clique-panel 0.50.54

A folder for every CLI on the box. Coding sessions in the browser, kept alive in tmux.
Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, Grok, Antigravity, or anything you add in four lines of config.

CLIque is a driver, not an IDE. It does not parse a vendor's protocol, impersonate a model, or reimplement the tools you already have. It keeps a private tmux server, puts every CLI session in a folder you can actually find, and gives you a browser to jump between them.

If you run more than two coding agents at once, you already know the problem: terminals everywhere, no idea which one is waiting on you, a conversation you cannot get back to. CLIque is the panel for that.

24 MB resident. No framework, no node_modules, no build step. tmux, a PTY, and the Python standard library.

Who it's for

Using one AI coding agent? Claude Code, Codex, Cursor's CLI, Gemini, Grok, Antigravity — CLIque puts it in your browser. Kick off a task, close the laptop, and check on it from your phone on the couch. Nothing to babysit, nothing to install but Python and tmux.

Running several at once? You already know the problem: terminals everywhere, no idea which one is waiting on you, a conversation you cannot get back to. CLIque is the one screen in front of all of them — folders, a status ring on each, one click to jump, and a real phone notification when one wants you.

Driving a fleet? Run ten agents across ten repos, each in its own git worktree so they do not step on each other, reap the idle ones to reclaim memory and resume them later exactly where they left off, and script the whole thing over an HTTP API.

It is not an IDE, not another AI, and not a replacement for your CLIs — it is the control panel in front of the tools you already use. If you want the tool to be the agent, look elsewhere.

What it does

Not built, on purpose: subagent visualisation, a respawn controller, multi-host, a Ralph loop. Those need to know which vendor is talking. This product does not.

What is next, and why that order: ROADMAP.md. What shipped: CHANGELOG.md.

Quick start

Needs Python 3.11+ and tmux. Nothing else.

git clone https://github.com/thejdubb02/clique.git
cd clique
python3 -m clique password    # prompted; stored as an scrypt hash
python3 -m clique             # http://127.0.0.1:3200

State lives in $CLIQUE_HOME, default ~/.clique. To edit the CLI catalogue, python3 -m clique config drops one where your edits survive an upgrade.

Once it is on PyPI, pip install clique-panel gives you a clique command (the package is clique-panel because clique there is an unrelated library).

It binds to loopback on purpose. Put a tunnel in front of it (Tailscale Serve, Caddy, nginx) if you want it from another machine. Do not bind it to the public internet. Anyone who reaches the panel has a terminal as the user that started it.

# optional: behind Tailscale
tailscale serve --bg --set-path /clique http://127.0.0.1:3200

A systemd user unit is in deploy/.

GET /healthz answers without a login ({"ok":true} and nothing else), so Uptime Kuma, Gatus or Healthchecks can watch it.

Adding a CLI

A block in clique/config/clis.toml. Reload the page. No restart, no code:

[cli.grok]
label   = "Grok CLI"
command = "grok"
args    = []
color   = "#6f42c1"

There is no per-CLI branch in the codebase. If adding one ever needs a code change, the design has failed.

Claude Code and Gemini CLI can also declare an autonomy pill (the mode above the prompt). That is four keys in the same block (modes, mode_key, mode_label), documented in the comments of clis.toml. Omit them and the pill stays hidden, which is the right default for a CLI whose approval is a launch flag.

Why it is stdlib-only

A coding-agent session already costs hundreds of megabytes. The manager's job is to disappear into that budget. Measured: 24 MB resident.

That also means the real ceiling on concurrent sessions is the agents, not this. On a 16 GB box with ~9 GB free, roughly a dozen at once.

Design notes that are easy to get wrong

• Own tmux server (tmux -L clique). Isolated from everything else on the box.
• A PTY exists only while a browser is attached. An idle session costs this process nothing; cost scales with open tabs, not with session count.
• Each viewer gets its own grouped tmux session. Plain attach makes every client share one size, so tmux shrinks the pane to the smallest watcher.
• Closing a tab is not killing a session. Detach sends SIGHUP; tmux and the CLI carry on.
• kill() refuses sessions that are not ours unless forced.

Tests

Neither suite is mocked. The failure modes worth catching (tmux quoting, a PTY that never gets its first byte) only exist across a real socket. GitHub Actions runs all three on every push. They start their own panel and tmux server, so they cannot touch the one you are using.

python3 tools/smoke.py                 # engine, against a real tmux server
python3 tools/smoke_http.py            # server, over real HTTP + WebSocket
python3 tools/api_drift.py             # API.md still covers every route and setting
ruff check .

They will not catch a UI that renders wrong. Open the page for that.

Contributing

Patches welcome, with a short filter: CONTRIBUTING.md. Feature ideas that need to know which vendor is talking get refused. That is the product, not a freeze.

Support the dev

Free, and staying that way. If it saved you an afternoon, this is the tip jar.

Buy me a coffee

License

MIT. Built by Justin Willhite.

A hole that reaches a terminal is a private advisory, not a public issue. See SECURITY.md.