OpenClide

Build a Clide‑like AI‑native terminal for macOS —
from a design spec, not a source drop.

Website · Manifesto · Architecture · Feature specs · Agent prompts

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The idea

OpenClide is the first repository in a new kind of open‑source project: we publish the idea, the architecture notes, the design decisions, and the initialization prompts for Claude Code — but not the product's source.

Given modern coding agents, these artifacts are enough. You hand them to Claude Code, iterate, and you end up with a working app. Your code belongs to you; our design belongs to everyone.

This is the companion design spec for Clide — an AI‑native Mac terminal built by Paean / a8e.

What you'll build

A native macOS terminal that turns your shell into an AI‑native workspace — shipped from a 2.5 MB signed and notarized app.

• ✦ AI Summary — Watches terminal activity and drafts concise, reviewable session summaries. Catch errors you missed; resume context after a break.
• ⊞ Grid panes — Flexible tiled shells from 1×1 up to 6×6. Toolbar grid picker; one click to rearrange.
• 📁 Workspace sidebar — Source‑list file tree with drag‑to‑insert paths. Switch workspaces from the dropdown. Toggle with ⌘B.
• 🎤 Voice input — Hold‑to‑talk or toggle mode with Apple's on‑device speech recognition. Configurable hotkeys.
• ⚡ Loop mode — Automate multi‑shell flows (build → test → deploy) with declarative step definitions.
• 🤖 Local CLI agent integration — Wire Claude Code / codex‑cli as a first‑class pane, with shell‑level context.
• 🎨 Theme presets — Midnight, Solarized, Nord, Dracula, Light, Catppuccin. Adaptive light/dark.
• ⌘ Native AppKit — Not Electron. Standard macOS shortcuts, Reveal in Finder, toolbar customization.

Every surface has a matching design doc in docs/features/ and a bootstrap prompt in prompts/.

Architecture at a glance

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                   AppKit Window                    │
├─────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────┤
│                     │     Terminal Grid            │
│  Workspace Sidebar  │  ┌─────────┬─────────┐       │
│   (file tree,       │  │ Pane 1  │ Pane 2  │       │
│   drag‑to‑path)     │  ├─────────┼─────────┤       │
│                     │  │ Pane 3  │ ✦  AI   │       │
│                     │  └─────────┴─────────┘       │
├─────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────┤
│  Session Model           │   Input Pipeline        │
│  ├─ PaneTree             │   ├─ Keystroke router   │
│  ├─ HistoryStore         │   ├─ Voice → STT        │
│  └─ SummaryCache         │   └─ Drag‑and‑drop      │
├──────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────┤
│  SwiftTerm               │   Agent Bridge          │
│  (PTY + ANSI renderer)   │   ├─ Claude Code spawn  │
│                          │   └─ Loop orchestrator  │
└──────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────┘

Full component breakdown, process model, and data flow live in docs/architecture.md.

What's in here

openclide/
├── MANIFESTO.md           # why we open‑source the spec, not the source
├── docs/
│   ├── vision.md          # product stance, non‑negotiables, anti‑goals
│   ├── architecture.md    # component map, process model, data flow
│   ├── design-principles.md
│   └── features/          # one doc per major surface
│       ├── terminal-panes.md
│       ├── workspace-file-tree.md
│       ├── agent-sidebar.md
│       ├── local-cli-agent-integration.md
│       ├── loop-mode.md
│       └── magic-summary.md
├── prompts/               # paste‑and‑go prompts for Claude Code
│   ├── 00-bootstrap.md
│   ├── 01-scaffold.md
│   ├── 02-terminal-core.md
│   ├── 03-agent-sidebar.md
│   └── 04-local-agent.md
└── skills/
    └── design-review/     # a Claude Code skill that critiques your
                           # implementation against this spec

Quickstart

1. Install Claude Code.
2. Clone this repo next to (or inside) your target project folder.
3. Open your empty project in Claude Code and paste prompts/00-bootstrap.md.
4. Follow up with the phase prompts in order.
5. When in doubt, point Claude Code at the relevant docs/features/*.md and ask it to "reconcile my implementation with this spec."

You'll end up with your codebase — not ours. Rename it, license it, ship it, sell it.

Why this model

See MANIFESTO.md.

TL;DR — When AI can reliably turn a good spec into working software, the spec becomes the high‑leverage artifact. Open‑sourcing source code is still valuable, but it doesn't scale to letting thousands of teams ship their own variant of your product without forking. Open‑sourcing the design does.

License

What	License
Docs and prompts	CC BY 4.0 — use them, remix them, ship products built from them. Credit is the only ask.
Any code you write from these prompts	Yours entirely. No viral clauses. No attribution requirement on your product.

Related projects

• Clide — the AI‑native Mac terminal these specs describe (signed DMG, ready to download)
• Paean — the platform that powers Clide's hosted agent
• a8e.ai — the agent infrastructure behind it all

Contributing

PRs welcome for:

• Clarifications or corrections to a docs/** file.
• A new feature spec that slots into the design.
• A new Claude Code prompt that demonstrably produces better output than the existing one (include a before/after transcript).

We don't accept PRs that add implementation code — by design.

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_{Built by Paean · Powered by a8e · Terminal rendering by SwiftTerm}