Herdr ships native desktop app for managing terminals and coding agents together

Herdr has released a native desktop application that pairs terminals with AI coding agents in a single window, backed by a separate process that keeps sessions alive after the window closes. According to the project's GitHub repository, which surfaced on the Hacker News front page on October 30, the app is built for development work that now spans many terminals, repositories and machines at once.

A window that renders, a core that runs

The design splits the two roles. The desktop window handles the arrangement — what you see — while a component called herdr-core is what actually runs the terminals. Shutting the window therefore leaves sessions running inside the core, whereas closing an individual pane or tab does end the terminals it holds. After a core crash or a reboot, preserved panes return with fresh shells opened in their previous folders rather than resuming the programs that were running before.

Spaces, tabs and an agents sidebar

Work lives in "spaces," each usually tied to one machine and often one repository, containing tabs that can be split into panes so terminals and mod panels sit side by side. An unnamed space follows the folder of its first terminal, and new tabs open in the focused terminal's directory.

The feature aimed most directly at agent-heavy workflows is the agents sidebar, which gathers every agent from all spaces into a single list, including workers spawned by other agents. Agents that report their state show up as working, blocked, done or idle, so it is visible at a glance which tasks need a human. Clicking an agent jumps to it, and a worker without its own pane opens as a transient "peek" overlay above the current tab. Terminal references in output, such as t7 for a local terminal or vps/t7 for one on another machine, can be peeked at by ctrl-clicking, or cmd-clicking on macOS.

Remote machines stay alive

Herdr can also run work elsewhere. Adding an SSH host from settings or the sidebar makes spaces on that machine execute their terminals remotely instead of locally. Each machine's core keeps its own spaces, tabs and splits, and screens connected to it share that structure and the live terminals while keeping their own focus and zoom. Remote work survives a closed local window or a sleeping laptop for as long as the remote machine and its core stay up.

Platforms, installers and trust

Release builds cover Linux in both x86-64 and ARM64 (needing a desktop session and a functioning Vulkan driver), Apple Silicon macOS — Intel Mac owners must compile from source — and 64-bit Windows 10 1803 or newer. Installation is a curl-piped shell script on Linux and macOS or a PowerShell one-liner on Windows, and both installers also set up herdr-core if it is missing. The repository is upfront that the installers download and execute code, and suggests reading them first, a candor that extends to the rest of the security story. Anyone can build the app from source using Rust 1.95.0 and Zig 0.16.0 with the project's just recipes.

Layouts, mods and agent control

A command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P, or Cmd+Shift+P on macOS) exposes every command, and settings cover fonts, colors, sounds and other preferences. Three layouts ship with the app, among them a retro-styled Herdr 98, and "mods" — small JavaScript programs that draw panels, menus and dialogs — allow deeper reshaping of the interface. The repository stresses that mods run as trusted code and are not sandboxed, advising caution before installing someone else's. Shipped layouts and mods must be duplicated before editing, and a broken edit falls back to the last good version while reporting the error. Key bindings are remappable through a keys.json file.

Agents get their own hooks as well: commands such as herdr-app ls, status and commands let an agent inspect the open window, and a herdr-core skill points agents to the relevant guide. The stated division of labor is that herdr-core runs and coordinates programs while the app controls what is visible.

Updates and telemetry

Installed releases check for updates in the background and place a new build beside the running one, which takes effect on the next launch; versions built from source do not update themselves. Usage telemetry is switched on by default in release builds and can be turned off in the privacy settings.

Why it matters

Developers increasingly run several coding agents at once, alongside the ordinary terminals those agents depend on, while most terminal emulators were designed for one human and one shell. Herdr targets exactly that gap: a status list that surfaces blocked agents, peek views for quick inspection, and a core that keeps local and remote sessions alive across closed windows and sleeping laptops. The trade-offs deserve attention — unsandboxed mods, opt-out telemetry and piped installers all lean on user trust — but as an indication of where terminal software is heading, from emulators toward coordination surfaces for machine collaborators, the launch is a concrete step.