Made in Japan with love.
Warning: Large parts of the application are currently under development and have been completely rewritten. It may take some time for the system to become stable.
Cafe Code is very small, barely does a thing at all. Chat goes in and chat comes out, soft and sweet, without a shout.
Cafe Code is a tiny desktop GUI for coding agents. It is a fork of T3 Code, with a basket of bug fixes, a little sweep-up, and some very opinionated trimming for people who want the agent chat and not much else.
It is meant to stay light, calm, and out of the way — not freeze, drag, or get all sleepy like so many other clients do.
T3 Code said it wanted to be minimal. Cafe Code went even smaller.
No terminal drawer. No pretend IDE. No giant dashboard wearing a useful-looking hat. If you want a console, use a real console. If you want to inspect code, open it in VS Code.
Because the app should stay small, fast, and predictable.
Bug fixes are welcome. Performance fixes are welcome. Reliability fixes are welcome. Security fixes are extra welcome.
Feature requests need to pass the tiny-window test: does this make Cafe Code smaller, calmer, faster, easier to understand, lower CPU, lower memory, or less annoying when something fails?
If yes, maybe.
If it turns Cafe Code into a pretend IDE, a pretend terminal, a release dashboard, a project-management suite, or a museum of buttons, no.
This is the practical working list. It will probably get cleaned up later.
- Completely rewrote the lifecycle system to be more inline with Codex and Claude.
- Numerous bug fixes.
- Excessive debugging information.
- Rebranded the app around Cafe Code.
- Moved local app data into
~/.cafe-code. - Removed the in-app terminal drawer and terminal UI.
- Removed hosted web-app assumptions and focused the project on the Electron app.
- Disabled update checks until Cafe Code has its own release path.
- Added a queue/follow-up workflow for prompts sent while a provider is running.
- Added provider-aware queue actions: steer when supported, interrupt when that is the honest behavior.
- Added thread moving between project folders and working directories.
- Added "Move to Recycle Bin", "Recently Deleted", restore, permanent delete, and empty recycle bin flows.
- Added a default editor setting for VS Code, Antigravity, Finder, or system default.
- Made file-change rows and path pills open real paths instead of truncated display text.
- Added a localhost-only debug endpoint behind
--cafe-debug. - Reduced needless Git polling and checkpoint churn.
- Hardened hidden checkpoint handling, ignored-file capture, and old ref pruning.
- Fixed provider/session edge cases around reconnects, stale running state, resume metadata, and null checkpoint timestamps.
- Removed or hid features that do not belong in a minimal coding-agent shell.
For now there are no desktop packages. No DMG, no updater, no notarized bundle, no "drag this into Applications" ceremony.
The npm package exists, but do not treat it as the fresh install path yet. It will probably be out of date until Cafe Code settles down a little more. The app is in pretty good shape now, but the fastest-moving build is still the repo itself.
Mostly tested on macOS. Windows seems to work. Linux may need a little tweaking; I have not had enough time on it yet.
Install Bun first if it is not already on your machine, then run Cafe Code from a checkout:
git clone https://github.com/cafeai/cafe-code.git
cd cafe-code
bun install
bun run build:desktop
bun run --cwd apps/desktop startDebug mode:
bun run --cwd apps/desktop start -- --cafe-debugIf you want Codex or Claude to do it for you, paste this into the CLI:
Install Cafe Code from source with Bun. Clone https://github.com/cafeai/cafe-code.git, install Bun if it is missing, run bun install, run bun run build:desktop, then start it with bun run --cwd apps/desktop start. Also verify Codex CLI is installed and logged in with codex login, and Claude Code is installed and logged in with claude auth login if I want Claude support.
The old npm path is still here for later, but it may lag behind current work:
npx @cafeai/cafe-code
npm install -g @cafeai/cafe-code
cafe-codeCafe Code expects at least one provider to already be installed and authenticated:
- Codex: install Codex CLI and run
codex login - Claude: install Claude Code and run
claude auth login
OpenCode exists in the codebase, but Cafe Code is currently developed around Codex and Claude first.
Run the app from a checkout:
bun install
bun start:desktopRun the desktop package directly:
bun --cwd apps/desktop startDebug mode:
bun --cwd apps/desktop start -- --cafe-debugThe app prints a localhost-only debug URL on startup.
Useful checks:
bun fmt
bun lint
bun typecheck
bun run testDo not run bun test; this repo uses bun run test.
Build a local pacman package from the Linux AppImage artifact:
bun install
bun run dist:arch:local
sudo pacman -U release/arch/cafe-code-*.pkg.tar.zstTo build and install in one step:
bun run dist:arch:local -- --installThis is intentionally local packaging only. It does not create AUR metadata or publish anything.
Cafe Code は、Codex とか Claude とお話するための、 ちいさめデスクトップアプリだわ。
T3 Code から fork して、 バグ直して、重いところ軽くして、 いらない機能はぽいぽいした。
ターミナルいらない。 でかいダッシュボードいらない。 ボタンだらけの謎コックピットもいらない。
コード見たいなら VS Code ひらこ。 コンソール使いたいなら、本物のコンソール使お。
Cafe Code は、チャットする。 作業を見る。 邪魔しない。 それだけ。えらい。
まだ DMG とか、インストーラーとか、アップデーターとかはないよ。 npm のパッケージもあるけど、今はそれを信じすぎないでね。 Cafe Code がもう少し落ち着くまでは、npm はたぶん少し古くなる。
Bun がなければ先に入れてね。入れ方は Bun の公式ページ がいちばん確か。
git clone https://github.com/cafeai/cafe-code.git
cd cafe-code
bun install
bun run build:desktop
bun run --cwd apps/desktop startデバッグしたいならこれ。
bun run --cwd apps/desktop start -- --cafe-debugだいたい macOS で見てる。Windows も動いてそう。 Linux はまだあまり見れてないから、ちょっと調整がいるかも。 でも今の Cafe Code は、けっこういいところまで来てる。
Codex とか Claude に丸投げするなら、これを投げてもいいよ。
Cafe Code を Bun でソースから入れてください。https://github.com/cafeai/cafe-code.git を clone して、Bun がなければ入れて、bun install、bun run build:desktop、bun run --cwd apps/desktop start まで実行してください。Codex を使うなら codex login、Claude を使うなら claude auth login も確認してください。
npm 版は残しておくけど、今は古いかもしれない。
npx @cafeai/cafe-code
npm install -g @cafeai/cafe-code
cafe-codeCodex を使うなら先に codex login。
Claude を使うなら先に claude auth login。
そこは自分でログインしておいてね。
bun fmt
bun lint
bun typecheck
bun run testbun test は使わないでね。
このリポジトリは bun run test の子なの。
Cafe Code is AGPL-3.0-or-later.
The fork keeps the upstream attribution story intact; see the license and notice files for details.