WslDock

A minimalist Win32 tray application that keeps WSL instances alive and manages SSH agent tunnels.

Built on the same foundation as StayAwake — same Zig toolchain, same lean Win32 approach, ~1–2 MB footprint.

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States & Icons

State	Icon	Description
Inactive	inactive.ico	WSL runs unmanaged
Active	active.ico	wsl -d <instance> sleep infinity anchors the VM
Active + SSH	active_ssh.ico	VM anchored + ssh -A localhost tunnel

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Usage

Left-click tray icon → toggle Inactive ↔ Active

Right-click → context menu:

Item	Behaviour
SSH-Tunnel (checkmark when on)	Toggle SSH tunnel. Implicitly activates WSL sleep if not yet running.
Reboot	wsl -t <instance> → restart sleep (+ SSH if it was active)
Exit	Remove tray icon and quit. WSL/SSH processes keep running.

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Configuration

%LOCALAPPDATA%\WslDock\wsl_dock.conf

Single line, two space-separated values:

<state> <instance>

Field	Values
state	0 = inactive · 1 = active · 2 = active + SSH
instance	WSL distro name (default: Default)

Examples:

0 Default
1 Ubuntu-24.04
2 Ubuntu-24.04

Written atomically on every state change via temp-file-swap. If the file does not exist, WslDock starts in the inactive state with Default.

Changes to the file are picked up live (no restart needed).

Set instance name via CLI

WslDock.exe Ubuntu-24.04

Writes the instance name to config and starts normally. Useful for first-run or scripted deployment via mise.

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Requirements

• The target WSL distro must have sshd running for the SSH tunnel feature.
• ssh -A localhost — key-based auth must be configured inside the distro.

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Build

zig build

Place three .ico files in icons/ before building:

File	State
icons/inactive.ico	Inactive
icons/active.ico	Active
icons/active_ssh.ico	Active + SSH

Recommended: multi-resolution ICO (16×16, 32×32, 48×48).

# With mise + task
mise install
task build

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Installation via mise

mise use -g github:TheFranconianCoder/wsl-dock

Autostart is registered on every launch via HKCU\...\Run, always pointing to the current binary — path updates after a mise upgrade are handled automatically.

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Release

task release VERSION=0.2.0

Requires release_title.txt and release_notes.md to exist before running.