Collins

Native GTK4/libadwaita desktop app to browse, name, and resume your Claude Code sessions in embedded terminal tabs.

My wife keeps referring to Claude as Collins by mistake. So now when she asks me if I'm talking to Collins, I can say yes.

Collins is a fork of agent-session-manager by Máté Molnár (original project website) — all credit for the original app goes there. This fork is GPL-3.0 like the original.

📖 Documentation

Unofficial community tool. An independent community project, not affiliated with or endorsed by any agent vendor (including Anthropic). It never modifies your agents' own session data — all app state lives in its own config file.

Features:

• Sidebar lists every session found on disk (for Claude Code, under ~/.claude/projects/), grouped by project (collapsible headers, with a collapse-all/expand-all toggle in the sidebar header), with a Favorites section pinned on top — star a session to move it there. Drag a project header to rearrange projects — the order and each project's expanded state persist across restarts. The search button (or Ctrl+Shift+F) opens a search box across the sidebar header that filters by name, project, preview, or session id, and the list updates live as sessions are created or written to.

• Sessions can be given custom names (right-click → Rename…, or rename the session's tab), and unnamed sessions get an auto-generated title: pre-existing sessions are titled locally on launch (first 10 words of the initial prompt), while sessions created during an app run have their first prompt summarized to ≤5 words by a headless claude -p --model haiku run — the same CLI and login the whole app is based on, no extra credentials needed. Titles are persisted so each is generated only once; right-click → Regenerate name re-runs the model for one session, and a Preferences toggle turns auto-titling off (a manual rename always wins). Names, favorites, and archived sessions persist in ~/.config/collins/state.json — your agents' own session files are never modified.

• Clicking a session opens a tab in the main area; each tab is an embedded VTE terminal running your $SHELL with the agent's resume command (claude --resume <session-id> for Claude Code) typed into it, in the directory the session last worked in (worktree-aware). If the session is still running detached, Collins re-attaches to the live process (claude attach) instead of resuming a copy. When the agent exits you drop to a shell prompt; the tab closes when the shell exits. Closing a tab asks the agent to exit cleanly (Claude Code's Ctrl+C Ctrl+C, which works from whatever screen the agent is on) in the background first — or, for agents that support it, the close dialog offers to background the session instead (Claude Code's /bg), leaving it running detached to re-attach to later. On the next launch the app reopens the session you had focused when you closed it, and the window comes back at its last size.

• In-terminal search with a find bar (Ctrl+Shift+G) over the tab's scrollback.

• Terminal panel (Ctrl+J, or the small buttons in the window's bottom-right corner): every tab has a second plain-shell terminal — no agent auto-launched — below or beside the agent terminal. It opens in the agent's current working directory (worktree-aware), and the swap button (shown only while a panel is open) moves it bottom↔right without restarting its shell — each layout's panel size is remembered per tab while the app runs, and the last-set size per layout is saved app-wide, so every panel opened from then on defaults to it. Right-clicking the terminal button opens that same directory in your desktop's own terminal instead, in a window of its own. Typing exit in it hides the panel; the last-used position (bottom/right) is remembered app-wide, and whichever panel you open next defaults to it. Closing a tab while a command is running in its panel — even a hidden one — asks for confirmation before the command is killed. Closing the whole window with busy sessions shows a single confirmation — close (every agent is asked to exit cleanly) or background the sessions (/bg) — before the window goes away.

• Easy copy & paste (on by default): plain Ctrl+C copies whenever text is selected — otherwise it interrupts the agent as usual — plain Ctrl+V pastes, and right-click opens a Copy / Paste / Select All menu. No Ctrl+Shift finger-twisting just because it's a terminal (Ctrl+Shift+C / Ctrl+Shift+V still work, and the mode can be turned off in Preferences).

• Live sessions stand out: a session with a tab open gets a fill in the sidebar, whether or not you're caught up on its output (a tab with unread output is marked by the tab bar itself). A session running detached (/bg) gets a yellow guide line and no fill — there's no tab to return to until you reopen it. While an agent is actually working in a tab, its row's guide line becomes a moving blue barber pole that stops soon after the agent does, so the sidebar says which sessions are thinking and which are waiting on you. A waiting badge (amber ?) marks sessions where the agent's last message was a question awaiting your reply, and an interrupted badge (red stop icon) marks sessions you stopped mid-task.

• A Claude usage panel at the bottom of the sidebar shows your subscription limits (session, weekly, extra usage) as progress bars with reset countdowns — read straight from the claude CLI's own login, refreshed every 5 minutes (paused while the window is minimized or the screen is locked). Toggle it in Preferences.

• Tabs follow the sidebar's order: left to right is the session list read top to bottom, whatever order you opened them in, and they re-arrange when the list does (drag a project to a new spot and its tabs move with it). Tabs with no row in the list — chats, replays — collect at the right-hand end; the tab bar itself isn't drag-reorderable, since the sidebar is where the order is set.

• Tabs can be renamed, given an emoji prefix, or have their session ID copied (right-click → Rename… / Set emoji… / Copy session ID); renaming a session's tab updates its name everywhere. While a session tab is focused, header buttons exit or background it and close the tab immediately — no confirmation dialog — the tab bar can be hidden with its own header toggle (the window title then names the active tab), and the sidebar toggles with the header button or F9. Shift+Enter inserts a newline in the agent's prompt.

• Each tab has a slim footer showing the agent's live working directory (click to copy; worktree-aware) and the current git branch (⎇), plus the terminal-panel buttons.

• Right-click a session for the full action set: open, open in Ghostty (external window — Ghostty can't be embedded), fork (--fork-session), rename, regenerate name, favorite, details (messages/models/tokens, a peek at recent messages, and MCP servers/usage), copy session id, export as Markdown, reveal transcript, archive, move the transcript to trash, or delete permanently. Right-click a project header to start a new session there, open its folder in another app, or archive the whole project — projects with no visible sessions still show their header (with a + button) so a folder stays reachable. The open-in list carries each app's own icon: one row per app added under Preferences → Footer apps, plus Open in File Manager and Open in Terminal using whatever your desktop nominates for those ($TERMINAL, xdg-terminals.list, and the system's x-terminal-emulator are honoured, in that order).

• Desktop notifications when a background session goes quiet after producing output — click to jump to that tab (toggle in Preferences).

• Select mode (menu → Select multiple sessions) for bulk actions: open, star, archive, or trash many sessions at once.

• New session (tab icon in the header) starts a fresh agent session (claude) in the visible session's project — no dialog needed; with no session visible it asks for a folder. Every project header also has a + button to start a session right there, and a just-started session shows a "New Thread" placeholder row until the agent writes its transcript.

• Quick switcher (Ctrl+Shift+K) jumps to any session by type-ahead; the sidebar is resizable and its width is remembered.

• MCP servers browser (menu → MCP servers): a read-only view of every MCP server configured in ~/.claude.json, global and per-project.

• Preferences (menu → Preferences, or Ctrl+,): terminal font, scrollback, terminal color theme (Dracula, Solarized, Gruvbox, Nord, Catppuccin, Tokyo Night, Monokai, One Dark…), color scheme, language (English, Magyar, Deutsch, Español, Français), easy copy & paste, idle notifications, plus Show folder path, Show Claude usage, and Auto-generate session titles toggles for the sidebar.

• A sidebar status footer shows session, project, transcript-size, and open-tab counts.

• Prompt cards: when the agent asks a structured question in the terminal, a native option card overlays it — answer with a click.

• Advanced new session (New Session menu): choose a model, permission mode, extra directories (--add-dir), or continue the last session in a folder.

• Permanent delete sits alongside Move to trash; Ctrl+Shift+E toggles a 😊 marker on the current tab.

Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+Shift+F	Focus search
Ctrl+Shift+T	New session
Ctrl+Shift+N	New window
Ctrl+W	Close current tab
Ctrl+PgUp / Ctrl+PgDn	Previous / next tab
Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V	Copy selection / paste (easy copy & paste, on by default)
Ctrl+Shift+C / Ctrl+Shift+V	Copy / paste in terminal (always available)
Ctrl+Shift+G	Find in terminal
Ctrl+Shift+K	Quick switcher (jump to any session)
Ctrl+Shift+E	Toggle 😊 marker on the current tab
Ctrl+J	Show/hide the terminal panel
Ctrl+K	Clear the terminal panel (screen and saved history)
F8	Show/hide the editor panel
Ctrl+S (in the editor)	Save the current file
Ctrl+F (in the editor)	Find in file
F9	Toggle sidebar
Ctrl+,	Preferences

Requirements

Python ≥ 3.10, GTK 4, libadwaita ≥ 1.5, VTE (GTK 4 build), PyGObject — from your distro's packages:

# Ubuntu / Debian
sudo apt install python3-gi gir1.2-gtk-4.0 gir1.2-adw-1 gir1.2-vte-3.91 gir1.2-gtksource-5

# Fedora
sudo dnf install python3-gobject gtk4 libadwaita vte291-gtk4 gtksourceview5

# Arch
sudo pacman -S python-gobject gtk4 libadwaita vte4 gtksourceview5

Plus the claude CLI on your PATH — Collins is a tool for Claude specifically.

Install

From source:

git clone https://github.com/episode6/collins.git
cd collins
python3 -m collins

Or install the desktop launcher + icon (shows up in the app grid as "Collins"):

./data/install.sh

Debian/Ubuntu — .deb package (build it with ./scripts/build_deb.sh, or grab one from this repo's releases if published):

sudo apt install ./collins_0.1.0_all.deb

Dependencies are pulled in automatically; the app appears in your app grid as "Collins".

Terminal copy & paste works the way you'd expect out of the box: plain Ctrl+C (when text is selected) and Ctrl+V — see easy copy & paste above. Ctrl+Shift+C / Ctrl+Shift+V always work too.

Layout

collins/
├── app.py            # Adw.Application entry point + CSS
├── window.py         # main window: tabs, actions, dialogs wiring
├── sidebar.py        # session list: search, groups, badges, select mode
├── store.py          # single source of truth: threaded scans, file monitors
├── models.py         # SessionItem GObject with bindable properties
├── sessions.py       # transcript discovery & parsing (pure Python)
├── providers.py      # agent CLI abstraction (currently Claude Code)
├── state.py          # persistent app state (names, favorites, settings)
├── terminal.py       # VTE terminal tab + secondary shell panel
├── titles.py         # auto-generated session titles (local + haiku)
├── usage.py          # Claude subscription usage fetch/parse
├── usagepanel.py     # the sidebar usage panel widget
├── gitinfo.py        # git branch detection for the tab footer
├── promptcard.py     # native option cards over the terminal
├── dialogs.py        # rename / emoji / confirm / details / MCP dialogs
├── prefs.py          # preferences dialog
└── themes.py, i18n.py, switcher.py, panelhistory.py, copylabel.py, …
data/
├── com.episode6.Collins.desktop   # launcher template
├── icons/com.episode6.Collins.svg # app icon
└── install.sh                           # install launcher + icon for current user
scripts/
├── build_deb.sh                         # build the .deb package into dist/
└── make_demo_data.py                    # fake sessions for screenshots/demos

Publishing (maintainers)

Pushing a v* tag runs .github/workflows/release.yml: it builds the wheel/sdist and the .deb and creates the GitHub Release (with the .deb attached and auto-generated notes). The PyPI job uses trusted publishing (OIDC) and only works once a trusted publisher is configured for this repo.

# bump version in pyproject.toml / __init__.py / debian/changelog, commit, then:
git tag -a v0.1.0 -m v0.1.0 && git push origin v0.1.0

Credits & license

Collins is a rebranded fork of agent-session-manager by Máté Molnár, which did all the heavy lifting — see the original project's website for the app Collins grew out of. Released under GPL-3.0-or-later, same as the original.

Everything Collins is built on is disclosed in THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md — the same document the app shows on the Legal page of its About dialog.