cd /news/developer-tools/show-hn-tiddlyinstall-one-html-file-… · home › topics › developer-tools › article
[ARTICLE · art-139539] src=robertsdotpm.github.io ↗ pub= topic=developer-tools verified=true sentiment=↑ positive

Show HN: TiddlyInstall – One HTML file that creates desktop installers

Developer Matthew Roberts released TiddlyInstall, an open-source MIT-licensed single-page HTML tool that generates desktop installers for Windows, Linux, and Mac without any software download and works offline. TiddlyInstall uses NSIS for Windows support and shell scripting elsewhere, relying on metadata vouched for by hashes in file names, embedded data, and signatures so new binaries require only browser-side metadata changes. Roberts credited Claude with the implementation and said the project is inspired by TiddlyWiki but not affiliated with it.

read1 min views1 publishedSep 25, 2026

Hello HN, I wanted to show you some new software I designed (and Claude implemented.)

It's called TiddlyInstall. TiddlyInstall is a single-page website that lets you easily build installers for all your projects. What makes TiddlyInstall unusual is there is no software to download and everything is able to work offline. Based on the project that it's inspired by: you can download TiddlyInstall as a HTML file and use it to make working binaries for Windows, Linux, and Mac.

How it works:

Most installers / binaries are custom per project. But with very few modifications they can be made general-purpose. Installers can be made to follow meta-data which can be vouched for by hashes in their file names, embedded data, and signatures. That means new binaries only need meta-data to be changed which can be done entirely in the browser.

For the installers themselves NSIS was chosen for its amazing Windows support. Otherwise, the rest is shell scripting. I am very excited about it and would love people to try it out. All the code is open source under MIT. Feel free to report issues on the Github at http://github.com/robertsdotpm/tiddlyinstall Credits:

Claude (and the authors whose works it was trained on :/) deserve huge credits for the implementation. It would have taken me months to code this all this. This project is not affiliated with TiddlyWiki -- though I am heavily inspired by that project!

If anyone thinks my work is cool -- I'm currently looking for new opportunities. Feel free to reach out if there's a match (matthew@roberts.pm.)

Comments URL: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49841265](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49841265)

Points: 1

── more in #developer-tools 4 stories · sorted by recency
── more on @tiddlyinstall 3 stories trending now
sponsored brought to you by zahid.host 4,200+ EU-deployed projects
reading about agents? ship yours in a single git push.

Run your AI side-project on zahid.host

EU-based hosting, git-push deploys, automatic HTTPS, no cold starts. Free tier with a custom domain — perfect for shipping the agent you just read about.

$git push zahid main
→ Live at https://your-agent.zahid.host ✓
Get free account → Pricing
from €0/mo · no card required
LIVE [news/show-hn-tiddlyinstal…] indexed:0 read:1min 2026-09-25 · —