aide

A terminal IDE with tabbed workspaces, integrated git, and a built-in file browser.

Download · Install · Usage · Configuration

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aide turns your terminal into a lightweight IDE — tabbed terminal sessions, a file browser with syntax-highlighted previews, git context, and a command palette — all keyboard-driven and running in a single process.

┌─ Sessions ────────────────┬─ Git Status ──────┐
│ api │ frontend │ infra     │ ## main            │
├───────────────────────────│  M src/main.rs     │
│                           │ ?? new_file.txt    │
│  Terminal output          ├─ Git Log ──────────┤
│  with full ANSI color     │ * abc1234 feat:... │
│  and blinking cursor      │ * def5678 fix:...  │
│                           │                    │
├───────────────────────────┴────────────────────┤
│ ~/d/api │ main ↓0 ↑1      ^P cmds ^B files ^X │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Why aide?

• Tabbed terminals — run multiple shells side by side, each in its own tab with its own working directory
• Git at a glance — branch, status, upstream counts, diff stats, and log always visible
• File browser + viewer — browse your project tree with syntax-highlighted file previews and sticky line numbers
• Command palette — fuzzy-matched commands, project switching, file opening, and git operations via Ctrl+P
• Persistent sessions — a background daemon keeps your PTY sessions alive across aide restarts
• Zero config to start — just run aide and go. Customize later if you want
• Keyboard native — everything is a keystroke away. All non-reserved keys pass straight through to your shell

Install

Quick install (Linux / macOS)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kierandrewett/aide/main/install.sh | bash

Pin a specific version:

./install.sh v0.1.0

Change install location:

AIDE_INSTALL_DIR=/usr/local/bin curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kierandrewett/aide/main/install.sh | bash

From GitHub releases

Grab the latest binary from Releases:

Platform	Archive
Linux (x86_64)	aide-x86_64-linux.tar.gz
Linux (aarch64/ARM)	aide-aarch64-linux.tar.gz
macOS (Intel)	aide-x86_64-macos.tar.gz
macOS (Apple Silicon)	aide-aarch64-macos.tar.gz

tar xzf aide-*.tar.gz
mv aide aide-daemon ~/.local/bin/

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/kierandrewett/aide.git
cd aide
cargo build --release
cp target/release/aide target/release/aide-daemon ~/.local/bin/

Requirements: git

Usage

aide

That's it. aide scans your projects directory (~/dev by default), and you pick what to work on from the command palette.

Keybindings

Key	Action
Tab	Next tab
Shift+Tab	Previous tab
Ctrl+T	New tab
Ctrl+P	Command palette
Ctrl+W	Close tab (with confirmation)
Ctrl+B	Toggle file browser
Ctrl+F	Close file viewer
Ctrl+G	Toggle git panel
Ctrl+X	Quit aide
PgUp / PgDn	Scroll terminal output
Ctrl+Shift+C	Copy selection
Mouse wheel	Scroll (vertical)
Shift+scroll	Scroll (horizontal, file viewer)

Everything else goes straight to your shell.

Command palette

Ctrl+P opens a fuzzy-matched command palette with:

• Project switching — open any folder from your projects directory
• File opening — jump to files in the current project
• Git operations — push, pull, fetch, stash, commit, and branch switching (run as background jobs with a status bar spinner)
• Panel toggles — git panel, file browser

Punctuation is ignored when filtering, so typing "git push" matches "Git: Push".

File browser

Toggle with Ctrl+B. Navigate with arrow keys or mouse clicks. Files open in a syntax-highlighted viewer with:

• Sticky line numbers
• Horizontal scrolling (arrow keys or shift+scroll)
• Text selection and copy (Ctrl+Shift+C)

Responsive layout

Wide terminals (100+ cols) show the full split view: file browser, terminal, and git panels side by side. Narrow terminals collapse to a single-pane layout with panels toggled via keyboard shortcuts.

Configuration

Config lives at ~/.config/aide/config.toml and is created automatically on first run:

command = "$SHELL"
projects_dir = "$HOME/dev"

Key	What it does	Default
command	Command to launch in each terminal tab	$SHELL
projects_dir	Directory to scan for project folders	$HOME/dev

Environment variables (like $SHELL and $HOME) are resolved at load time, so the config stays portable.

Custom commands

The command field is flexible:

# Use a specific shell
command = "/bin/zsh"

# Run an AI coding tool
command = "claude"

# Run through a wrapper script
command = "my-wrapper-script"

How it works

aide runs a background daemon (aide-daemon) that manages PTY sessions. The daemon spawns pseudo-terminals for each tab and buffers their output. The aide frontend connects over a Unix socket, forwarding your keystrokes and rendering the terminal output via a vt100 parser at ~30fps. Git data refreshes in the background on a 2-3 second cycle.

Because sessions live in the daemon, they persist across:

• aide exits and restarts (auto-reconnects to existing sessions)
• Terminal crashes
• System sleep/wake

Architecture

src/
├── main.rs           Event loop, input batching, refresh timers
├── app.rs            Application state, command palette, background jobs
├── config.rs         TOML config with env var resolution
├── ui/mod.rs         TUI rendering (ratatui)
├── daemon/main.rs    Background PTY daemon (Unix socket IPC)
├── protocol/mod.rs   Client-daemon wire protocol
├── pty_backend/      Daemon client (connect, read, write, resize)
├── sessions/mod.rs   Session lifecycle and tab management
├── git/mod.rs        Git queries (status, log, branch, upstream, diff)
├── filebrowser/      File tree with git status indicators
└── input/mod.rs      Input handling, key batching, passthrough

Built with ratatui + crossterm + portable-pty + vt100.

Releasing

Releases are automated via GitHub Actions when a version tag is pushed:

git tag v0.1.0
git push origin v0.1.0

Builds binaries for all 4 platforms (x86_64/aarch64 Linux + macOS), packages them with SHA256 checksums, and publishes a GitHub release.

License

MIT