Cells is a desktop workspace for arranging terminals and browser panes on an infinite canvas. It is built with NW.js, React, Vite, and ghostty-web, and is currently focused on local macOS and Linux workflows. The old Electron runtime is deprecated and kept only behind explicit legacy-electron scripts.
- Infinite canvas for terminals and browser nodes
- Window sections for Hyprland-style grouped tiling on the canvas
- Multiple saved projects with per-project layout state
- Command palette for fast workspace actions
- Keyboard-first navigation for terminals, overview mode, and project switching
- Dedicated agent windows with rich chat UI, provider switching, tool call grouping, diffs, and session branching
- GitHub release packaging for desktop builds
Cells focuses on one terminal at a time while keeping the rest of the workspace easy to reach from the keyboard. Open the command palette to create terminals, run commands, search, and launch agents; switch into overview mode to see every terminal at once; move directionally between terminals with vim-style navigation; cycle through terminals with the switcher overlay; and jump between open projects without managing windows by hand.
Sections are named, color-coded canvas regions that can group terminals, agent windows, and browser panes into a Hyprland-style tiled layout. Create an empty section from the arrange menu, then drag windows into it from overview mode, or create a section from the current selection. A section can be renamed, recolored, resized, moved, snapped to, and popped out into its own window.
When a window is added to a section, Cells splits the available section area using a dwindle layout. New windows created while focus is inside a section open into that same section. Closing a window causes the remaining windows to reclaim the space. Resizing a window inside a section adjusts the split ratio and keeps the window inside the section bounds.
Section navigation is section-aware: focusing a window inside a section snaps to the section rather than centering each child window. If the section is smaller than the viewport, snapping centers the section. If it is larger than the viewport, snapping aligns the section top-left; moving focus to a child that is outside the visible area pans just enough to bring that child fully into view.
In overview mode, each section has an external label handle above its border. Drag that handle to move the whole section and all of its child windows together. The handle grows as the canvas zooms out so it stays easy to grab. The focused section also appears in the right side of the bottom title bar, where it can be renamed, recolored, or popped out.
Configure section behavior from Settings -> Auto Arrange:
Arrange mode: chooseSectionsfor dwindle tiling, orGridfor the original auto-arrange behavior.New split: choose whether new panes split automatically, before the current pane, or after it.Preserve split direction: keep existing split directions instead of recalculating from the current section shape.Section padding: controls the inset between section borders and child windows.Window gap: controls spacing between tiled windows inside a section.
Cells includes dedicated agent windows with a rich chat UI for streaming turns, switching between Claude and Codex, tool call grouping, inline diffs, and a built-in diffs panel. Agent sessions can branch into another worktree so parallel ideas can continue in separate windows without losing context.
Agent and terminal windows can also run inside Git worktrees. The worktree manager is available from the focused window toolbar, terminal chrome, agent window menu, and command palette. It can create worktrees, show dirty/ahead/behind state, open terminals or agents in any worktree, move focused terminals, branch agent sessions into another worktree, reveal/copy paths, and safely remove worktrees after attached windows and uncommitted changes are handled.
Dedicated agent window with streaming turns, tool groups, and inline progress states
Agent provider switcher for Claude and Codex
Embed browser panes alongside terminals, with browsing data scoped to each project.
Codex agent windows can also own an embedded browser pane for Codex browser tools. This v1 browser surface is Codex-only; other agents can use the same model later once Cells has a NW.js MCP browser bridge or provider-native dynamic tools. See docs/agent-browser.md.
Each project includes a minimap showing its nodes at a glance, plus activity indicators for work happening in other projects.
Navigate between nodes on the canvas with configurable Ctrl+Tab snapping — no need to manually manage windows.
- Craft Agents OSS — the in-canvas agent chat UI (message grouping, turn card, markdown rendering, composer toolbar, and most of the chat UX) is adapted from this project. Files that pull from it have a header comment pointing at the upstream source.
- T3 Code — the unified-diff stat model that powers the Codex session diffs panel is adapted from T3 Code, and several of the agent-session performance patterns were informed by it.
Cells is early-stage software. Expect fast iteration, rough edges, and occasional breaking changes between tagged releases.
The app ships macOS release artifacts plus Linux AppImage and deb artifacts for x64 and arm64, with an x64 rpm for rpm-based repositories. See Linux Packaging for Ubuntu, Nix/NixOS, and Gentoo repository packaging notes.
- Node.js 24 or newer
- pnpm 10 or newer
- macOS or Linux for the supported desktop experience
If native dependency rebuilds fail during install on macOS, install the Xcode Command Line Tools and retry. On Linux, install the standard compiler toolchain and Chromium/NW.js runtime libraries for your distro.
pnpm install
pnpm devpnpm dev sets CELLS_DEV_ROOT to ~/.cells-dev/ by default, so local app state and Chromium data stay isolated from the installed app. Set CELLS_DEV_ROOT yourself if you want that dev-only root somewhere else.
Useful commands:
pnpm lintpnpm format:checkpnpm typecheckpnpm buildpnpm changeset
The Electron runtime remains in the repo for old-package maintenance and comparison, but it is no longer the primary app runtime. Use pnpm dev, pnpm build, pnpm pack, and pnpm release for the NW.js Cells app. Electron is only reachable through explicit commands such as pnpm dev:legacy-electron, pnpm build:legacy-electron, and pnpm pack:legacy-electron.
Tagged pushes that match v* trigger the GitHub release workflow and build macOS and Linux artifacts. Changesets are used for release notes and version tracking.
Start with CONTRIBUTING.md. For behavior expectations, see CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md. For security disclosures, use SECURITY.md.
Usage questions and bug reports belong in the GitHub issue tracker. See SUPPORT.md for the expected paths.
Cells is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE.