Put a window on screen while it starts, and refuse the second one

Two things a desktop application is expected to do and this one did not.

◆ THREE SECONDS OF NOTHING.

Measured on a debug build against a cold profile: the main window arrives 3.1
seconds after the executable does. Nothing was on screen for any of it — the icon
had been double-clicked and the desktop looked unchanged.

The main window cannot come sooner. It needs a view model, and the view model needs
composition to have opened the SQLite cache, bound the terminal's loopback socket,
asked the platform about a TPM and read the install layout off disk. Its own
IsStarting card already narrates what happens after it appears; this is the part
before, which no arrangement of that window can cover.

So SplashWindow, and it is measurably the point: 668 ms to the splash, 3.1 s to the
window that replaces it.

Two mechanics are load-bearing rather than incidental.

The splash *is* desktop.MainWindow for a moment. The lifetime shows whatever that
property holds once OnFrameworkInitializationCompleted returns; a window merely
Show()n there would have no lifetime attached, and under
ShutdownMode.OnLastWindowClose the first close of anything would end the process.
Handing the property over is one assignment and Avalonia reads it lazily.

And composition is posted at DispatcherPriority.Background rather than called. It
is synchronous and slow — which is the entire argument for a splash — so running it
inline would block the very dispatcher turn that has to paint the thing.

The window is SizeToContent="Height", which is about the failure and not the
splash: CouldNotStart carries an exception's own message, and inside a fixed height
a long one would wrap and be clipped at exactly the moment that text is all the
window is for. A composition that throws is caught rather than left to the
dispatcher, for the same reason — before this there was nothing on screen to
abandon, and now there is, so an escaping exception would leave a window saying
"Starting…" over a process that had stopped. Escape closes it, and only then.

◆ AND ONE INSTANCE.

Claimed in Main before Avalonia is configured, so a second launch starts nothing at
all: no toolkit, no window, no splash flashing up before it thinks better of it.

Exclusion is an exclusive handle on instance.lock inside the profile directory, and
that location settles two questions at once. A nightly and a release build do not
exclude each other — separate profiles, ADR 0013 — and two people signed in to one
machine each get their own instance. A global mutex would have had to re-derive
both from somewhere.

A file handle rather than a named mutex because the kernel releases it however the
process ends. There is no such thing as a stale lock here, which is a state a
named mutex makes both platforms model differently and neither model simply.

The second launch is not silent. Somebody who double-clicks an icon and sees
nothing has been told the application is broken, so it rings a named pipe — named
from a digest of the profile path, so it is scoped exactly as the lock is — and the
running instance un-minimises and activates. Activate is a request and not a
guarantee: Windows refuses the foreground to a process that did not receive the
input, and the flashing taskbar button that results is still an answer.

Three seconds of retrying when the lock is held by something that does not answer
its pipe, and that window has one job. Velopack's apply ends this process and its
updater starts the new build; the two are ordered, but a lock held a moment too
long would make the successor refuse itself and vanish — an update that looked like
an uninstall. The doorbell is disposed before Shutdown for the same reason, so the
pipe name is free before the process is.

◆ VERIFIED BY RUNNING IT, WHICH IS THE ONLY WAY EITHER OF THESE COULD BE.

Two launches of the built executable: the first stayed up with instance.lock in the
profile, the second exited. Window sizes over time are where the two timings above
come from — 420x160 then 1196x776.

SingleInstanceTests covers what a single process can reach: the lock, its release
by disposal, the doorbell answering more than once, and two profiles not excluding
each other. SplashCardTests measures the one thing the splash can get wrong, which
is a failure message long enough to need the height the window is willing to give
it. Checks 1.12 and 16.11 are what needs a second executable and a real screen.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

src/DodoSSH.Client.App/App.axaml.cs

@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ using Avalonia.Controls;
 using Avalonia.Controls.ApplicationLifetimes;
 using Avalonia.Input.Platform;
 using Avalonia.Markup.Xaml;
+using Avalonia.Threading;
 using DodoSSH.Client.App.Platform;
 using DodoSSH.Client.App.Views;
 using DodoSSH.Client.Auth;
@@ -33,12 +34,77 @@ internal sealed partial class DodoSshApp : Application
     {
         if (ApplicationLifetime is IClassicDesktopStyleApplicationLifetime desktop)
         {
-            Compose(desktop);
+            ShowSomethingWhileComposing(desktop);
         }
 
         base.OnFrameworkInitializationCompleted();
     }
 
+    /// <summary>
+    /// Puts a window on screen first, and composes the application behind it.
+    /// </summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// <para>
+    /// <b>The splash <em>is</em> the main window for a moment, which is what makes this work at all.</b> The
+    /// desktop lifetime shows whatever <c>MainWindow</c> holds once this method returns and then runs the
+    /// message loop; a window created here and merely shown would be a window with no lifetime attached, and
+    /// with <c>ShutdownMode.OnLastWindowClose</c> the first close of anything would end the process. Handing
+    /// the property over is one assignment, and Avalonia reads it lazily.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// <b>And composition is posted rather than called.</b> It is synchronous and takes long enough to be
+    /// worth a splash in the first place — which is the whole argument for this method — so running it here
+    /// would block the very dispatcher turn that has to paint the thing. Background priority puts it behind
+    /// rendering, which is what makes this a painted window rather than merely a shown one.
+    /// </para>
+    /// </remarks>
+    private static void ShowSomethingWhileComposing(IClassicDesktopStyleApplicationLifetime desktop)
+    {
+        var splash = new SplashWindow();
+
+        desktop.MainWindow = splash;
+
+        // Fully qualified, and it has to be: Application inherits an instance Dispatcher property from
+        // AvaloniaObject, member lookup beats the namespace, and a static method here cannot reach an
+        // instance property — so the unqualified name is a compile error rather than the type. Same below.
+        Avalonia.Threading.Dispatcher.UIThread.Post(
+            () => ComposeBehind(desktop, splash),
+            DispatcherPriority.Background);
+    }
+
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// <para>
+    /// The order at the end is not interchangeable. <c>ShutdownMode</c> is <c>OnLastWindowClose</c>, so the
+    /// real window is shown while the splash is still open and the splash is closed afterwards; closing the
+    /// only window there is would end the process instead of handing it over.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// <b>A failure is caught rather than left to the dispatcher, and the splash is exactly why.</b> Before
+    /// this method existed a composition that threw took the process with it and left nothing behind. Now
+    /// there is something to leave behind — so an exception escaping a posted callback would abandon a window
+    /// saying "Starting…" over a process that had stopped, which is worse than the crash it replaced. What
+    /// arrives instead is the sentence and a way to close it.
+    /// </para>
+    /// </remarks>
+    private static void ComposeBehind(
+        IClassicDesktopStyleApplicationLifetime desktop,
+        SplashWindow splash)
+    {
+        try
+        {
+            Compose(desktop);
+        }
+        catch (Exception exception) when (exception is not OutOfMemoryException)
+        {
+            splash.CouldNotStart(exception.Message);
+
+            return;
+        }
+
+        desktop.MainWindow?.Show();
+        splash.Close();
+    }
+
     /// <remarks>
     /// <para>
     /// Composed by hand rather than through a container. The graph is a handful of objects deep and an
@@ -137,12 +203,44 @@ internal sealed partial class DodoSshApp : Application
 
         desktop.MainWindow = new MainWindow { DataContext = viewModel };
 
+        // The other half of Program's claim on this profile: a second launch was refused, and this is what
+        // answers it. Posted onto the UI thread because a pipe accept completes on a thread pool thread and
+        // a window may only be touched from the thread that owns it — see SingleInstance.Listen.
+        var others = SingleInstance.Listen(
+            paths,
+            () => Avalonia.Threading.Dispatcher.UIThread.Post(() => BringToFront(desktop.MainWindow)));
+
         // Started rather than awaited: the framework's initialisation must not block on a schema
         // migration. The view model shows its own progress and handles its own failures, which is why
         // discarding the task here is safe rather than merely convenient.
         _ = viewModel.StartAsync(CancellationToken.None);
 
-        WireShutdown(desktop, viewModel, workspace, caches);
+        WireShutdown(desktop, viewModel, workspace, caches, others);
+    }
+
+    /// <summary>
+    /// Raises the window somebody has just asked for by launching the application again.
+    /// </summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// Un-minimised first, because activating a minimised window leaves it minimised and the launch would
+    /// look ignored. <c>Activate</c> is a request rather than a guarantee — Windows refuses the foreground to
+    /// a process that did not receive the input, and what happens then is a flashing taskbar button, which is
+    /// still an answer. That is the platform's own rule about focus stealing and not a thing to work around.
+    /// </remarks>
+    private static void BringToFront(Window? window)
+    {
+        if (window is null)
+        {
+            return;
+        }
+
+        if (window.WindowState is WindowState.Minimized)
+        {
+            window.WindowState = WindowState.Normal;
+        }
+
+        window.Show();
+        window.Activate();
     }
 
     /// <summary>Composes the shell itself, with everything this platform answers for it.</summary>
@@ -271,7 +369,8 @@ internal sealed partial class DodoSshApp : Application
         IClassicDesktopStyleApplicationLifetime desktop,
         MainWindowViewModel viewModel,
         TerminalWorkspace workspace,
-        ClientCacheFactory caches)
+        ClientCacheFactory caches,
+        IAsyncDisposable others)
     {
         var shuttingDown = false;
 
@@ -290,6 +389,11 @@ internal sealed partial class DodoSshApp : Application
             await viewModel.DisposeAsync().ConfigureAwait(true);
             await workspace.DisposeAsync().ConfigureAwait(true);
 
+            // Awaited rather than dropped, so the pipe name is free before this process is. It matters for
+            // one caller and matters a lot there: an update relaunches this application, and a successor
+            // that found the name still taken would be a second instance refusing itself.
+            await others.DisposeAsync().ConfigureAwait(true);
+
             caches.Dispose();
 
             desktop.Shutdown();

src/DodoSSH.Client.App/Platform/SingleInstance.cs

@@ -0,0 +1,325 @@
+using System.IO.Pipes;
+using System.Security.Cryptography;
+using System.Text;
+using DodoSSH.Client.Session;
+
+namespace DodoSSH.Client.App.Platform;
+
+/// <summary>
+/// One desktop instance per profile, and a way for a second launch to raise the first.
+/// </summary>
+/// <remarks>
+/// <para>
+/// <b>Per profile rather than per machine, which decides two things at once.</b> The lock lives in
+/// <see cref="ClientPaths.InstanceLockFile"/>, so a nightly and a release build never exclude each other —
+/// they are separate applications by design, ADR 0013 — and two people signed in to one machine each get
+/// their own instance. A global mutex would have had to re-derive both of those from somewhere.
+/// </para>
+/// <para>
+/// <b>Why one instance at all.</b> The cache is a SQLite file with an outbox in it, and the whole design
+/// assumes one writer: <see cref="ClientPaths"/> says so about two machines sharing a profile through a
+/// cloud sync client, and two processes on one machine is the same hazard with a shorter path to it. The
+/// terminal's loopback listener is the visible half — the second process fails to bind, gets a port of its
+/// own or refuses to start a workspace at all — and the cache is the half that would quietly corrupt.
+/// </para>
+/// <para>
+/// <b>A file handle rather than a named mutex</b>, because the operating system releases it when the
+/// process ends <em>however</em> it ends. A named mutex abandoned by a killed process is a state both
+/// platforms model differently and neither models simply; an exclusive handle is closed by the kernel on
+/// Windows and by the file descriptor going away on Unix, so there is no such thing as a stale lock here.
+/// </para>
+/// <para>
+/// <b>And a named pipe for the other half, because exiting silently is not an answer.</b> Somebody who
+/// double-clicks the icon and sees nothing happen has been told the application is broken. The second
+/// process asks the first to come forward and then leaves, which is what every desktop application does and
+/// what makes the exclusion invisible rather than mysterious.
+/// </para>
+/// </remarks>
+internal static class SingleInstance
+{
+    /// <summary>The one thing a second launch has to say.</summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// Compared against a constant rather than parsed, for the reason <c>MainWindow</c>'s release-focus
+    /// message is: one message exists and treating anything else as a command would be a wider door than
+    /// this needs. Anything may connect to a per-user pipe — it is not a security boundary — so what arrives
+    /// is checked rather than trusted.
+    /// </remarks>
+    private const string ComeForward = "dodossh.come-forward";
+
+    /// <summary>How long a second launch waits for the first to answer its pipe.</summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// Short, because the pipe is local and the process on the other end is either listening or not. It is
+    /// not a bound on anything slow; it is how long to wait before concluding that whoever holds the lock
+    /// cannot be talked to.
+    /// </remarks>
+    private const int AnswerTimeoutMilliseconds = 500;
+
+    /// <summary>How long to keep trying for a lock that is held by nobody who answers.</summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// <para>
+    /// ◆ <b>This is the window an update relaunch lands in, and without it an update would look like a
+    /// crash.</b> Velopack's apply ends this process and its updater then starts the new build; the two are
+    /// ordered — the updater waits on the old process id — but the whole sequence is one where a lock held a
+    /// moment too long would make the relaunched application exit on the spot, having apparently uninstalled
+    /// itself. The same window covers an ordinary double-double-click, where the first process holds the file
+    /// and has not reached its pipe yet.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// Only reached when nobody answers the pipe. A live instance replies in milliseconds and the second
+    /// launch is gone before any of this matters.
+    /// </para>
+    /// </remarks>
+    private static readonly TimeSpan DefaultPatience = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(3);
+
+    /// <summary>How long to wait between attempts within that window.</summary>
+    private static readonly TimeSpan RetryDelay = TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(100);
+
+    /// <summary>
+    /// Claims this profile for this process, or asks whoever holds it to come forward.
+    /// </summary>
+    /// <returns>
+    /// A handle to hold for the life of the process, or <see langword="null"/> when another instance has it —
+    /// in which case that instance has already been asked to raise its window and this process should end.
+    /// </returns>
+    /// <param name="paths">The profile to claim. Its directory is created if it is not there.</param>
+    /// <param name="patience">
+    /// How long to keep trying a lock nobody answers for, or null for <see cref="DefaultPatience"/>. Named
+    /// by a test so the give-up path does not cost the suite three seconds; the application never passes it.
+    /// </param>
+    internal static IDisposable? Claim(ClientPaths paths, TimeSpan? patience = null)
+    {
+        ArgumentNullException.ThrowIfNull(paths);
+
+        try
+        {
+            paths.EnsureCreated();
+        }
+        catch (Exception exception) when (exception is IOException or UnauthorizedAccessException)
+        {
+            // No profile directory means no lock file, and every build before this one started anyway. What
+            // follows will fail on its own terms and say something better than this could.
+            return NoClaim.Instance;
+        }
+
+        // Counted rather than clocked. Thread.Sleep is not a clock and reading one here would be pretending
+        // otherwise — what this bounds is the number of attempts, and the wall time is whatever the platform
+        // makes of them.
+        var attemptsLeft = (int)Math.Ceiling(
+            (patience ?? DefaultPatience).TotalMilliseconds / RetryDelay.TotalMilliseconds);
+
+        while (true)
+        {
+            if (TryTake(paths.InstanceLockFile) is { } taken)
+            {
+                return taken;
+            }
+
+            // Asked before waiting, so the ordinary case — an instance that is up and running — costs one
+            // round trip on a local pipe rather than the whole window below.
+            if (AskTheRunningOneToComeForward(paths))
+            {
+                return null;
+            }
+
+            if (attemptsLeft-- <= 0)
+            {
+                // Held by something that will not talk. Giving up rather than starting anyway, because what
+                // is being protected is a database with one writer, and "probably nobody" is not an answer
+                // worth corrupting it for.
+                return null;
+            }
+
+            Thread.Sleep(RetryDelay);
+        }
+    }
+
+    /// <summary>
+    /// Answers the launches that were refused, for as long as the returned handle is held.
+    /// </summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// <paramref name="comeForward"/> is invoked on a thread pool thread, because that is where a pipe
+    /// accept completes. A caller that touches a window has to marshal.
+    /// </remarks>
+    /// <param name="paths">The profile this instance claimed.</param>
+    /// <param name="comeForward">What to do when another launch asks for the window.</param>
+    internal static IAsyncDisposable Listen(ClientPaths paths, Action comeForward)
+    {
+        ArgumentNullException.ThrowIfNull(paths);
+        ArgumentNullException.ThrowIfNull(comeForward);
+
+        var listener = new Doorbell(PipeNameFor(paths), comeForward);
+
+        listener.Start();
+
+        return listener;
+    }
+
+    /// <summary>Tells the instance that holds this profile to raise its window.</summary>
+    /// <returns>Whether anything was listening.</returns>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// Internal rather than private because it is the half a test can drive: the exclusion is a file handle
+    /// and proves itself, and this is the part with a protocol in it.
+    /// </remarks>
+    internal static bool AskTheRunningOneToComeForward(ClientPaths paths)
+    {
+        ArgumentNullException.ThrowIfNull(paths);
+
+        try
+        {
+            using var pipe = new NamedPipeClientStream(
+                serverName: ".",
+                PipeNameFor(paths),
+                PipeDirection.Out);
+
+            pipe.Connect(AnswerTimeoutMilliseconds);
+
+            using var writer = new StreamWriter(pipe, Encoding.UTF8) { AutoFlush = true };
+
+            writer.WriteLine(ComeForward);
+
+            return true;
+        }
+        catch (Exception exception)
+            when (exception is TimeoutException or IOException or UnauthorizedAccessException)
+        {
+            // Nothing there, or nothing willing. The caller decides what that means; here it is only ever
+            // "no".
+            return false;
+        }
+    }
+
+    /// <summary>Takes the lock, or answers null if somebody else has it.</summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// The file is left in place rather than deleted on close. <c>FileOptions.DeleteOnClose</c> looks
+    /// tidier and is worse: it makes the file's existence part of the protocol, so a second process opening
+    /// it while the first is closing gets a handle to something on its way out. An empty file that is always
+    /// there and sometimes locked has one fewer state.
+    /// </remarks>
+    private static IDisposable? TryTake(string lockFile)
+    {
+        try
+        {
+            return new FileStream(
+                lockFile,
+                FileMode.OpenOrCreate,
+                FileAccess.ReadWrite,
+                FileShare.None,
+                bufferSize: 1,
+                FileOptions.None);
+        }
+        catch (IOException)
+        {
+            // Somebody else holds it. The one expected failure, and the whole point.
+            return null;
+        }
+        catch (UnauthorizedAccessException)
+        {
+            // A profile this user cannot write to, which is a broken installation rather than a second
+            // instance. Answered as a claim so the application starts and fails on something legible.
+            return NoClaim.Instance;
+        }
+    }
+
+    /// <summary>
+    /// The pipe both sides name, derived from the profile so that it is scoped exactly as the lock is.
+    /// </summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// A digest of the path rather than the path itself: a pipe name may not contain a directory separator
+    /// on Windows, and on Unix the name becomes a file in a temporary directory whose length is bounded.
+    /// Eight bytes of SHA-256, which is not doing security work — it is making one string out of another
+    /// deterministically, and <c>string.GetHashCode</c> cannot because it is randomised per process.
+    /// </remarks>
+    private static string PipeNameFor(ClientPaths paths)
+    {
+        var digest = SHA256.HashData(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(paths.DataDirectory));
+
+        return "dodossh-" + Convert.ToHexStringLower(digest.AsSpan(0, 8));
+    }
+
+    /// <summary>A claim over nothing, for the cases where there was nothing to claim.</summary>
+    private sealed class NoClaim : IDisposable
+    {
+        internal static NoClaim Instance { get; } = new();
+
+        public void Dispose()
+        {
+            // Nothing was taken.
+        }
+    }
+
+    /// <summary>The accept loop that answers refused launches.</summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// One server instance at a time and a fresh stream per connection, which is the shape
+    /// <see cref="NamedPipeServerStream"/> wants: a stream that has served a client cannot serve another.
+    /// The loop is what makes a third and fourth launch work as well as the second.
+    /// </remarks>
+    private sealed class Doorbell : IAsyncDisposable
+    {
+        private readonly string name;
+        private readonly Action comeForward;
+        private readonly CancellationTokenSource lifetime = new();
+
+        private Task? loop;
+
+        internal Doorbell(string name, Action comeForward)
+        {
+            this.name = name;
+            this.comeForward = comeForward;
+        }
+
+        internal void Start() => loop = RunAsync(lifetime.Token);
+
+        /// <inheritdoc />
+        public async ValueTask DisposeAsync()
+        {
+            await lifetime.CancelAsync().ConfigureAwait(false);
+
+            if (loop is { } running)
+            {
+                // Awaited rather than abandoned, so the pipe name is free by the time this returns — which
+                // matters for exactly one caller: an update that is about to relaunch this application and
+                // would otherwise race its own successor for the name.
+                await running.ConfigureAwait(false);
+            }
+
+            lifetime.Dispose();
+        }
+
+        private async Task RunAsync(CancellationToken cancellationToken)
+        {
+            while (!cancellationToken.IsCancellationRequested)
+            {
+                try
+                {
+                    using var server = new NamedPipeServerStream(
+                        name,
+                        PipeDirection.In,
+                        maxNumberOfServerInstances: 1,
+                        PipeTransmissionMode.Byte,
+                        PipeOptions.Asynchronous);
+
+                    await server.WaitForConnectionAsync(cancellationToken).ConfigureAwait(false);
+
+                    using var reader = new StreamReader(server, Encoding.UTF8);
+
+                    var said = await reader.ReadLineAsync(cancellationToken).ConfigureAwait(false);
+
+                    if (string.Equals(said, ComeForward, StringComparison.Ordinal))
+                    {
+                        comeForward();
+                    }
+                }
+                catch (OperationCanceledException)
+                {
+                    return;
+                }
+                catch (IOException)
+                {
+                    // A client that connected and hung up, or a name the platform took away. Round again:
+                    // giving up here would leave every later launch with nothing to talk to, which is the
+                    // silent-exit behaviour this class exists to avoid.
+                }
+            }
+        }
+    }
+}

src/DodoSSH.Client.App/Program.cs

@@ -37,6 +37,27 @@ internal static class Program
 
         KeepTheWebViewProfileOutOfTheInstallDirectory();
 
+        /*
+          One instance per profile, and nothing above this line is affected by it: the installer's own runs
+          have already exited inside VelopackApp.Run, and the WebView2 environment variable is a property of
+          this process rather than of the application.
+
+          Claimed here rather than after Avalonia is configured, so that a second launch starts nothing — no
+          toolkit, no window, no splash flashing on screen before it thinks better of it. What it does
+          instead is ask the running instance to come forward, which is why this is not simply an exit.
+
+          The handle is held for as long as Main runs, which is as long as the message loop does. See
+          SingleInstance for why it is a file rather than a mutex, and for what the profile scoping buys.
+        */
+        var paths = ClientPaths.ForChannel(DesktopChannel.Name);
+
+        using var claim = SingleInstance.Claim(paths);
+
+        if (claim is null)
+        {
+            return;
+        }
+
         BuildAvaloniaApp().StartWithClassicDesktopLifetime(args);
     }
 

src/DodoSSH.Client.App/Views/SplashCard.axaml

@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
+<UserControl xmlns="https://github.com/avaloniaui"
+             xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
+             x:Class="DodoSSH.Client.App.Views.SplashCard">
+
+  <!--
+    What is on screen while the application composes itself.
+
+    ── WHY THIS IS ITS OWN CONTROL ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+    The same reason UpdateBanner is: a Window cannot be laid out by the headless suite when it contains a
+    WebView, and while this one does not, a UserControl is what LayoutHarness can host and measure. See
+    SplashCardTests. It also keeps the window itself down to a frame and a size.
+
+    ── AND WHY THERE IS NO VIEW MODEL ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+    There is nothing to observe. Composition is one synchronous block — see DodoSshApp.ComposeBehind — so
+    this control has exactly two states, both of them set by the one caller: starting, and could not. Two
+    methods on the code-behind is the whole of it, and a view model would be an observable object with a
+    lifetime and a test of its own standing in for two assignments.
+  -->
+  <Border Background="{StaticResource Chrome}"
+          BorderBrush="{StaticResource Border}"
+          BorderThickness="1">
+
+    <StackPanel Margin="28" Spacing="12" VerticalAlignment="Center">
+
+      <TextBlock Classes="heading" Text="DodoSSH" />
+
+      <TextBlock x:Name="Line" Classes="hint" Text="Starting…" />
+
+      <!--
+        Indeterminate, because there is nothing honest to measure. Composition opens a SQLite file, binds a
+        loopback socket, asks the platform about a TPM and reads an install layout off disk; none of them
+        reports progress and inventing a bar that crawled to 90% and waited would be a worse lie than a bar
+        that only says "still going".
+
+        Four pixels, matching the update banner's own and the transfers screen's, so the one moving thing in
+        this application looks like itself wherever it appears.
+      -->
+      <ProgressBar x:Name="Bar" Height="4" Margin="0,4,0,0"
+                   IsIndeterminate="True"
+                   Foreground="{StaticResource Accent}"
+                   Background="{StaticResource Chip}" />
+
+    </StackPanel>
+
+  </Border>
+
+</UserControl>

src/DodoSSH.Client.App/Views/SplashCard.axaml.cs

@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+using Avalonia.Controls;
+
+namespace DodoSSH.Client.App.Views;
+
+/// <summary>What is on screen while the application composes itself.</summary>
+/// <remarks>
+/// The two methods below are the whole interface, and both are called by
+/// <c>DodoSshApp.ComposeBehind</c> and by nothing else. See the control's own markup for why there is no
+/// view model behind it.
+/// </remarks>
+internal sealed partial class SplashCard : UserControl
+{
+    public SplashCard() => InitializeComponent();
+
+    /// <summary>Says what is happening, while it still is.</summary>
+    internal void Say(string what) => Line.Text = what;
+
+    /// <summary>
+    /// Says why nothing is going to happen, and stops pretending otherwise.
+    /// </summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// The bar stopping is half the message. A composition that threw leaves this window as the only one
+    /// there is — there is no main window to hand over to — so an indeterminate bar would go on saying
+    /// "still going" over a process that has stopped, which is the one thing a splash must never do.
+    /// </remarks>
+    internal void CouldNotStart(string why)
+    {
+        Line.Text = why;
+        Bar.IsIndeterminate = false;
+        Bar.Value = 0;
+    }
+}

src/DodoSSH.Client.App/Views/SplashWindow.axaml

@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+<Window xmlns="https://github.com/avaloniaui"
+        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
+        xmlns:views="using:DodoSSH.Client.App.Views"
+        x:Class="DodoSSH.Client.App.Views.SplashWindow"
+        Title="DodoSSH"
+        Icon="/Assets/dodossh.ico"
+        Width="420"
+        MinHeight="160"
+        SizeToContent="Height"
+        CanResize="False"
+        WindowStartupLocation="CenterScreen"
+        Background="{StaticResource Chrome}"
+        SystemDecorations="None">
+
+  <!--
+    ── WHY THERE IS A SPLASH AT ALL ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+    The main window cannot be shown until it has a view model, and the view model cannot exist until
+    composition has opened the SQLite cache, bound the terminal's loopback socket, asked the platform about
+    a TPM and read the install layout off disk. Until this window existed, all of that happened with nothing
+    whatever on screen: the icon had been double-clicked and the desktop looked unchanged.
+
+    The main window's own IsStarting card already narrates what happens *after* it appears — see
+    MainWindow.axaml — and this is the part before that, which no arrangement of the main window can cover.
+
+    ── NOT TOPMOST, AND NO TASKBAR SUPPRESSION ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+    Both are the usual splash-screen habits and both are wrong here. Topmost means a start that stalls sits
+    over whatever the user gave up and went back to; hiding the taskbar entry means the one place they would
+    look to find out whether anything is happening says nothing. It is a window, briefly, and behaves like
+    one.
+
+    SystemDecorations="None" rather than BorderOnly, which the main window uses: this cannot be resized, has
+    no titlebar of its own to drag by, and lives for about a second. What replaces the frame is the card's
+    own one-pixel border. Escape closes it only once there is nothing left to wait for — see the code-behind.
+
+    ── SizeToContent, WHICH IS ABOUT THE FAILURE AND NOT ABOUT THE SPLASH ─────────────────────────────────
+
+    A fixed height is right for the one line this normally shows and wrong for the one thing that can replace
+    it: CouldNotStart carries an exception's own message, whose length nothing here decides. Inside a fixed
+    height a long one would wrap and be clipped, at exactly the moment the text is the only thing this window
+    is for. So the height comes from the content, and MinHeight keeps the ordinary one line from looking
+    cramped in a box sized for it alone.
+  -->
+  <views:SplashCard x:Name="Card" />
+
+</Window>

src/DodoSSH.Client.App/Views/SplashWindow.axaml.cs

@@ -0,0 +1,56 @@
+using Avalonia.Controls;
+using Avalonia.Input;
+
+namespace DodoSSH.Client.App.Views;
+
+/// <summary>The window that is up while the application composes itself.</summary>
+/// <remarks>
+/// A frame around <see cref="SplashCard"/> and nothing else. Its whole lifetime is one call to
+/// <c>DodoSshApp.ComposeBehind</c>: shown by the desktop lifetime as the main window, replaced by the real
+/// one, closed. The exception is a composition that fails, which is the only case this window outlives.
+/// </remarks>
+internal sealed partial class SplashWindow : Window
+{
+    /// <summary>
+    /// Whether Escape may close this.
+    /// </summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// False while composition is running, and that is not caution for its own sake: this window has no
+    /// close button, so Escape is the only key it could offer — and closing it mid-composition would leave a
+    /// process that has opened the cache and bound a socket with no window and no way to reach either. Once
+    /// there is nothing left to wait for, it is the only way out and has to work.
+    /// </remarks>
+    private bool escapable;
+
+    public SplashWindow()
+    {
+        InitializeComponent();
+
+        KeyDown += (_, e) =>
+        {
+            if (escapable && e.Key == Key.Escape)
+            {
+                Close();
+            }
+        };
+    }
+
+    /// <summary>Says what is happening, while it still is.</summary>
+    internal void Say(string what) => Card.Say(what);
+
+    /// <summary>
+    /// Says why nothing is going to happen, and becomes the last window there is.
+    /// </summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// The way out is named in the message rather than drawn as a button. A failure here is a broken
+    /// installation — a cache that cannot be opened, a port that cannot be bound — so what this window is
+    /// for at that point is carrying one sentence to whoever has to act on it, and a control that has to be
+    /// laid out and measured to say "close me" earns less than the words do.
+    /// </remarks>
+    internal void CouldNotStart(string why)
+    {
+        escapable = true;
+
+        Card.CouldNotStart($"DodoSSH could not start: {why} Press Escape to close.");
+    }
+}

src/DodoSSH.Client.Session/ClientPaths.cs

@@ -102,6 +102,26 @@ public sealed record ClientPaths(string DataDirectory)
     /// </remarks>
     public string DeviceKeyFile => Path.Combine(DataDirectory, "device.key");
 
+    /// <summary>
+    /// The file one desktop instance holds open for as long as it is running.
+    /// </summary>
+    /// <remarks>
+    /// <para>
+    /// Named here rather than in the head that uses it, because every other name in this directory is named
+    /// here and a filename invented somewhere else is one nobody looking at the profile can account for. The
+    /// Android head has no use for it: the platform allows one process per package and needs no help.
+    /// </para>
+    /// <para>
+    /// <b>Being in the profile directory is what scopes it correctly, and that is the whole reason it is a
+    /// file rather than a named mutex.</b> This path is already per user and per channel, so a nightly and a
+    /// release build do not exclude each other and two people signed into one machine each get their own
+    /// instance — neither of which a global name would give without repeating the same two decisions in
+    /// another form. Contents are irrelevant and it stays empty; what carries the meaning is the exclusive
+    /// handle, which the operating system releases when the process ends however it ends.
+    /// </para>
+    /// </remarks>
+    public string InstanceLockFile => Path.Combine(DataDirectory, "instance.lock");
+
     /// <summary>Creates the profile directory if it is not there yet.</summary>
     /// <remarks>
     /// Separate from resolving the path, because resolving must never have a side effect: it is read