  STAT_RESULT (0x07)  JSON { exists, size, isDir }

Daemon lifecycle

User opens WSL repo
  → Desktop detects \\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu\...
  → Extracts distro name ("Ubuntu")
  → Tries to connect to daemon (reads /tmp/wsl-git-daemon.info via UNC path)
  → If not running:
      → Deploys binary: wsl.exe -d Ubuntu -e sh -c "cp ... ~/.local/bin/ && chmod 755 ..."
      → Starts daemon: wsl.exe -d Ubuntu -e sh -c "~/.local/bin/wsl-git-daemon --daemonize"
      → Daemon forks, writes info file, parent exits, wsl.exe returns
      → Desktop reads info file, connects to daemon
  → All git/file operations go through daemon
  → If connection fails mid-session → auto-restart

Staying current with upstream

This project doesn't diverge from upstream GitHub Desktop. It maintains a set of patch files (in patches/) that are applied on top of each upstream release:

1. CI checks for new upstream release-* tags every 6 hours
2. Clones desktop/desktop at the new release tag
3. Applies patches/*.patch via git apply
4. Builds the daemon + app, publishes a new release
5. If patches fail to apply → opens a GitHub Issue for manual resolution

The patches are designed to be minimal and conflict-resistant: one new file (wsl.ts), one new directory (wsl-daemon/), and small surgical changes to existing files (mostly import swaps). All patches are plain text and easy to review.

Files changed

NEW   wsl-daemon/daemon.c                  Persistent daemon
NEW   wsl-daemon/Makefile                  Build script
NEW   app/src/lib/wsl.ts                   Client, lifecycle, wrappers
PATCH app/src/lib/git/core.ts              Git routing (1 if-block)
PATCH app/src/main-process/main.ts         WSL delete handler
PATCH app/src/models/repository.ts         isWSL getter
PATCH app/src/lib/git/diff.ts              Import swap: wslReadFile
PATCH app/src/lib/git/rebase.ts            Import swap: wslReadFile, wslPathExists
PATCH app/src/lib/git/cherry-pick.ts       Import swap: wslReadFile, wslPathExists
PATCH app/src/lib/git/merge.ts             Import swap: wslPathExists
PATCH app/src/lib/git/description.ts       Import swap: wslReadFile, wslWriteFile
PATCH app/src/lib/git/gitignore.ts         WSL-aware read/write/unlink
PATCH app/src/lib/git/submodule.ts         Import swap: wslPathExists
PATCH app/src/lib/stores/app-store.ts      Import swap: wslPathExists
PATCH app/package.json                     Branding: "GitHub Desktop WSL"
PATCH script/dist-info.ts                  Update URL, app ID
PATCH script/build.ts                      Bundle daemon binary
PATCH script/package.ts                    Skip code signing
NEW   .github/workflows/sync-upstream.yml  Auto-sync with upstream
NEW   .github/workflows/build-release.yml  Build and publish releases

Most patches are one-line import changes — swapping readFile from fs/promises with wslReadFile from wsl.ts. These are unlikely to conflict with upstream changes.

Building from source

# 1. Build daemon (in WSL)
cd wsl-daemon && make

# 2. Install dependencies (on Windows)
yarn install

# 3. Build
yarn build:dev     # development
yarn build:prod    # production

# 4. Package installer (production only)
SKIP_CODE_SIGNING=1 yarn package

License

MIT

Credits

Based on GitHub Desktop by GitHub, Inc.

WSL support by @aleixrodriala.