The terminal
built for many.

kolu is packaged with Nix. Install Nix with flakes enabled, then run a single command. The same command runs kolu and updates it — --refresh busts Nix's flake cache so you always pull the latest commit.

# run (or update) kolu — serves on 127.0.0.1:7681
$ nix --refresh run github:juspay/kolu

# expose on LAN with a custom host / port
$ nix --refresh run github:juspay/kolu -- --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8080

Open http://127.0.0.1:7681 (or the address you chose). You should see kolu open with an empty canvas.

The whole point lands in one move: open a repository and start an agent in its own tile. kolu watches what you do, so you barely configure anything.

1. 1

   Open the command palette

   Press Cmd/Ctrl + K. This is kolu's canonical search surface — terminals, themes, actions, repos, all from one box.

2. 2

   Drill into New terminal → your repo

   Recent repos appear automatically — kolu tracks the directories you cd into. Pick one and the worktree-naming leaf opens with a name pre-filled (a random adj-noun) and an agent picker below.

3. 3

   Pick an agent — or just hit Enter

   Any agent CLI you've run before (claude, codex, opencode, …) shows as a launch option. Choose one and kolu creates a fresh worktree and launches the agent in one step. Or hit Enter to land in a plain shell.

4. 4

   Watch the dock

   The new tile's dock row pulses while the agent is working and breathes when it's waiting on you — so a glance tells you who needs attention, even across many tiles.

Eight ideas cover almost everything. Learn these and the rest of kolu reads like plain language.

Canvas

An infinite, mode-less 2D plane. Pan with two-finger scroll, zoom with pinch or Ctrl + scroll, snap to a 24px grid. No boundaries — spread terminals out like Figma or Excalidraw.

Tiles

Every terminal is a draggable, resizable tile — a real xterm.js instance: WebGL rendering, clickable URLs, inline images (sixel / iTerm2 / kitty), splits, 200+ themes, and a mobile key bar. Double-click the title bar to maximize.

Dock

The left-edge navigator — the canonical at-a-glance list of every live terminal. Repo-tinted rows show branch, agent state, and PR/CI status; the state pip's shape tells you who's working vs. awaiting you.

Worktrees

Creating a terminal in a repo branches a fresh git worktree under the hood. The name you type becomes the branch and shows verbatim on the dock row, so parallel work stays identifiable.

Command & sub-palette

Cmd/Ctrl + K opens the unified palette; drilling into a row opens a sub-palette (e.g. repo → worktree name → agent). Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + K jumps straight to the workspace grid.

Auto-detection

kolu populates itself by watching you — recent repos from cd events, recent agents from shell command marks, branch / PR / CI from each terminal's working directory. If kolu knows it, the shell told it.

Git & GitHub

Each terminal knows its repo: branch, PR number, and CI status are read from its working directory and shown right on the dock row — no token pasting, no config. Creating a worktree and launching the agent in it is a single palette step.

Comment on any file

Select text in the Code tab — source, a branch diff, or a rendered artifact — and pin a quoted note to it. The per-terminal tray flushes to Markdown you paste straight back into the agent, which re-locates each comment by quote-matching even after the file changes.

Pinning kolu gives it its own window, a dock / home-screen icon, and — on a secure context — a live badge plus desktop notifications for finished agents. But there's one rule that trips everyone up, so read this first.

Install per browser — the one-click paths need HTTPS or localhost; the manual paths work over plain http:// too:

Here's the payoff that ties the last two sections together: the same Tailscale command that makes kolu reachable from your phone is what gives it the HTTPS secure context that unlocks one-click install and the app badge. One move unlocks both.

1. 1

   Install Tailscale on both devices

   Put Tailscale on the dev box and the phone / laptop, signed into the same account. They join one private tailnet.

2. 2

   Enable MagicDNS + HTTPS Certificates

   In the admin console → DNS, turn on MagicDNS, then HTTPS Certificates (a one-time toggle). This lets Tailscale issue a real Let's Encrypt cert for your machine.

3. 3

   Serve the port

   On the dev box, point Serve at kolu's port (--bg keeps it running across reboots):

   dev box

   $ tailscale serve --bg 7681
   
   → Available within your tailnet:
     https://your-box.your-tailnet.ts.net/

4. 4

   Open the printed URL on your phone — and install

   Visit the full https://<machine>.<tailnet>.ts.net address. It's a genuine HTTPS secure context, so the Install / Add to Home Screen affordance now appears. Pin it from there.

One more honesty note: your …ts.net hostname lands in public Certificate Transparency logs (that's how the public web verifies certs), so don't bake secrets into machine names. Manage everything with tailscale serve status, tailscale serve reset, and tailscale serve off.

Which tunnel? A decision aid.

Serve covers "just my devices." If you need something else, match the intent:

kolu is built for the moment you're running five agents at once. These are the tools that keep that legible.

Multi-agent at scale

The dock pulses for working agents and breathes for awaiting ones; a finished background agent fires a loud violet ping plus a toast with a Switch action that pans the canvas straight to it — and, on an HTTPS/localhost kolu with notifications granted, a native OS notification you can click to jump to that terminal, even when kolu is in the background.

Keybindings

Cmd + T new terminal, Cmd + Shift + Enter opens the New terminal menu (worktree creation), Cmd + 1…9 jump, Ctrl + Tab cycles in MRU order, Cmd + / shows the full shortcut help. Splits: Ctrl + `.

Sessions

Layout, themes, and maximized posture persist across reloads via localStorage, so you land back exactly where you left off. The activity-window filter hides stale rows without killing them.