Aricode Desktop is here

The terminal REPL isn't going anywhere. But some things are genuinely better with a graphical interface: browsing a file tree while the agent works, reviewing diffs inline, managing providers without memorizing slash commands, or just seeing your conversation history without scrolling through a terminal buffer.

That's what Aricode Desktop is. Not a replacement for the CLI — a companion to it. Same aricode SDK underneath, same agent loop, same tool execution. Just a different surface.

What you get

The desktop app is a three-panel Electron application built on the aricode SDK. The left panel is a file tree with live git diff badges. The center is your conversation with the agent. The right panel switches between tool activity, git status, and settings.

Everything streams. When the agent thinks, you see it. When it reads a file, edits code, or runs a command, each action appears in real time — not after the fact.

The features that matter

• File tree with git diff. Modified files show +N/-N line counts. New files get a green badge. Deleted files are struck through. The tree refreshes after every agent turn.
• Inline diff viewer. Colored unified diffs with line number gutters, addition/deletion highlighting, and per-file revert buttons. Not just a badge — real diffs.
• Integrated terminal. A proper PTY-backed terminal pane at the bottom, styled to match. Full interactive shell with your workspace as the working directory.
• Knowledge graph. A force-directed visualization of your codebase structure. Files are nodes, relationships are edges. Hover to inspect, toggle labels, color-coded by directory.
• Session persistence. Conversations auto-save and resume. Browse past sessions from the sidebar, click to restore the full conversation including agent context.
• Provider management. Add, switch, and delete model providers from the settings panel. First-launch onboarding walks you through connecting to Ollama, LM Studio, OpenAI, or any OpenAI-compatible backend.
• Slash command palette. Type / and a drop-up menu appears with all available commands, keyboard navigation, and tab completion.
• Conversation search. Cmd+F to search through all messages with match navigation.
• Export. Save your conversation as Markdown or JSON.
• Git panel. Branch name, change count, recent commit log, and one-click commit — all in the detail panel.

The Golden Thread

v0.5.2 also ships a visual rebrand across both the CLI and the desktop app. The old purple palette is gone, replaced with a warm amber and gold theme — the golden thread of Ariadne's myth. Dark warm backgrounds, gold accents on structural elements, moss green for success, ember red for errors.

The REPL got new labyrinth-wall side decorations, a diamond pulse spinner, double-line box borders, and a compact header that shows the current mode (thinking, responding, executing) in distinct colors.

Session resume in the CLI too

This isn't desktop-only. The terminal REPL now persists conversation messages to conversation.jsonl alongside the existing session files. If the file is less than 24 hours old, aricode automatically resumes the conversation on next launch. Use --continue to force resume regardless of age, or --new-session to start fresh.

How to get it

The desktop app is a standalone macOS application — no separate aricode installation required. Everything is bundled.

# Download the DMG directly
https://release.aricode.dev/Aricode-0.1.0-arm64.dmg

# Or install the CLI as before
curl -fsSL https://install.aricode.dev | sh

Open the DMG, drag to Applications, launch. If you haven't configured a provider before, the onboarding wizard will walk you through it. Your providers are shared between the CLI and the desktop app — they both read from ~/.aricode/providers.json.