📣 Important Announcement

OpenCove 0.4.0 brings the Pixel workspace, desktop-style collapsed windows, and independently installable plugins and themes. Explore extensions in Settings, or start creating your own with opencove plugin guide.

📖 What is OpenCove?

OpenCove is a spatial development workspace for people who work with AI coding agents every day.

Instead of burying work inside tabs, sidebars, and long chat threads, OpenCove puts your AI agents, terminals, tasks, and notes on the same infinite 2D canvas, so the full state of your work stays visible.

It is built for workflows like:

• Running multiple Claude Code or Codex sessions side by side
• Keeping task plans, notes, and terminal output in one shared workspace
• Switching projects without losing layout, context, or execution history

✨ Highlights

• 🌌 Infinite spatial canvas: Arrange terminals, notes, tasks, and agent sessions the way you actually think.
• 🤖 Built for CLI agents: Optimized for Claude Code, Codex, and similar terminal-native agent workflows.
• 🧠 Context stays visible: Planning, execution, and results live together instead of getting buried in linear chat history.
• 💾 Persistent workspaces: Restore your viewport, layout, terminal output, and agent state after restarts.
• 🗂️ Space archives: Snapshot and revisit previous workspace states when you need to jump back into old contexts.
• 🖼️ Rich media and smart layouts: Paste images, multi-select nodes, use label colors, and tidy messy boards quickly.
• 🔍 Global search and control center: Search across the canvas and terminal output, then manage active sessions from one place.
• 🗂️ Workspace isolation: Separate projects cleanly with directories and git worktrees.

💡 Why OpenCove?

OpenCove is designed around a simple idea: agent workflows are easier to reason about when context is spatial, not hidden.

🚀 Getting Started

OpenCove is currently in Alpha. We recommend it for early adopters and power users who want to explore spatial AI workflows.

Download

OpenCove 0.3.0 stable and newer builds are available on the GitHub Releases page for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Nightly prereleases remain available for early testing; they contain newer changes and may have rough edges.

⚠️ macOS note Current macOS builds are not signed or notarized with an Apple Developer ID. If Gatekeeper blocks the app, run this in your terminal:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/OpenCove.app

CLI and Server Install

You now have two supported ways to install the opencove CLI:

• From the Desktop app: open Settings → Worker → CLI and click Install CLI.
• Without Desktop: use a GitHub Release that includes standalone runtime bundles (opencove-server-*) plus release-specific installer assets such as opencove-install-v<tag>.sh / opencove-install-v<tag>.ps1. Stable releases also publish the generic opencove-install.sh / opencove-install.ps1 aliases, which always target the latest stable release.

If releases/latest/download/opencove-install.sh returns 404, the latest stable release has not published the standalone installer yet. In that case, use the Desktop installer for now or wait for a release that includes those assets.

For the latest stable release, install on macOS / Linux with:

curl -fsSL https://github.com/DeadWaveWave/opencove/releases/latest/download/opencove-install.sh | sh

On Windows, use PowerShell:

powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "Invoke-RestMethod https://github.com/DeadWaveWave/opencove/releases/latest/download/opencove-install.ps1 | Invoke-Expression"

For a nightly or any specific tagged release, use the versioned installer asset from that release page:

curl -fsSL https://github.com/DeadWaveWave/opencove/releases/download/v<version>/opencove-install-v<version>.sh | sh

powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "Invoke-RestMethod https://github.com/DeadWaveWave/opencove/releases/download/v<version>/opencove-install-v<version>.ps1 | Invoke-Expression"

The standalone installer verifies the downloaded runtime against the release's SHA256SUMS.txt before extracting it.

For a headless server that hosts the Web UI, start the worker directly after install:

opencove worker start --hostname 0.0.0.0 --web-ui-password 'change-me'

This prints the Web UI URL and enables password login for browser access. Keep the password set whenever you expose the Web UI beyond localhost.

Building from Source

Prerequisites

• Node.js >= 22.12.0
• pnpm 9.6.0
• (Recommended) Globally install Claude Code or Codex to experience full agent workflows.

Build Instructions

# 1. Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/DeadWaveWave/opencove.git
cd opencove

# 2. Install dependencies
pnpm install

# 3. Start the dev environment
pnpm dev

See RELEASING.md for more packager and build documentation.

Web UI (Experimental)

OpenCove includes an experimental Worker-hosted Web UI so you can open the canvas from a browser (including other devices on your LAN).

• In Settings → Experimental → Worker Web UI, turn on Enable Web UI (optionally set a fixed port), then start the Local Worker.
• By default it is loopback-only (127.0.0.1). For LAN access, enable LAN Access and set a Web UI password.
• Dev note: LAN access uses the built out/renderer bundle (no HMR). Run pnpm build after UI changes.

More details:

• docs/architecture/CONTROL_SURFACE.md
• docs/runtime/WEB_UI_TROUBLESHOOTING.md

🏗️ Technical Architecture

OpenCove is built with modern, high-performance web standards:

• Framework: Electron + React + TypeScript (via electron-vite)
• Canvas Engine: @xyflow/react for buttery smooth infinite canvas interactions.
• Underlying Terminal: xterm.js and node-pty powering full-fledged PTY runtimes.
• Testing: Vitest and Playwright for robust unit and E2E regression testing.

🤝 Contributing

OpenCove is open source. We need your help to define what the IDE of the AI intelligence era should look like. Read our guidelines below:

• Contributing Guidelines (CONTRIBUTING.md)
• Code of Conduct (CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md)
• Support (SUPPORT.md)
• Trademarks & Brand Guidelines (TRADEMARKS.md)

💬 Community Group

Scan the QR code below to join the OpenCove community group and chat with other users.

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