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How to Monitor Your Wails App with Vigilmon

#wails #go #monitoring #desktop

How to Monitor Your Wails App with Vigilmon

Wails is a framework for building cross-platform desktop applications using Go for the backend and web technologies for the frontend. While desktop apps don't have the same uptime concerns as web services, many Wails applications talk to backend APIs, update servers, or licensing servers — and those absolutely need monitoring.

In this guide, we'll look at how to monitor the backend services your Wails app depends on using Vigilmon.

What to Monitor in a Wails App Stack

Wails apps typically have:

  1. Auto-update endpoints — where the app checks for updates
  2. License validation APIs — used to verify user licenses
  3. Backend REST/GraphQL APIs — business logic your app calls
  4. Asset CDNs — where the app downloads resources

If any of these go down, your desktop app silently breaks — and users will blame the app, not the service. Vigilmon keeps you informed.

Step 1: Identify Your Backend Endpoints

For a typical Wails app, list every external URL the app calls. Common ones:

https://api.yourdomain.com/health       # main API
https://updates.yourdomain.com/latest   # auto-update check
https://license.yourdomain.com/verify   # license server
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If you're using a framework like Tauri's update protocol or a custom update server, that server needs monitoring too.

Step 2: Add a Health Endpoint to Your Backend

If your Go backend doesn't have a health endpoint yet, add one:

func (a *App) healthHandler(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
    w.WriteHeader(http.StatusOK)
    w.Write([]byte("OK"))
}

// Register in your HTTP setup
mux.HandleFunc("/health", a.healthHandler)
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This gives Vigilmon a clean endpoint to check.

Step 3: Set Up Vigilmon Monitors

  1. Go to vigilmon.online and create an account
  2. For each backend endpoint, create a monitor:
    • URL: your endpoint
    • Check interval: every 1-5 minutes
    • Expected status: 200
  3. Enable alert channels (email, Slack webhook)

Step 4: Monitor Your Update Server

If you use wails update or a custom update server, monitor the update manifest endpoint:

https://updates.yourdomain.com/latest.json
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In Vigilmon:

  • Expected body contains: version (or whatever field you expect)
  • Alert threshold: 1 failure (update servers should always be up)

If your update server goes down, users on old versions can never update — and you might not notice for days.

Step 5: SSL Certificate Monitoring

Your backend HTTPS endpoints need valid SSL certificates. Wails apps that communicate with expired certs will throw TLS errors and fail silently on some platforms.

In Vigilmon, enable SSL monitoring for each domain with a 14-day expiry alert.

Step 6: Configure Alerts

For a desktop app backend, we recommend:

  • Slack or email for the engineering team
  • PagerDuty webhook if you need on-call coverage

Desktop app users don't have a browser console to check — they just see the app "not working". Fast alerts mean fast fixes before reviews and refund requests pile up.

Conclusion

Wails makes great desktop apps, but the backend infrastructure those apps depend on needs the same care as any web service. Vigilmon gives you instant visibility when something breaks — so your users' desktop experience stays reliable.

Start monitoring your Wails backend →

Vigilmon is a free uptime and SSL monitoring service for any HTTP endpoint.

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