- Zero frameworks — Cute Desk App is built with vanilla JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. No React, no Vue, no build step.
- 22 widgets, each an ES Module, all managed by a single
app.jscore framework. - 6 widget rendering types — from simple static HTML to real-time Canvas games at 60fps.
- All data lives in the browser — localStorage, IndexedDB, and Service Worker cache. No user accounts, no data leaks.
- Built with Claude as an AI coding partner inside the Cursor IDE.
People sometimes ask me: how does Cute Desk App actually work? It looks like a desktop operating system — windows you can drag, resize, and rearrange, a dock at the bottom, widgets that persist your data between sessions. But there's no Electron, no React, no server. It's a browser tab.
I built the whole thing with Cursor and Anthropic's Claude as my coding partner. Every architectural decision — from the widget registry to the state management pattern to how Canvas games pause when you switch tabs — came from conversations between me and Claude, then translated directly into code. It's one of the most technically interesting things I've built, and I wanted to share exactly how it works.
Below is the full architecture diagram. Every service, every module, every widget type. Scroll through it — if you're a developer, I think you'll find the patterns here genuinely useful, even outside of Cute Desk App.
