DevTool

A desktop application for managing development workspaces. Organize projects, tasks, and tabs in a unified interface with integrated terminals, editors, browsers, and AI tool support.

Built with Electron, React, and TypeScript.

This repository is a fork of join3r/claude-project. join3r has said it may be forked and modified freely. All work stays on this repo (TeleporterGuy/DevTool); do not open PRs against upstream. Direction: Pi as the primary agent, primarily on Windows (Git Bash, portable Node, conda, native in-app .ipynb notebooks). Language servers are parked. How to progress is in ROADMAP.md. Company-deploy security snapshot: SECURITY.md.

Features

Project Management -- Add, organize, and switch between projects. Group projects into folders. Support for local directories, remote SSH projects, and shell command projects.

Task Organization -- Create tasks within projects. Each task maintains its own set of tabs and layout state independently.

Split-Pane Layout -- Horizontal split view with independent left and right panes. Drag tabs between panes.

Terminal Tabs -- Full terminal emulation via xterm.js and node-pty. On Windows, tabs are Git Bash only (auto-detected Git\bin\bash.exe; optional path in Settings). PowerShell and Command Prompt are not offered. WebGL-accelerated rendering, scrollback preservation, search, clipboard integration, and copy-on-select.

Browser Tabs -- Embedded Chromium browser with URL bar, navigation, and DevTools. SOCKS proxy support for remote project access.

Editor Tabs -- Monaco editor with syntax highlighting, configurable fonts, line numbers, minimap, word wrap, and auto-save.

Notebook Tabs -- Native .ipynb editor. Only the focused cell mounts Monaco; idle code cells are syntax-highlighted read-only previews (not live editors). Run cells against ipykernel in the project's default conda env, or a per-notebook override (jupyter_client). Stream text, plain/text, PNG, and errors. Local projects only.

Agent Links -- Cursor-style "add to chat": in an editor or notebook, Ctrl+L / ⌘L inserts an @path (lines a-b) or @notebook.ipynb (cell N, id …) link into the task's agent tab (Pi, Claude, Codex or Claude chat) without sending it; Ctrl+Shift+L / ⌘⇧L links the whole file. Also from the editor and file-tree context menus, the palette, and an "Add to agent" hint on a selection.

Diff Viewer -- Git diff visualization with side-by-side rendering and whitespace options.

AI Tool Integration -- Dedicated tabs for Pi (primary), Claude Code, and Codex. Hook server enables bidirectional communication with AI tools running in terminals.

Conda environments -- Pick a conda or micromamba env per local project (Project Settings). New Pi/Claude/Codex tabs prepend that env onto PATH (plus install condabin). New interactive terminals run a login shell, then conda activate for the project env (Windows Git Bash uses --rcfile so conda init in .bash_profile is not dropped). Notebook tabs start ipykernel with the same env. Already-open tabs keep their old env. DevTool does not create or delete envs.

Remote SSH Projects -- Connect to remote machines via SSH with port forwarding, SOCKS proxy tunneling, key authentication, health checks, and auto-reconnection.

Git Worktree Management -- Create and delete isolated git worktrees for branch work directly from the UI.

File Browser -- Integrated file tree: open, create, rename, and delete files and folders. The Files tab has New file / New folder buttons and a quick filter.

Git Status -- Display current branch, changed files, and diffs.

Multi-Window -- Open multiple application windows with independent state.

Install

npm install

This installs dependencies and rebuilds native modules (node-pty) for Electron.

npm warn deprecated … lines (for example glob, inflight, rimraf, boolean) come from Electron / electron-builder, not from DevTool itself. They do not fail the install. An electron-winstaller ignored-scripts warning is also expected until a Windows installer is needed; the portable folder path below does not use it.

Windows from source (admin required)

Compiling node-pty for Electron uses MSBuild. That needs Visual Studio 2022 Build Tools (or full VS) with the Desktop C++ workload, Python (for node-gyp), and administrator rights to install or modify those tools. Git Bash / MinGW cannot replace MSVC here. There is no portable Spectre CRT zip.

1. Install Build Tools for Visual Studio 2022 if the Visual Studio Installer is missing. The installer itself requires admin.
2. Modify the same VS instance node-gyp will use (on this fork that is often Build Tools 2022, not Community, if both are installed).
3. Workload: Desktop development with C++.
4. Individual components → search Spectre → install MSVC v143 - VS 2022 C++ x64/x86 Spectre-mitigated libs (Latest) (Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Runtimes.x86.x64.Spectre).

Elevated Command Prompt (adjust --installPath if vswhere shows a different instance):

"%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer\vs_installer.exe" modify ^
  --installPath "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\BuildTools" ^
  --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Runtimes.x86.x64.Spectre ^
  --passive --norestart --wait

Libs should exist at ...\VC\Tools\MSVC\<version>\lib\spectre\x64. Check:

"%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer\vswhere.exe" -products * -requires Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Runtimes.x86.x64.Spectre -property installationPath

Then from the repo (Git Bash is fine):

npm install

If you added Spectre after a failed install, you do not need to delete node_modules. Re-run:

npx @electron/rebuild -m .

MSB8040 (“Spectre-mitigated libraries are required”) means that component is still missing. Do not disable Spectre in node-pty’s binding.gyp.

Opening a Pi (or Claude/Codex) tab can fail with Cannot create process, error code: 2 if Windows cannot find the CLI, or error code: 193 if DevTool tries to CreateProcess a .cmd shim directly. Electron does not see Git Bash’s PATH, and npm’s pi is usually pi.cmd. Set Settings → AI Tools → Command path after enabling the tool, or put npm’s global bin on PATH (%AppData%\npm). DevTool wraps .cmd through cmd.exe.

New Terminal tabs on Windows are Git Bash (Git\bin\bash.exe --login -i), including when you start DevTool.exe or npm run dev from Explorer or cmd — the app does not rely on an inherited SHELL. Leave the Git Bash path empty in Settings → Terminal to auto-detect, or Browse to a bash.exe. PowerShell and Command Prompt are out of scope on this fork. SSH tabs still use the remote $SHELL.

Without admin, without the Visual Studio Installer, or without those Spectre libs, from-source npm install cannot succeed on Windows. Use a pre-built folder instead.

Windows without admin (pre-built portable folder)

A machine that does have admin + VS produces an unpacked app. Recipients copy that folder and run it. They never compile and never run npm install.

On the build machine (Windows x64, after a successful npm install as above):

npm run build:win

That writes a portable directory (typically dist/win-unpacked). Zip that folder and give it to the locked-down PC. Run DevTool.exe from inside it. Keep a portable Node zip next to it if you want node on PATH for terminals later (Settings → Node directory). Pick a conda env per project in Project Settings when you want that project's python.

Limits of this path:

• It is run-only. You cannot npm run dev or change the Electron native addon without a VS build machine.
• Architecture must match (x64 build for x64 Windows).
• The portable DevTool.exe is unsigned. The build still stamps DevTool's icon and version resources onto it (an afterPack hook, scripts/win-rcedit.cjs, runs the rcedit npm package; no certificate), so Task Manager and file properties say DevTool, not Electron.

Windows installer (per-user Setup.exe)

npm run build:win:setup

That writes dist/DevTool-Setup-<version>.exe (per-user NSIS installer: no admin, installs under %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\DevTool, adds a Start Menu shortcut) and dist/DevTool-<version>-win.zip (the portable folder, zipped). The portable folder from npm run build:win stays the no-admin escape hatch. Uninstalling never touches ~/.devtool. It is electron-builder NSIS, so electron-winstaller stays unapproved.

Both are unsigned until a code-signing certificate exists. SmartScreen will warn: More info → Run anyway.

Releases are cut by hand on the Windows build machine: npm run release:win builds both and uploads them as a draft GitHub Release (needs gh logged in); publish the draft on GitHub. With a certificate, npm run release:win -- --signed (see scripts/sign-win.cjs for DEVTOOL_SIGN_CMD / DEVTOOL_PUBLISHER_NAME) also uploads latest.yml, which lets signed installs update themselves.

Updates

Packaged builds check github.com/TeleporterGuy/DevTool/releases at launch and every few hours (Settings → Updates, or the menu's Check for Updates…; the automatic check can be turned off). Unsigned builds — the portable folder, an unsigned Setup.exe, macOS/Linux dirs — never replace themselves: they say a new version exists and open its release page. Only a signed Setup.exe install downloads and installs updates on its own.

Development

npm run dev

Starts the app in development mode with hot reload. On Windows this still needs the from-source native rebuild above.

Build

npm run build          # Typecheck, then production JS/CSS bundle
npm run build:win      # Portable Windows folder (dist/win-unpacked)
npm run build:win:setup # Per-user Setup.exe + portable zip (dist/)
npm run build:mac      # Package macOS app
npm run build:linux    # Package Linux app

Install (build + system install)

./scripts/install.sh

Builds and installs the app system-wide. Supports macOS (arm64) and Linux (x86_64, arm64). On macOS it copies to /Applications, on Linux it installs to /opt/DevTool with a desktop entry and /usr/local/bin/devtool symlink. Windows uses npm run build:win and copying dist/win-unpacked instead.

Test

npm test               # Run tests
npm run test:watch     # Run tests in watch mode
npm run typecheck      # tsc over src/ and tests/ (tsconfig.typecheck.json)
npm run lint           # ESLint (eslint.config.mjs); warnings are allowed, errors fail

npm install sets git config core.hooksPath .githooks, so commits run .githooks/pre-commit: ESLint on the staged JS/TS files plus a full typecheck. Skip it once with git commit --no-verify.

Live notebook kernel smoke (real jupyter_client / ipykernel, no Electron window). Needs a conda env with those packages. Git Bash:

NOTEBOOK_LIVE=1 npm test -- tests/notebook-kernel.live.test.ts

CI (.github/workflows/ci.yml):

• test (macOS / Linux / Windows) — typecheck and tests with Node 24, plus lint and npm run build on Linux. The Windows job adds the MSVC Spectre-mitigated libs to the runner's Visual Studio if they are missing, since postinstall compiles node-pty. Live kernel and live SSH (DEMO_SSH=1) stay skipped.
• notebook-live-windows — the unit suite plus the live kernel smoke (NOTEBOOK_LIVE_REQUIRED=1) after Miniforge + ipykernel / jupyter_client. Skips the native rebuild (npm ci --ignore-scripts). Toolbar clicks and Monaco stay a human check on a Windows box.

License

MIT. Original work by join3r; this fork by TeleporterGuy.