Portable Desktop module

[bpmct]

A discussion dedicated to the Portable Desktop module. Share your thoughts, questions, and feedback here.

Module Scorecard

Presentation & Onboarding	Credential Hygiene	Restricted-Environment Readiness	Engineering Quality	Overall
12 / 17	20 / 20	19 / 20	10 / 10	91 / 100

Drilldown

Presentation & Onboarding — 12 / 17

Criterion	Max	Score	Notes
Configuration-mode examples	12	12	README provides three clear examples: basic usage, custom download URL with checksum verification, and custom install_dir. Each demonstrates a distinct configuration mode with sensible defaults.
Visual preview	5	0	No image, GIF, or video in the README. The icon reference does not count as a visual preview.

Credential Hygiene — 20 / 20

Criterion	Max	Score	Notes
Secrets marked sensitive	16	16	No secrets are used in this module. All inputs (agent_id, install_dir, url, sha256) are non-sensitive configuration values. README examples contain no API keys or credentials.
Non-hardcoded auth path	4	4	No authentication is required for this module's operation. It downloads a public binary from GitHub or a custom URL without credentials.

Restricted-Environment Readiness — 19 / 20

Criterion	Max	Score	Notes
Mirrorable artifact source	5	5	The url variable (line 23-27 in main.tf) allows overriding the default GitHub download URL. README example shows: url = "https://example.com/portabledesktop-linux-x64". This enables pointing to internal mirrors or artifact stores.
Bring-your-own binary	10	10	The run.sh script (lines 16-20) checks if portabledesktop is already in PATH and exits early if found. Lines 23-26 check if the binary exists at BINARY_PATH and skip download. This allows pre-baking the binary into images. The README documents this behavior implicitly through the script logic, though not in a dedicated section.
Egress transparency	3	1.5	No dedicated README section enumerating external endpoints. The default URLs are visible in examples (github.com/coder/portabledesktop/releases), but there's no consolidated network/air-gapped documentation section. Endpoints are scattered across examples.
Runs without sudo	2	2	The run.sh script operates without sudo for core functionality. Sudo is only attempted as a fallback when copying to install_dir fails (lines 109-117), which is an optional feature. The primary installation to CODER_SCRIPT_DATA_DIR (lines 95-97) works without privileges.

Engineering Quality — 10 / 10

Criterion	Max	Score	Notes
Input quality	6	6	All four variables have clear descriptions. The agent_id is required with proper type. Optional variables (install_dir, url, sha256) have sensible null defaults. No validation blocks are needed given the simple string types and the script's own error handling.
Test coverage	4	4	Comprehensive test suite in main.test.ts covers: successful installation, checksum verification (both success and failure), checksum skipping, sudo fallback, install_dir creation, and wget fallback. The .tftest.hcl file covers Terraform plan validation with required and optional variables. Business logic and end-to-end behavior are both tested.

Overall — 91 / 100

Raw 61 / 67 → round(61 / 67 × 100) = 91

Track: Utility (This module installs a desktop tool binary; it is neither an AI coding agent nor an IDE, so it is scored on Universal criteria only and normalized.)

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Scored against SCORECARD.md on 2026-09-14 with claude-sonnet-4-5.