anvil-harness 0.1.0

Anvil — a local TUI for any coding agent (Claude Code, Codex, …) with projects, conversations, and cross-conversation memory.

Anvil

A local TUI for any coding agent — Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, and whatever comes next. Anvil gives you projects, persistent conversations, file editing, and cross-conversation memory in one keyboard-driven terminal app.

┌──────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────┐
│ PROJECTS             │  [chat 1][chat 2][+]  (tabs)     │
│  • dental-nation     ├──────────────────────────────────┤
│  • personal-branding │  user: ...                       │
│                      │  assistant: ...                  │
│ FILES                │  🔧 Read foo.py                  │
│  └ src/              │                                  │
│                      │                                  │
│ CONVERSATIONS        │                                  │
│  ● first pass        ├──────────────────────────────────┤
│    bug fix           │  > type message…  📎 Paste       │
└──────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────┘

Why Anvil?

If you use Claude Code or Codex from the CLI, you already know the pain: each conversation lives in its own terminal window, scrollback is fragile, attaching images is awkward, and switching between projects means a tangle of tabs. Anvil keeps the same agents — same auth, same models — but adds the things a full app gives you:

• Multiple projects with their own conversation history and memory.
• Tabs for parallel conversations in the same project.
• A file tree + in-app editor for small reads/edits without leaving the app.
• Mac-native shortcuts (Cmd+C, Cmd+W, Cmd+,) via a custom Terminal profile.
• Agent-agnostic engine layer — point a project at Claude Code today, Codex tomorrow, or both side-by-side.

Anvil is a wrapper, not a replacement. It uses your existing Claude Code OAuth or Codex API key — Anvil never sees your tokens.

Install

Homebrew (recommended for Mac):

brew tap your-org/anvil
brew install --cask anvil

This installs the anvil CLI and copies Anvil.app to /Applications. Launch from Spotlight or the Applications folder.

Pipx (Mac + Linux):

pipx install anvil-harness
anvil

You'll also need at least one agent CLI installed (see below).

Agent setup

Anvil shows a one-time setup wizard on first launch that walks you through this, but for reference:

Agent	Install	Auth
Claude Code	npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code	claude (OAuth flow)
Codex CLI	npm install -g @openai/codex	codex login or set OPENAI_API_KEY
Mock	(built in)	none — offline echo

Anvil never sends your credentials anywhere. It calls your local agent CLI directly; auth lives wherever those CLIs put it (~/.claude/, ~/.codex/).

Configuration

Two layers, both edited from the in-app Settings screen (Ctrl+, or Cmd+,):

• ~/.anvil/config.toml — global defaults (agent, model, telemetry opt-in).
• <project>/.harness/config.toml — per-project overrides (only fields that differ from global).

You should never need to hand-edit these. The Settings screen is the canonical UI; the files exist so power users can sync them via dotfiles.

Keyboard

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+N	New chat
Ctrl+O	Open project
Ctrl+,	Settings
Ctrl+Shift+M	Switch agent for current chat
Ctrl+Shift+I	Attach image
Ctrl+Shift+V	Smart paste (text or image)
Ctrl+Shift+W	Close tab
Ctrl+S	Save file (in editor tab)

Mac users with the bundled Terminal profile installed get the Cmd+ versions of these as well (Cmd+W, Cmd+C, Cmd+,).

Contributing

Want to add support for a new agent (Gemini, Cursor Agent, aider, …)? See CONTRIBUTING.md. The agent interface is three methods and one registration line.

Development

git clone https://github.com/your-org/anvil-harness
cd anvil-harness
uv sync
uv run anvil

License

MIT — see LICENSE.