condash 0.4.0

Standalone desktop dashboard for markdown-based conception projects, incidents, and documents.

condash

Standalone desktop dashboard for markdown-based conception projects, incidents, and documents.

condash is a single-user native-feeling application that renders a live dashboard of a directory tree of projects, incidents, and documents written as Markdown — originally the conception repo convention (projects/YYYY-MM-DD-slug/README.md, incidents/…, documents/…). It lets you browse them, track ## Steps checklists, toggle item status, reorder steps, open files in your IDE, and tidy done items into monthly archive folders — all from one window backed by the same Markdown files you edit by hand.

Install

pipx install condash
# or: uv tool install condash

Both install the CLI into its own isolated venv and put condash on your $PATH. The dashboard will not launch until you have created and filled in a config file — see First launch.

System prerequisites

None on Linux, macOS, or Windows. condash ships its native-window backend as a Python dependency: pywebview[qt] pulls PyQt6 + PyQt6-WebEngine + QtPy from PyPI, and those wheels bundle Qt itself. A vanilla pipx install condash is therefore self-contained:

pipx install condash

• Linux — pywebview prefers GTK if python3-gi happens to be installed system-wide, but otherwise falls back to the bundled Qt backend with no extra setup.
• macOS — pywebview uses the native Cocoa WebKit backend by default; Qt is available as a fallback.
• Windows — pywebview uses the native Edge WebView2 backend by default; Qt is available as a fallback.

Install size is ~100 MB because of the bundled Qt wheels — that's the cost of "works everywhere with one command". If you'd rather skip the native window entirely, set native = false in your config (see First launch) and condash will serve the dashboard in your usual browser at http://127.0.0.1:<port>.

Development from a source checkout

git clone https://github.com/vcoeur/condash.git
cd condash
uv sync --all-extras
uv run condash --version
uv run condash               # launches the native window, reading ~/.config/condash/config.toml

First launch

condash does not ship with a working default config — it has no way to guess where your conception directory lives. Bootstrap one:

condash init           # writes a commented template at ~/.config/condash/config.toml
condash config edit    # opens the template in $VISUAL / $EDITOR

The template is fully commented out. Uncomment and edit the lines you need:

conception_path = "/path/to/conception"
workspace_path  = "/path/to/code/workspace"   # optional; enables the repo strip
worktrees_path  = "/path/to/git/worktrees"    # optional; "open in IDE" sandbox
port            = 0                           # 0 = OS picks a free port; set e.g. 3434 to pin one
native          = true                        # false = open in your browser instead of a desktop window

[repositories]
primary = ["repo-a", "repo-b"]
secondary = ["repo-c", "repo-d"]

[open_with.main_ide]
label    = "Open in main IDE"
commands = ["idea {path}", "idea.sh {path}"]

[open_with.secondary_ide]
label    = "Open in secondary IDE"
commands = ["code {path}", "codium {path}"]

[open_with.terminal]
label    = "Open terminal here"
commands = ["ghostty --working-directory={path}", "gnome-terminal --working-directory {path}"]

conception_path is required. Everything else is optional:

• workspace_path — directory containing your code repositories. Every direct subdirectory that contains a .git/ is shown in the dashboard's repo strip. If unset, the entire repo strip is hidden.
• worktrees_path — second directory the "open in IDE" action treats as a safe sandbox alongside workspace_path. Useful if you keep extra git worktrees outside the main workspace tree.
• port — TCP port for the embedded HTTP server. 0 (default) lets the OS pick a free port. Set a fixed value if you want to reach the dashboard from your browser at http://127.0.0.1:<port>.
• native — true (default) opens a desktop window via pywebview. false skips the native window and lets you use any browser; useful if you don't have GTK/Qt Python bindings installed.
• [repositories] — primary and secondary are bare directory names (not paths) matched against what is found under workspace_path. Anything left over lands in an "Others" card. Both lists are ignored when workspace_path is unset.
• [open_with.<slot>] — three vendor-neutral launcher slots (main_ide, secondary_ide, terminal) wired to the per-repo action buttons. Each slot has a label (tooltip text) and a commands fallback chain. Each command is a single shell-style string parsed with shlex; the literal {path} is replaced with the absolute path of the repo being opened. Commands are tried in order until one starts. Built-in defaults reproduce the previous behaviour, so you only need to override the slots you actually want to customise.

Once conception_path is set, run condash to launch the dashboard.

Editing the config from inside the app

Click the gear icon in the dashboard header (next to the light/dark toggle). A modal opens with form fields for every option above; saving writes the file atomically (preserving comments via tomlkit) and reloads the dashboard. Path / repository / open-with changes apply on reload; changes to port or native need a condash restart and the modal will tell you so.

CLI

condash                         # open the dashboard window
condash --version               # print version and exit
condash --conception-path PATH  # one-shot override (does not touch config file)
condash --config PATH           # use a different config file

condash init                    # write a default config template
condash config show             # print the effective configuration
condash config edit             # open the config in $EDITOR
condash tidy                    # move done items into YYYY-MM/ archive dirs

condash install-desktop         # register condash with the XDG launcher (Linux)
condash uninstall-desktop       # remove the user-local desktop entry (Linux)

Linux: register condash in your application launcher

condash install-desktop writes a user-local XDG desktop entry plus the bundled SVG icon, so condash appears in GNOME Activities, KDE Kickoff, Cinnamon menu, and other launchers that read ~/.local/share/applications:

condash install-desktop

This installs:

• ~/.local/share/applications/condash.desktop — the launcher entry, pointing at the absolute path of whichever condash binary you ran the command with (so it survives pipx / venv isolation)
• ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/condash.svg — the SVG app icon

No sudo and no system-wide changes. To remove it later: condash uninstall-desktop.

The native window also picks up the same icon at runtime via pywebview, so it appears in your taskbar / Alt-Tab switcher.

Claude Code skill

A minimal example SKILL.md ships at the repo root — drop it into ~/.claude/skills/condash/ (or <project>/.claude/skills/condash/) to drive the non-interactive CLI surface from a Claude Code session: condash init, condash config show / edit, condash tidy, and condash install-desktop. Launching the native window from inside an agent is deliberately out of scope — run condash by hand for that.

Status

Version 0.2.0 — adds an in-app config editor (gear icon next to the theme toggle) and three vendor-neutral [open_with] launcher slots that replace the previous hardcoded IntelliJ / VS Code / terminal buttons. Also fixes the v0.1.5 desktop-launcher crash where the window icon was forwarded via the wrong pywebview kwarg dict. Still Linux-first overall; macOS and Windows should work but are less tested.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.