A desktop dot-matrix arrivals board for the London Underground, DLR, London Overground, and Elizabeth line, powered by TfL's Unified API. Works out of the box — no TfL account needed. Built with Tauri v2, SvelteKit, and Rust.
Tubbie replicates the classic amber LED dot-matrix boards found on Underground platforms. Pick any station on the Tube, DLR, London Overground (Mildmay / Lioness / Suffragette / Windrush / Weaver / Liberty), or Elizabeth line, filter by line and direction, and watch real-time arrival predictions scroll in. Four built-in themes — classic amber, classic orange, modern white, and high-contrast — match the visual character of different eras of board hardware.
- Zero-config onboarding — live arrivals on first launch, no TfL account or API key required; personal key in Settings always takes priority
- Real-time arrivals for any London Underground, DLR, Overground, or Elizabeth-line station, grouped by line and direction
- Network-wide service status — worst-first disruption panel (marquee ticker) and a full Status view covering every TfL line, with affected route segments ("Watford ↔ Harrow" / "Entire line") and expandable disruption detail
- Change station from the board — search bar drops in from the header without opening Settings
- Menu-bar mode with a dot-matrix tray icon (original glyph, not the TfL roundel); switches to an alert variant when a watched line is disrupted; two-row header so long station names never truncate
- Line and direction filters across all surfaced modes
- Four visual themes (classic-amber, classic-orange, modern-white, high-contrast)
- Dot-matrix typography with animated row entry, character-reveal, marquee ticker, and "Due" flash
- Settings persisted across restarts; first-run prompt to pick your station on first launch
- Stale-data fallback: last-known arrivals shown when offline, with a visible badge
| Requirement | Version |
|---|---|
| macOS | 11 (Big Sur) or later |
| Node.js | 24 (see web/.nvmrc) |
| Rust | stable (see rust-toolchain.toml) |
| just | 1.x |
| Xcode Command Line Tools | any recent |
Install Rust via rustup. Install just via cargo install just or brew install just.
git clone git@github.com:argen/tubbie.git
cd tubbie
cd web && npm install && cd ..End users don't need to clone — see the Install section below for the signed-DMG path.
just devStarts the SvelteKit dev server at http://localhost:5173 and the Tauri shell concurrently. Hot-reload is active for both the frontend and backend.
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
just verify |
Full gate: Rust (fmt, clippy, test) + web (lint, format:check, typecheck, test) |
just build |
Produce a release .app bundle at target/release/bundle/macos/Tubbie.app |
just dev |
Start Tauri dev + Vite dev server concurrently |
just verify-live |
Live integration tests against api.tfl.gov.uk (not in CI; requires network) |
just record-fixtures |
Refresh committed TfL API fixtures from the live API |
User preferences are stored by Tauri in the platform app-data directory:
- macOS:
~/Library/Application Support/app.tubbie/
The config.json inside that directory holds the current station, line filters, direction filters, poll interval, and TfL API key. You can inspect it, but editing it manually is not necessary — the Settings screen in the app covers all fields.
Tubbie works without any configuration. At startup it reads a pooled key from a background cache — no visible prompt, no account required. If the pool is ever unavailable it falls back to anonymous access (TfL allows 50 requests/minute), so the board is never blocked waiting on a key.
To use your own key: register a free one at api-portal.tfl.gov.uk and enter it in Settings → TfL API Key. Your personal key always overrides the pool. It is stored in the macOS Keychain and never committed or logged.
For contributors running dev builds, set TUBBIE_DEV_APP_KEY=<key> in your shell — dev builds bypass the Keychain and read from that env var instead. (The underlying client also honours a TFL_APP_KEY environment variable at launch, if you'd rather not store a key at all.)
Download the .dmg from GitHub Releases, mount, drag Tubbie to /Applications, and launch. Builds are signed with a Developer ID Application certificate and notarized by Apple, so Gatekeeper accepts them on first run — no right-click-Open dance.
In-app auto-update is on by default: Settings → Updates → Check for updates. Toggle off there if you'd rather control updates manually.
If macOS ever says Tubbie is "damaged or malicious", it usually means the download was interrupted. Re-download from the Releases page — don't strip the quarantine attribute by hand. The signed binary's notarization ticket is the safety net; bypassing it loses that protection.
Tubbie can find your nearest station with one tap. Location is requested only when you tap "find nearest", used in that moment for a single fix, and never sent anywhere except api.tfl.gov.uk. macOS will show the system prompt the first time; choose "Allow While Using App".
just buildProduces an unsigned .app at target/release/bundle/macos/Tubbie.app for development. Suitable for local use; not for distribution.
Releases run locally from the dev's Mac — there is no CI release workflow. Prerequisites are documented in docs/ADR/public-distribution.md (Developer ID cert in login Keychain, Ed25519 updater key, tubbie-notary notarytool profile, .envrc).
source .envrc # if you don't use direnv
just bump 1.0.1 # bumps tauri.conf.json + Cargo.toml in lockstep
# commit + merge the version bump on a PR to main
just release v1.0.1 # preflight + build + sign + notarize + staple + manifest + tag + push + draft Release
gh release edit v1.0.1 --draft=false # publish after smoking from a clean macOS user accountjust release chains the full pipeline. scripts/preflight.sh refuses to start if the tree is dirty, the branch isn't main, the version doesn't match the tag, or any signing prerequisite is missing.
Powered by TfL Open Data. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database rights 2016. Collated by TfL. Use of TfL data is governed by the TfL Open Data Licence.
MIT — see LICENSE.
See docs/README.md for conceptual documentation and docs/ADR/README.md for architectural decisions. All contributions welcome via pull request against main.
Before opening a PR, confirm just verify is green.