axel

Axel is for anyone who wants the calm of a task list and their agents in war mode — without losing track of what's running, where, or why.

It pairs a native macOS app with a fast RUST CLI to orchestrate many AI agents across tmux panes, Ghostty based terminals, and git worktrees — with a user interface inspired by Things.

Important

Axel is currently in beta and may have bugs. Contributions and bug reports are welcome.

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What Axel Feels Like

• A clean, Things‑like inbox for tasks and priorities.
• A living map of your active agents, each anchored to a worktree and terminal.
• A system that literally makes “spin up another agent in a new git worktree” feel as cheap as “open a new tab.”

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What Axel Does

Axel turns agent work into a first‑class workflow:

• Tasks with intent: queue, run, and complete agent tasks with status, priority, and context.
• Real terminals: manage live sessions (Claude, Codex, etc.) in tmux panes and Ghostty.
• Worktree‑first isolation: one agent, one branch — no more stepping on each other.
• Inbox & permissions: see agent requests in a single stream and approve quickly.
• Skills & context: reusable prompts from ./skills and ~/.config/axel/skills.
• Sync built‑in: Automerge CRDT + Supabase for conflict‑free collaboration.

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How Axel Works (Short Version)

1. You create a task in the app.
2. Axel spawns a terminal session via the CLI.
3. The agent runs in tmux, optionally inside a new git worktree.
4. The app shows live output, events, and permission prompts.
5. When the work is done, you close the loop and ship.

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Components

Native macOS app (SwiftUI)

• Five‑column workspace layout for tasks, inbox, terminals, skills, and team.
• SSE inbox for real‑time agent events and permission requests.
• SwiftData + Automerge for local state + cross‑device sync.

Axel CLI (Rust)

• Launches tmux grids and agent panes.
• Reads AXEL.md layouts and skills.
• Manages worktrees and session recovery.

Terminal layer

• Ghostty for fast, modern terminal emulation.
• tmux for pane orchestration.
• git worktrees for clean agent isolation.

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Quick Start

Requirements: macOS 14+, Xcode 15+ (for app), Rust (for CLI dev)

# Open the app in Xcode
open Axel.xcodeproj

# Run the app (Debug)
./run.sh

When you launch Axel, it can install the CLI to ~/.local/bin if it isn’t already present.

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A Typical Flow

1. Create a task “Refactor API caching”
2. Assign it to Claude in a new worktree
3. Claude runs in tmux + Ghostty
4. Permission requests appear in Inbox
5. Review output, merge, and mark done

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Project Structure (Partial)

Axel/
├── Views/macOS/          # macOS UI (tasks, inbox, terminals)
├── Services/             # SSE inbox, sync, CLI orchestration
├── Models/               # SwiftData entities
Packages/
├── GhosttyKit/           # terminal emulation
├── AutomergeWrapper/     # CRDT sync wrapper

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Contributing

We want Axel to feel like a tool you want to use daily.

Here’s what we value in contributions:

• Workflow‑first: every feature should reduce mental overhead for multi‑agent work.
• Beautifully restrained UI: clarity and delight, never clutter.
• Terminal authenticity: real tmux panes, real worktrees, no fakery.
• Performance: fast startup, fast rendering, fast agent recovery.

If you’re interested, open an issue or send a PR with:

• a short problem statement
• a proposed solution
• any design notes or workflow details

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Related Experiments

We’ve built other systems in this space (not necessarily good, but useful lessons):

• https://github.com/txtx/surfpool
• https://github.com/txtx/moneymq

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Status

Axel is under active development. The core workflow is here, and we’re making it sharper every week.

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See CLAUDE.md for workspace‑specific notes.