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A terminal workbench that runs coding-agent CLIs side by side. Each workspace gets a persistent, tmux-backed pane for an agent (Claude Code, Gemini, Goose, OpenCode, Cursor, ...), an integrated file Explorer, extra shell terminals, and rich read-only viewers for the files you are working on — all in one full-screen TUI.
curl -fsSL https://ehq.so/install | bash
Built with Bun, React 19, and Silvery.
Multiple agents, side by side. A left sidebar lists workspaces; each is its own agent session with an independent tab strip (harness panes, terminals, and open files). Switching workspaces swaps the whole strip and restores it on the way back.Pluggable harnesses. Claude Code is the default; switch to Gemini, Goose, OpenCode, or the Cursor agent with one flag.Persistent sessions. Agent and terminal panes run on a private tmux server, so relaunching (or a hot-reload restart) detaches and reattaches thesame live processeswith tabs intact.Rich viewers. Syntax-highlighted text, Preview/Source markdown, images (Kitty graphics / Sixel / true-color half-block fallback), PDFs, video playback, and rendered Mermaid diagrams.Changes tab. A live git working-tree diff per workspace, with a sidebar badge when files have changed.Themes and quick-switch. Cycle true-color themes and jump between tabs and workspaces with ergonomicOption
/Alt
chords.
Bun>= 1.3.5 (the runtime and package manager; the built-in PTY support that backs the agent/terminal panes landed in 1.3.5)tmux
(persistent agent/terminal panes)- At least one coding-agent CLI on your
PATH
(e.g.claude
for the default harness) - A terminal that speaks the Kitty graphics protocol for crisp inline images — ideally Ghostty(alsoKitty). Sixel terminals work too, and everything else falls back to true-color half-block art.
Optional, for the corresponding viewers (each degrades gracefully if missing):
ffmpeg
/ffprobe
— video playbackmmdc
(mermaid-cli) — Mermaid diagrams rendered as imagespdftoppm
/pdfinfo
(Poppler) — PDF page rendering
curl -fsSL https://ehq.so/install | bash
This installs Bun if it is missing, checks out the source into
~/.local/share/workbench-cli
, runs bun install
, and symlinks the launcher
to ~/.local/bin/workbench-cli
. Pin a specific release with
WORKBENCH_CLI_REF=v0.1.0
, or change the locations with WORKBENCH_CLI_HOME
/
WORKBENCH_CLI_BIN
. Tagged builds are published on the Releases page.
git clone https://github.com/erikqu/workbench-cli.git
cd workbench-cli/workbench-ui
bun install
Make the launcher available on your PATH
(optional but recommended):
ln -s "$PWD/../bin/workbench-cli" ~/.local/bin/workbench-cli
From anywhere, launch the workbench in the current directory:
workbench-cli
Or run it directly without the launcher (from workbench-ui/
):
bun run start
workbench-cli [path] [--harness <id>] [--hot]
path
— workspace directory to open (defaults to the current directory).--harness <id>
/--agent <id>
— pick the default agent backend:claude
(default),gemini
,goose
,opencode
, orcursor
.--hot
(aliases--dev
,--watch
) — restart on source changes; near-seamless thanks to tmux reattachment.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
Ctrl+T |
|
| New terminal in the active workspace | |
Ctrl+N |
|
| New workspace (folder picker) | |
Ctrl+H |
|
| Add a harness (agent) to the active workspace | |
Ctrl+B |
|
| Toggle the sessions sidebar | |
Ctrl+W |
|
| Close the active file or terminal tab | |
Ctrl+S |
|
| Save the active file tab | |
Ctrl+Q |
|
| Quit | |
Tab / Shift+Tab |
|
| Cycle focus (or sent to the focused agent/terminal) | |
Esc |
|
| Return focus to the agent / editor | |
Option+1..9 |
|
| Jump to that tab in the active workspace | |
Option+Shift+1..9 |
|
| Jump to that workspace | |
Option+Space |
|
| Cycle to the next workspace | |
Option++ |
|
| New workspace (opens the agent picker) | |
Option+Tab |
|
Cycle the UI theme (Option+Shift+Tab reverses) |
|
PageUp / PageDown |
|
| Scroll the focused agent / terminal scrollback |
The top-right [+]
menu opens with a click: n
new workspace, h
/Enter
add a
harness, t
new terminal.
Behavior is driven by environment variables:
| Variable | Purpose |
|---|---|
WORKBENCH_UI_HARNESS_ID / WORKBENCH_UI_AGENT_ID |
|
| Default harness id | |
WORKBENCH_UI_CWD |
|
| Starting workspace directory | |
WORKBENCH_UI_THEME |
|
| Initial theme name | |
WORKBENCH_UI_IMAGE_PROTOCOL |
|
Force image rendering: kitty , sixel , or halfblock (auto-detected by default) |
|
WORKBENCH_UI_CELL_ASPECT |
|
| Override terminal cell aspect ratio for image sizing | |
WORKBENCH_CLI_HOT |
|
Set to 1 to enable hot-reload (same as --hot ) |
Persistent state (workspaces, tabs, sidebar, theme) is saved under ~/.workbench
,
and the private tmux server uses the socket ~/.workbench/tmux-ui.sock
.
bin/workbench-cli
is a thin bash launcher that execs the Bun app in
workbench-ui/
. The app is organized into purpose folders under
workbench-ui/src/
:
app/ the controller (lifecycle, actions, diff polling, render throttle)
state/ app state, session/harness models, persistence
terminal/ PTY panels (@xterm/headless), terminal probing, cell sizing
media/ image/Kitty/Sixel pipeline, mermaid, pdf, video, splash
ui/ theme tokens and toasts
text/ regex syntax highlighting, diffing, file-tree, editor model
components/ React/Silvery views (Workbench, sidebar, tabs, dialogs)
viewers/ per-kind file viewers (markdown, image, pdf, video, text)
See AGENT.md for the in-depth architecture, performance, and input-handling notes.
All commands run from workbench-ui/
:
bun run typecheck # tsc --noEmit
bun test # unit tests
bun run check # Ultracite/Biome lint + format check
bun run fix # apply formatting/safe fixes
bun run screenshot # Playwright interaction + screenshot suite
The screenshot suite drives the real app in a headless-browser PTY and doubles as a golden-master regression check; run it pointed at the package root:
WORKBENCH_UI_CWD="$PWD" bun run screenshot
Issues and pull requests are welcome. Before opening a PR, run bun run typecheck
, bun test
, and bun run check
, and make sure the screenshot suite still passes.
MIT.