spekterm

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An agent-first local development workbench. spekterm hosts one Claude Code session per repository in a single window, and puts an OpenSpec-aware side panel right next to it — so you can drive your agents and read the change they're working on without opening an IDE.

Status: early, and Linux only. 0.2.1 is the first published release. macOS and Windows builds, auto-update, and code signing are not available yet.

Why

Running several agents at once usually means a stack of terminal tabs and an editor you switch to just to read the spec. spekterm's value over "four terminal tabs" is the side panel: it understands OpenSpec — the change a session is working on, its artifacts, its tasks, and its specs — and follows along as the agent writes to disk.

Features

Workspace

• Add any number of folders; reorder them, pin the ones you use most.
• A global session that belongs to no repository, for everything else.

Terminals

• Real terminals (node-pty + xterm.js with WebGL), several sessions per repository, git worktrees included.
• Sessions survive a restart: claude sessions resume their conversation, shells respawn in their last working directory with the previous screen replayed. Sessions you don't look at stay dormant until you do.
• Agent sessions can switch between the terminal and a conversation view. The view is built from the agent's own transcript and hooks — never by scraping the screen.

OpenSpec side panel

• Follows the change the focused session is working on: one tab per artifact, task progress always visible, spec deltas marked ADDED / MODIFIED.
• Browse specs and changes (active and archived), including changes that live in other git worktrees.
• Full-window dependency graph and timeline, shared with spek.
• Jump between specs, changes, and the underlying files; Ctrl+P for quick open; one click to ask the agent to continue the change.

Files

• File tree that updates as files change on disk, Markdown rendering, syntax highlighting (Monaco), editing, and file operations.

Inbox and handoffs

• Slack: when someone mentions you, it becomes an inbox item. You read it and choose the folder before any session is opened.
• Agent handoffs: an agent can hand work off to another repository in your workspace. spekterm opens a session there and sends the first prompt; the child session remembers its parent, reports back when it's done, and you get a notification.

Built to render untrusted content

• The UI can only address files inside the folders you added, and every filesystem check runs in the main process.
• A strict Content-Security-Policy and a navigation guard keep repository content and terminal output from running script or taking over the window.

Requirements

• Linux x64 with libfuse2 (needed to run AppImages; Ubuntu 22.04+ no longer installs it by default).
• Claude Code (claude on your PATH) for agent sessions. spekterm runs the real CLI with your own subscription — it never asks for an API key.

Install

Download the latest Spekterm-<version>.AppImage from the Releases page, then:

chmod +x Spekterm-<version>.AppImage
./Spekterm-<version>.AppImage

Install from source

You'll need Node.js 22 (see .nvmrc).

git clone https://github.com/spekhq/spekterm.git
cd spekterm
npm install
npm run build && npx electron-builder --linux   # → release/Spekterm-<version>.AppImage
npm run install:desktop                          # → ~/.local/bin + your applications menu

install:desktop can be re-run while spekterm is open; the running app keeps working. To remove it, run npm run uninstall:desktop.

Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab	Next / previous session in the current rail item
Ctrl+↓ / Ctrl+↑	Next / previous rail item
Ctrl+T	Open the new-session menu
Ctrl+Shift+W	Close the focused session
Shift+↓ / Shift+↑	Move the selected repository up / down the rail
Shift+→ / Shift+←	Move the focused session along the tab bar
Ctrl+P	Quick open (when the side panel has focus)
Ctrl+Shift+C / Ctrl+Shift+V	Copy / paste in the terminal
Ctrl+S	Save
Esc	Close overlays, dialogs, and menus

Ctrl+C in a terminal is always an interrupt, even with a selection on screen.

Troubleshooting

• The AppImage won't start (dlopen(): error loading libfuse.so.2). Install libfuse2, or run it without FUSE: ./Spekterm-*.AppImage --appimage-extract-and-run.

• The side panel or file tree stops updating. Your inotify watch limit is probably too low (the error, ENOSPC, only shows up on the main process's stderr). Check cat /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches; if it's 8192, raise it:

  echo 'fs.inotify.max_user_watches=524288' | sudo tee /etc/sysctl.d/60-inotify.conf
  sudo sysctl --system

• Which build am I running? Settings → About shows the version, build time, and commit.

Documentation

• docs/PRD.md — product requirements, roadmap, and architecture decisions.
• docs/workspace-mockup.html — the interactive UI mockup.
• CLAUDE.md and docs/lessons/ — working notes for contributors and agents, including the failures that were silent the first time.
• openspec/ — specs and the full history of changes.

Much of the existing documentation is in Traditional Chinese; new documentation is written in English.

Relationship to spek

spek is an open-source OpenSpec viewer. spekterm is a separate repository that reuses spek's scanning engine and visualizations through two npm packages: @spekjs/core and @spekjs/ui.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md. Please report security issues privately as described in SECURITY.md.

License

MIT. Packaged builds also include THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.txt, which lists every third-party package bundled into the app and its license.

Disclaimer

spekterm is an independent open-source project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Anthropic. Claude and Claude Code are trademarks of Anthropic, PBC. OpenSpec is a separate project by its own authors.