Installing the Designer Bridge Module
The Flint Designer Bridge is an Ignition module that connects your Designer and gateway to VS Code. Installing it on the gateway unlocks live Designer features in the extension — script execution, debugging, Perspective tooling, tag operations — and the headless gateway API.
This is a gateway-side install. You need administrative access to an Ignition gateway running 8.1.44+ or 8.3.1+. The VS Code extension works offline without the module, but every live Designer and gateway feature requires it.
Choose the right artifact
Each release ships two .modl files — one per Ignition major line. Download the one that matches your gateway from the releases page.
| Artifact | Ignition version | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Flint-Designer-Bridge-<version>-8.1.modl | 8.1.44 or later | Flint-managed bearer token auth for the headless API |
Flint-Designer-Bridge-<version>-8.3.modl | 8.3.1 or later | Supports native Ignition API tokens for the headless API |
The module is free (no license activation), Maker-compatible, and code-signed — you do not need to enable unsigned modules on the gateway.
An 8.3 build will not load on an 8.1 gateway, and vice versa. If a module install fails with a version error, verify you downloaded the artifact matching your gateway's major version.
Install on the gateway
- Download the
.modlfile for your Ignition version. - Open the gateway web interface and go to Config → Modules (8.1) or the Modules page in the 8.3 config UI.
- Click Install or Upgrade a Module, select the downloaded
.modlfile, and confirm. - Accept the license (MIT). The gateway installs the module and starts it.
The module runs in three scopes:
| Scope | What it does |
|---|---|
| Gateway | Headless HTTP JSON-RPC API and backend for Designer-initiated gateway operations |
| Designer | Localhost WebSocket server that VS Code connects to |
| Common | Shared protocol types |
Restart implications
Installing or upgrading the module restarts the module's gateway scope, not the whole gateway. However:
- Running Designers do not pick up a new module version. Restart any open Designer sessions after installing or upgrading so they load the new Designer-scope code.
- Perspective is declared as a module dependency. The Perspective-specific features require it, but the rest of the module functions without Perspective sessions running.
Upgrading
For most upgrades, repeat the install steps above — Install or Upgrade a Module replaces the existing version in place. Then restart any open Designers.
Version 1.0.0 renamed the module ID from com.bwdesigngroup.flint-designer-bridge to dev.bwdesigngroup.flint.FlintDesignerBridge. The gateway treats these as two different modules, so an in-place upgrade is not possible.
If your gateway runs Flint Designer Bridge v0.13.x or earlier, you must:
- Uninstall the old module (
com.bwdesigngroup.flint-designer-bridge) from Config → Modules. - Install the new
.modlas described above.
Skipping the uninstall leaves both modules installed, with both attempting to serve the same role.
Verify the installation
On the gateway, confirm the module appears in the module list:
- Look for Flint Designer Bridge with module ID
dev.bwdesigngroup.flint.FlintDesignerBridgeand state Running on the Modules page.
Over HTTP, hit the public health endpoint (no authentication required):
curl http://<gateway-host>:<port>/data/flint/health
A successful response confirms the gateway scope is up and the headless API is reachable. Only the health endpoint is public — the RPC endpoint at /data/flint/rpc requires a token (see Security).
Designer side: nothing to install
There is no Designer-side installation step. When you launch a Designer against a gateway with the module installed, the Designer scope automatically:
- Starts a localhost-only WebSocket server on a port in the range 52400–52500.
- Writes a registry file to
~/.ignition/flint/designers/designer-<pid>.jsoncontaining the port and a per-instance secret.
The VS Code extension discovers this file and connects automatically — see Connecting the Designer.
VS Code must run on the same machine (or share the same home directory and loopback network) as the Designer to read the registry file and reach the localhost WebSocket. Under WSL2, this requires mirrored networking mode.