ebb

ebb is a modern, keyboard-first editor for flowing competitive debate rounds. Each flow is a .ebb file on your own machine - move it, copy it, back it up, or open it by double-clicking, like any other document. New flows are filed in ~/Documents/ebb and saved as you type. ebb is open source under the Mozilla Public License 2.0.

Installing

Desktop builds are found on the releases page.

MacOS

Requires macOS 11 (Big Sur) or later.

1. Download ebb_<version>_universal.dmg. One build covers both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.

2. Open the *.dmg file, and drag ebb to your Applications folder.

On first launch, you will need to authorize the app to open since it's unsigned.

If you see:

Can’t be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software

go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > scroll down > click "Open Anyway".

If instead you see:

"ebb.app" is damaged and can't be opened. You should move it to the Trash

this is macOS Gatekeeper quarantining the download, not actual damage. Remove the quarantine flag in Terminal, then open the app normally:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/ebb.app

If you would like a standalone copy instead of an installer, download ebb_<version>_universal.app.tar.gz and unarchive it. Unarchive it on the Mac you will run it on: sending the unarchived ebb.app through a Windows machine, a cloud-drive "download as zip", or a FAT-formatted drive breaks the app's code signature, and macOS then refuses to launch it with no error message.

Windows

Installer:

1. Download *-setup.exe
2. Run the installer

Portable:

1. Download *-portable.exe
2. Run it directly. It does not need installation.

The portable app does not register .ebb file associations. On first launch of either build, you may see "Windows protected your PC." Click More info > Run anyway.

Linux

1. Download the *.AppImage file.
2. Make it executable and run it:

chmod +x ebb_*.AppImage
./ebb_*.AppImage

Building From Source

Requires Node.js and npm.

npm install
npm run dev        # start the local web app at http://localhost:3000

Desktop app

The desktop build (via Tauri) is the preferred way to run ebb.

npm run desktop:dev      # run the desktop app against a live dev server
npm run desktop:build    # produce a native installer in src-tauri/target

Standalone binaries

desktop:build bundles every installer the host platform can make, which on macOS means a .dmg you have to open before you can run anything. These build the runnable artifact on its own instead, into src-tauri/target/release, and skip the updater artifacts (no signing key needed):

npm run desktop:build:bin              # bare executable, any platform
npm run desktop:build:macos            # ebb.app for the host arch, no dmg
npm run desktop:build:macos-universal  # ebb.app for both Apple arches, no dmg
npm run desktop:build:linux            # single-file AppImage

On Windows, desktop:build:bin is the portable route: ebb.exe lands in src-tauri/target/release with no NSIS installer beside it. The macOS universal build needs both aarch64-apple-darwin and x86_64-apple-darwin installed via rustup target add. Windows releases also include this binary as ebb_<version>_x64-portable.exe (or ebb_x64-portable.exe for a nightly).

Development

npm test           # run the test suite (Vitest)
npm run lint       # lint (ESLint)
npm run format     # format (oxfmt)
npm run build      # static production build to ./out