README.md
August 13, 2026 · View on GitHub
Native desktop orchestrator for coding agents on macOS and Linux. Run Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini and plain shells in parallel — across git worktrees or on remote hosts — each with a live status (working / needs-you / done) and tmux-like persistence: closing the app never kills a session, and a daemon restart brings conversations back.


Install
macOS
brew install --cask cristicretu/diri/diri
Or download the latest DMG from Releases, open it, and drag diri to Applications. Either way it is the same universal build (Apple silicon and Intel), signed and notarized. diri updates itself from there.

The tap has to be named in full — a bare diri resolves only against Homebrew's default
taps. The cask lives in cristicretu/homebrew-diri
rather than homebrew-cask, which requires a notability threshold diri does not meet yet.
macOS 15 or newer.
Linux beta
Download the x86_64 AppImage or Debian package from Releases. Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04 are supported under X11 and Wayland with a Vulkan 1.3-capable GPU.
sudo apt install ./diri_<version>_amd64.deb
# or
chmod +x diri_<version>_amd64.AppImage && ./diri_<version>_amd64.AppImage
See the Linux beta guide for checksums, upgrade and uninstall steps, XDG paths, graphics troubleshooting, and current limitations.
60-second tour
- Add a project directory and create a session for Claude Code, Codex, another supported agent, or a plain shell.
- Start several sessions, ideally in separate git worktrees when they edit the same repository.
- Watch the sidebar instead of every terminal: it shows which agents are working, waiting for you, or done.
- Quit and reopen diri. The daemon keeps each PTY alive and replays the session when you return.
The getting-started guide covers remote hosts, MCP orchestration, diagnostics, local data, and uninstalling.

What it does
- Many agents at once. Each session is a real terminal with a real PTY. Group them by project, split them across git worktrees, or run them on a remote host over ssh+tmux.
- Status you can trust. diri reads what an agent actually painted on its screen and tells you which ones are working, which are waiting on you, and which are done — so you can watch ten sessions without reading ten terminals.
- Sessions outlive the app. A background daemon owns the PTYs. Quit diri, reopen it, and everything is still there.
- Agents can orchestrate agents. An MCP server lets a running agent spawn another one, watch it, read its output, and answer its prompts.
First-class status detection and resume are Claude Code and Codex. Cursor and Gemini run with partial support, and anything else runs as a terminal with running/exited status.

Architecture
Two processes, one wire protocol:

diri— the desktop app: Rust + GPUI. Owns the window, sidebar, terminal renderer, command palette, and usage accounting. Lives indiri/.dirijord-rs— the headless Rust engine, launched by the app and outliving it. Owns PTYs and child agent processes, an offset-addressed output log per session (for detach and replay), a headless terminal emulator for status detection, the session registry and persistence, worktrees, and the control socket.
dirijor is the automation CLI for hooks, notifications, status, and diagnostics;
dirijor-mcp is the MCP stdio server injected into agents. diri-holder owns each PTY master so
sessions survive an engine restart. Every shipped executable is built from the Rust workspace in
diri/.
Adding an agent
Agent support is data, not code. Each agent is one JSON file in
diri/crates/diri-engine/manifests/ describing how to spawn it, how to resume, which keys
approve or deny a prompt, and the screen rules that decide whether it is working, waiting, or
done. Copy the closest existing manifest and adjust it — no code changes required. The
manifest-authoring guide explains the schema, safe capture workflow,
examples, overrides, and validation. This is the easiest way to contribute.
Building from source
Needs Rust (pinned in diri/rust-toolchain.toml) plus the platform build dependencies. On macOS
that means the Xcode command-line tools; Linux dependencies and packaging commands are listed in
diri/LINUX.md. The first
build compiles GPUI from a pinned Zed revision and takes a while.
(cd diri && cargo build) # app, engine, holder, CLI, MCP
(cd diri && cargo test --workspace)
(cd diri && cargo run -p diri-app) # run the app from source
diri/scripts/package.sh # full bundle
diri/scripts/package-linux.sh # AppImage + DEB, on x86_64 Linux
diri/scripts/install-local.sh
Run the same core checks as CI with one command:
./scripts/check.sh
diri/PACKAGING.md covers signing and notarization,
diri/UPDATING.md the updater and release flow,
diri/NODE.md running agents on a remote VPS node.
The documentation index links user and engineering guides.
Contributing
See CONTRIBUTING.md. Bug reports, fixes, docs, and new agent
manifests are all welcome. New contributors can start with
good first issue
or help wanted.
Questions belong in Discussions, reproducible bugs in Issues, and vulnerabilities in private security reports. See the roadmap, support guide, privacy notice, and governance for project expectations.
License
Diri's original source is Apache 2.0. Builds also contain third-party software
under its own licenses; see LICENSE, NOTICE, and the
machine-checked dependency policy in license-policy.json.
