Running & modes

rocprof studio is one binary and one analysis core that run in four ways.

1. Desktop GUI

npm run tauri dev           # development
./rocprof-studio            # an installed/built binary

The full interface: capture tabs, the sidebar, the dockable workspace and every analysis view (UI tour, Views reference). A desktop launch also starts the MCP server by default and reuses a service already running on the selected MCP port if there is one.

2. Browser preview

npm run dev                 # vite --host 127.0.0.1, port 1420 (strictPort)

A pure-browser build that loads the synthetic example (public/demo.json) and has no filesystem access. Directory import and raw-trace import need the Rust desktop app; the browser preview says so when you try. It is intended for exploring the interface, and it is what the view screenshots on this site were captured from.

3. Headless importer CLI

The Rust core builds a standalone importer with no GUI:

cargo run -p profile-core -- /path/to/ui_output_capture
cargo run -p profile-core -- /path/to/kernel_trace.csv
cargo run -p profile-core -- /path/to/spm_results.json
cargo run -p profile-core -- /path/to/ui_output_capture se0_simd0_slot0_wave0.json   # one wave
cargo run -q -p profile-core -- fixtures/transpose-ui --bundle                        # embed sources
cargo run -q -p profile-core -- fixtures/transpose-ui --hidden                        # hidden-latency analysis

The CLI banner documents CAPTURE_PATH [WAVE_ID | --bundle]; --hidden is also accepted. The CLI goes through the same cancellable, fingerprinted import router (project::load_input) as the GUI and MCP, so it opens the same inputs, including .rocprof-att manifests, and computes the input fingerprint.

4. Headless MCP server

rocprof-studio --headless                 # no window; MCP required
rocprof-studio --headless --mcp-port 8791 --mcp-token-file /secure/token
rocprof-studio --no-mcp                    # desktop GUI with the server disabled

A full chapter is in MCP mode.

CLI flags

The Tauri binary parses these itself (no clap). From --help:

rocprof-studio [--headless] [--mcp-port 8765] [--mcp-token-file PATH] [--no-mcp]

Flag	Default	Meaning
--headless	off	No window; run as an MCP service only (MCP must be enabled).
--mcp-port <PORT>	8765	Loopback port for the MCP HTTP server.
--mcp-token-file <PATH>	~/.rocprofgui/mcp/token	Bearer-token file; auto-created (0600, 32 random hex bytes) if absent.
--no-mcp	—	Disable the MCP server entirely.
--help	—	Print the endpoint and bearer-token line.

The installed binary's token default is ~/.rocprofgui/mcp/token

The repository source defaults the token file to .codex/mcp/token, but the installed/built binary's --help reports ~/.rocprofgui/mcp/token and relocates the whole data directory with ROCPROFGUI_HOME. This site uses the installed binary's behaviour.

Environment variables

Application data directory

Everything the app writes for itself lives under ~/.rocprofgui: the bearer token (mcp/token), MCP job output (mcp/jobs/), and tuning sessions (kernel-tuning/sessions/, shader-tuning/sessions/). An analysis job deletes its folder on success and keeps only logs on failure; profile_run/profile_start output stays until you delete it (it is the capture itself). Nothing is written into the working directory.

Variable	Effect
ROCPROFGUI_HOME	Relocate the entire data directory (token, jobs, tuning sessions).
ROCPROF_GUI_PYTHON	Interpreter used to launch the raw-ATT decoder worker (default python3).
ROCPROF_GUI_DECODER_LIB	Path to librocprof-trace-decoder.so (V2). Without it the decoder uses ROCm's own discovery.
ROCPROF_GUI_DECODER_PACKAGE	Path to the decoder Python ZIP; overrides the bundled Tauri resource (useful for the headless importer). A configured-but-missing/malformed ZIP fails explicitly.
ROCPROF_TUNING_ROOT	Root for kernel-tuning sessions (otherwise under the data dir).
ROCPROF_TUNING_PYTHON	Interpreter for the tuning worker (default python3).

Ports used in development

Port	What	Set by
1420	Browser preview / Tauri dev URL (strictPort)	vite.config.ts, tauri.conf.json
1421	Playwright UI-test web server (separate from the preview)	playwright.config.ts
8765	Default MCP server	--mcp-port

For an existing Playwright Chromium, set PLAYWRIGHT_CHROMIUM_EXECUTABLE to its path.