Laura

Laura is a TUI workspace that provides your agent with an API over the TUI, allowing your agent to dynamically tile panes while you pair-program.

Your agent can open the file you're discussing, the plan you're following, the diff you just made, or tail logs of your running service. Laura supports every coding agent CLI and agents learn how to use the CLI through agent skills.

Laura lets you:

• Stay in the flow - view a file, a plan, a diff, or a log right in the TUI, without switching windows between the terminal, IDE, and browser.
• Compose the TUI - your agent tiles the workspace from your natural-language conversation through the laura CLI and skills — panes dwindle automatically, each open splitting off the newest.
• Pick your coding agent CLI - Laura hosts a shell your agent runs inside without abstraction, so every CLI and model is compatible.
• Interact in every pane - comment on any file pane and submit the inline review into the chat.
• Learn while staying focused - your agent shows and explains concepts live, step by step.

How it works

Laura runs your agent CLI in a PTY and provides a set of agent skills you or your agent invoke. The skills instruct the agent on how to use the laura CLI, which drives the TUI over a small line-based protocol on a per-agent socket. See the protocol reference to learn more.

Quickstart

1. Install Laura. Requires Rust (stable); installs a laura binary:

cargo install laura-tui --locked   # Rust
uv tool install laura-tui          # uv/pip

Both drop a laura binary on PATH. Or from a clone: cargo build --release --locked → target/release/laura.

2. Install the skill so your agent knows how to drive laura. In Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add thomaseleff/laura-tui
/plugin install laura@laura-tui

3. Start Laura and run the interactive demo:

laura -- claude "/laura:demo"

4. Pair-program. Chat as you normally would with your coding agent. Ask your agent to show you a file, a plan, or a diff using the /laura skill.

File panes reload when their file changes. Markdown renders with terminal styling; other files show their content with syntax colours, and lines changed since git HEAD are marked in the gutter.

Experimental features are opt-in: set the feature's variable before starting Laura. laura --help lists them, and laura ready tells your agent which ones are on in its tab. See the CLI reference.

Editor panes (experimental). Start Laura with LAURA_EXPERIMENTAL_EDITOR=1 and nvim on PATH (restart the terminal after installing Neovim), and laura open --edit <path> runs Neovim in a pane next to the chat. It doesn't take focus: press Ctrl+P and its id to edit. Ctrl+L flips the pane to its file view to comment and submit an inline review, and back to Neovim. On first start, Laura asks whether Neovim should use its theme, so the two views match. See the CLI reference.

See the tutorial for a first session and navigating the TUI for the keys. Reference lives in the CLI reference for the verb set, the protocol reference for the wire format, and the agent reference for the recipes your agent drives on your behalf.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.