Tessera – Local Control Room for Coding Agents

What it is Tessera is a desktop‑and‑web application that lets you run multiple AI coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode) side‑by‑side, keep each agent’s terminal or GUI session isolated in its own Git worktree, and manage the whole workflow from a Kanban board. It is built with Electron/Next.js and talks to the providers through the already‑installed CLIs, so all processing stays on your machine.

Why it matters When you use AI‑driven coding assistants, you often end up with a handful of terminal windows and scattered Git branches. Tessera turns that chaos into a single visual workspace:

• Parallel agents can work on independent tasks without overwriting each other’s branches.
• You can switch between a raw PTY and a readable “chat view” without stopping the underlying process.
• All Git actions (diffs, commits, PR creation) are available inside the same UI, reducing context‑switching.
• Mobile remote access lets you continue a session from a phone.

Key features

Feature	What it does
Parallel sessions	Launch independent Claude Code, Codex, or OpenCode sessions, each with its own isolated worktree.
Kanban board	Cards represent chats or worktree‑backed tasks; move them through Chat → Todo → Doing → Review → Done while seeing live agent output and diffs.
PTY + Chat view	Turn a live terminal conversation into a clean, scrollable chat thread without killing the PTY.
Image tab	In Codex terminals you can view generated images alongside the prompts that produced them and drag them into later prompts.
Git integration	Edit files, stage changes, commit, push, and open pull requests without leaving Tessera.
Custom model IDs	Add non‑standard model identifiers in Settings and select them when starting a session.
Mobile remote	Pair a phone, continue PTY/GUI sessions, and open any panel from the device.
Lead‑agent orchestration	A special /tessera-cli command can be invoked from a managed session to create worktrees, launch other sessions, wait for results, and issue follow‑up prompts.
Telemetry control	Anonymous usage telemetry is opt‑out during onboarding or via Settings.

Installation options

• Desktop app – Download a signed .dmg (macOS), portable .exe (Windows), or .deb/.pkg.tar.zst (Linux) from the GitHub releases page.
• Browser runtime – npm install -g @horang-labs/tessera && tessera (requires Node 20+). Opens a local URL.
• Docker Compose – Pull the repo, create the data directories, and run docker compose up --build -d.

Typical workflow

1. Install the provider CLI(s) (claude login, codex login, etc.).
2. Start Tessera and pick a project folder.
3. Create a task card on the Kanban board and launch a session with the desired model.
4. Let the agent edit files, run tests, or generate code; watch the live PTY or switch to Chat view.
5. When the work is done, use the built‑in Git UI to commit, push, and open a PR—all without leaving the app.
6. Optionally, use /tessera-cli from within a session to have a “lead” agent coordinate multiple worker agents.

Who should use it

• Individual developers who rely heavily on AI coding assistants and want a unified UI.
• Teams (future roadmap) that need shared workspaces, governance, and analytics for agent‑driven development.
• Researchers or hobbyists experimenting with multi‑agent pipelines and want a local, privacy‑preserving environment.

License Tessera is released under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL‑3.0).