clide

A Flutter desktop IDE for Claude Code. Native rendering, terminal-first interaction, pql-powered queries, canvas and graph surfaces. Linux and macOS.

Architecture

Single Flutter package at the repo root. The app hosts everything in-process: IPC server, subsystem handlers (pane, files, editor, git, pql), and the extension framework. tmux owns Claude session persistence.

• lib/ — all Dart code. Kernel services (theme, i18n, settings, panels, commands, focus), UI widgets, built-in extensions, and the extension contract.
• ptyc/ — small C helper. Spawns a PTY + child and hands the master fd back over SCM_RIGHTS. Every pane (shell, tmux, claude, LSP, debug adapter) goes through it.
• pql — external supporter tool. Clide wraps it for every query surface; never re-implements it.

Claude drives the UI through a clide CLI surface (Bash, not MCP). Every CLI subcommand has a UI affordance and every UI action has a CLI equivalent.

Built-in extensions

canvas, claude, claude_control, decisions, diff, editor, extensions_ui, files, git, graph, grammars_core, ipc_status, keybindings_ui, markdown, pql, problems, settings_ui, terminal, theme_picker, tickets, todos, welcome.

Building

Requires Flutter (stable channel) on the host. One-time setup:

make hooks && flutter pub get

Then:

make run              # launch the desktop app
make test             # fast suite: analyze + format + unit + widget + golden
make test-core        # core subsystem tests (IPC, PTY, git, pane registry)
make test-integration # real app boot integration tests
make build-linux      # flutter build linux
make build-macos      # flutter build macos
make ptyc-build       # build the ptyc PTY-spawn helper
make push-check       # pre-push gate: decisions + core + fast tests

Status

Pre-v2.0 (2.0.0-dev). Interaction model and panel system landed. The Python Textual v1.2.0 predecessor is archived under legacy/.

Design doc: docs/initial-plan.md. Architectural decisions: decisions/.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.