Husk desktop app wraps terminal AI agents in graphical interface

Husk is an Electron-based desktop application that wraps command-line AI agents in a graphical interface. It ships as a single-line installer for Linux, macOS, and Windows. On launch, the user specifies the agent command (default: `claude`) and the agent's display name (default: `Husk`), which are saved to ~/.config/husk/config.json. The app spins up the agent in a real pseudo-terminal (PTY) with full terminal capabilities: tool calls, slash commands, stdin, Ctrl+C, scrollback, and keyboard interrupts all work as they would in a bare terminal.

The core interface is organized into pages accessible via a rail navigation: Chat (the PTY surface with drag-drop file input and a status panel), Agents (select or import agent personas for the next session), Workflows (a visual graph editor for chained steps with conditional branching and AI-routed transitions), Projects (pinned folders that set the agent's working directory), Autopilot (solo or team-based autonomous execution with budget and audit-log supervision), Prompts (a local-only saved-prompt library), Skills (toggle bundled skills or custom ones in ~/.claude/skills/), MCP (install and manage Model Context Protocol servers), Plugins (browse and manage Husk plugins), Files (drag-drop file context with a working-directory tree), and Sessions (resume prior agent conversations from their JSONL logs). Preferences (agent command, name, theme, voice, recap, sidebar defaults) open as a modal from the rail or Alt+6.

Installation differs by platform. On Debian/Ubuntu, `curl -fsSL https://dorshaer.github.io/Husk/install.sh | bash` adds a signed apt repository so `apt upgrade` keeps Husk current. On Fedora, it installs an .rpm; on other Linux, an AppImage. On macOS, it downloads and installs a .dmg (for Apple Silicon or Intel, auto-detected); on first launch, users must clear the quarantine flag with `xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Husk.app` because the builds are not code-signed yet. On Windows, `irm https://dorshaer.github.io/Husk/install.ps1 | iex` downloads the installer, verifies its checksum, and runs it; SmartScreen shows a warning on unsigned builds, requiring users to click More info > Run anyway. All installers verify SHA256 checksums and optionally validate Sigstore build-provenance attestations (via the gh CLI 2.49+).

The Autopilot mode splits a user-provided goal across multiple parallel agent runs. Each run executes in its own git worktree with a dedicated PTY, an independent time/token/dollar budget, a hash-chained audit log, and an optional pre-run snapshot for one-click revert. A swarm bar shows every active run. Workflows can chain steps with conditional branching and AI-decided routing; each step lights up as it runs, and every node keeps its own terminal, allowing independent exploration of parallel branches.

Husk is built on Electron and node-pty. The main process (src/main.js) assembles per-platform PTY spawning: direct pty.spawn on macOS, /usr/bin/script -q -c on Linux (for TIOCSCTTY setup with `claude --resume`), and PATH+PATHEXT resolution on Windows. The preload.js exposes a narrow window.husk API to the renderer through contextBridge, preventing the renderer from accessing Node directly. The renderer is a single-page view with an embedded xterm.js terminal, rail navigation, status panel, and the pages listed above. Helper modules in src/lib/ handle shell quoting, path confinement, PTY spawn assembly, shell PATH inheritance, agent markdown frontmatter parsing, workflow-graph traversal, MCP per-agent adapters, and Autopilot budget/audit/snapshot/supervisor logic; each is unit-tested and decoupled from Electron.

The app bundles LifeOS (a third-party framework) into the install and bootstraps it into ~/.claude/ on first launch. Uninstallation runs `./installer/uninstall.sh`, which removes the launcher, icon, and config; `--keep-data` preserves config and Piper voice models. Platform support is broad but not complete: Linux x86_64 builds are published (AppImage, .deb, .rpm), but arm64 and musl distros (Alpine) are not yet supported. macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon) and Windows (x64) builds are available. All releases ship SHA256SUMS and Sigstore attestations for provenance verification.

Husk addresses a friction point in the adoption of open-source AI tooling: powerful command-line agents like Claude (via the Anthropic CLI) and Aider are free and capable, but their terminal-only interface creates a barrier for users coming from graphical software. The project wraps existing agents without modifying them, preserving their full capabilities—tool calls, slash commands, keyboard interrupts, scrollback—while layering on visual affordances (file drag-drop, a status panel showing running agents, persistent projects, saved prompts) that make workflows discoverable and manageable.

The installation story is designed for simplicity: a single curl or PowerShell command handles checksum verification, platform detection, and registration with the OS (adding a .desktop file on Linux, a .app bundle on macOS, or a Start Menu entry on Windows). On Debian/Ubuntu, the signed apt repository keeps the app current via `apt upgrade`.

Husk also integrates Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers—a standard for extending AI agents with custom tools—with a UI for discovering, installing, and toggling them per skill or folder. The Autopilot mode adds structured autonomy: agents can run in isolated git worktrees with independent token and dollar budgets, hash-chained audit logs, and one-click snapshot revert.

At launch, the tool is feature-complete for local use but carries a few platform limitations: Linux builds are glibc-linked (Alpine is unsupported) and x86_64 only (no arm64 yet); macOS and Windows builds are unsigned (code signing is planned). These constraints suggest the project is early-stage, prioritizing feature velocity over distribution polish.

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