// guides

Visor Studio

The official visual boot.conf configurator.

Visor Studio is a companion project (not the bootloader): a browser app that edits, validates, previews, and exports a Visor configuration without the reboot-and-check loop. It is built by Farid, is BSD-2-Clause licensed, and lives in its own repository: Versedcamel153/visor-studio.

What it does

Visor-aware parser for entry {}, linux {} and windows {} blocks
Schema-driven controls from Visor’s upstream boot.conf.schema.json
Diagnostics for malformed syntax, unknown keys, duplicate keys, risky values, and unclosed blocks
Safe auto-fix for aliases and hex-colour comment hazards; unknown keys are preserved, not dropped
Live boot-menu preview using bundled Visor defaults and assets
Entry wizard with Linux, UKI, Windows, and custom EFI presets; automatic icon suggestions
Drag-and-drop boot-entry reordering; raw/generated/diff views with syntax highlighting
Export bundle: EFI/visor/boot.conf, staged assets, and install instructions

Running it

For real installs use the Visor CLI, which clones the Studio repo and runs it locally on localhost — your config and assets never leave the machine:

Command	What it does
`visor studio`	Clone (once) and run Visor Studio locally.
`visor studio --update`	Pull the latest Studio before running.
`visor studio --port PORT`	Backend port (default 8000).
`visor studio --docker`	Require the Docker runtime.
`visor studio --detach`	Run in the background and return immediately.

Docker is used when available — a single container serving the UI and API on http://127.0.0.1:8000. Otherwise it falls back to python3+node: a venv with pip install -e .[test], uvicorn main:app for the backend port, and the Vite frontend dev server on http://127.0.0.1:5173. The checkout lives at ~/.cache/visor-studio (or $VISOR_STUDIO_DIR).

Limits

The preview is a browser approximation of Visor’s EFI renderer, not pixel-identical.
It cannot verify that kernel/initrd/EFI/logo/background/icon/font paths exist on your ESP.
Uploaded files are staged for export; the bundle must still be copied to the EFI location.
Theme-file loading is not fully simulated, and browser fonts differ from EFI text rendering.

Why a separate repo

Keeping Studio as its own official companion lets it iterate quickly on the web UI, backend, Docker/deployment, screenshots, and releases, while Visor stays a single small EFI binary. Visor remains the source of truth for the parser, defaults, assets, and the published boot.conf.schema.json (gated by tools/check_config_keys.py); Studio consumes a self-contained snapshot of that schema so its schema-driven controls stay aligned.