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# Catenary

> The IDE for coding agents. Your editor, your terminals and your agents — in one window, talking to each other.

Catenary is a desktop IDE (Electron + Chromium) with two lenses on the same work. On
the Canvas, an infinite, zoomable surface, terminals, Monaco editors, browsers and AI
coding agents are not tabs stacked in a rail — they are panels floating in space,
side by side, where you put them. TerminalMap shows the same work as keyboard-driven
terminal splits with a session switcher; one shortcut switches between the two and
nothing restarts. It exists for one shape of work: running more than one AI coding
agent at the same time without losing track of what each of them is doing: a
workspace that organizes your projects and the agents in them, and lets those agents
talk to each other.

## What is distinctive

- **Connection wires** — a line between two panels. By default it is a permission:
  the agents at each end reach each other with catenary ask, and nothing travels
  until one of them asks. It can also relay each finished turn automatically, or run
  both ways as a budgeted conversation. Agents in the same session reach each other
  even without a wire. It replaces copying a stack trace between windows.
- **1-click worktrees** — the New Task button creates an isolated git branch, its own
  working directory and, given a task, an agent to work in it (with no task, a plain
  terminal), without touching the code in front of you. Three experiments run in
  parallel and none of them collide.
- **Maestro Mode** — one agent recruits, briefs and wires a team of helpers. Off by
  default and switched on by a human click. Recruiting or dismissing an agent opens an
  editable approval card before anything happens on the canvas; wiring two of its agents
  together is approved on its own, unless they are in different worktrees.
- **Monaco editor with diffs** — the editor VS Code is built on, inside the canvas,
  with a side-by-side diff of everything an agent touched, and a git-aware file tree.
- **Local-first** — no account, no telemetry, no sign-up. Catenary runs no model and
  never routes your prompts: the agents are the CLIs you already installed, with the
  API keys you already pay for. Canvas state lives in the project folder itself.

## Facts

- Current version: 1.2.0
- Platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux
- Licence: closed-source, proprietary software. A free tier exists with no time
  limit; Pro is a one-time payment of US$ 19 (R$ 85 in Brazil) for the
  1.x line, not a subscription, and covers up to 2 of the holder's personal computers
  activated at a time, with a slot freed at any moment from inside the app.
- Pro can be bought today. A 7-day trial also runs inside the app: no card, no account.
- Licence check: the key is verified offline by a locally checked Ed25519 signature.
  You start Pro activation, seat removal and redemption of the 7-day trial.
  An unconfirmed Pro seat retries activation automatically on launch while
  temporary Pro is active, within a 30-day grace period. Confirmed Pro is
  verified locally, without periodic server revalidation or heartbeat. Separately, it
  asks GitHub Releases for updates about 5 s after launch and every 15 minutes while
  open; that request carries no personal data and never reaches us.
- Built by Catenary, Brazil.
  Support: support@thecatenary.app
- Languages: English at https://thecatenary.app, Brazilian Portuguese at https://thecatenary.app/pt

## Documentation

- [Introduction](https://thecatenary.app/docs): Catenary is the IDE for coding agents: a desktop app with two lenses on the same work. On the Canvas, an infinite canvas you can zoom, terminals, editors, browsers and coding agents are not tabs stacked in a rail — they are panels that float in space, side by side, where you put them. TerminalMap shows the same work as keyboard-driven terminal splits with a session switcher; ⌥⌘S switches between the two, and nothing restarts.
- [Installation guide](https://thecatenary.app/docs/installation): Catenary ships as a normal desktop installer for Windows, macOS and Linux. This page covers the download, the operating-system warnings you will see, and why they exist.
- [Bring your setup](https://thecatenary.app/docs/import): Coming from VS Code, Cursor or Ghostty? Catenary reads their preference files and shows exactly what it would change before it changes anything.
- [Core concepts](https://thecatenary.app/docs/concepts): Ten words the rest of this documentation assumes. Read once; the vocabulary is small on purpose.
- [The two lenses](https://thecatenary.app/docs/lenses): Catenary shows the same work in two ways. The Canvas is the infinite canvas where panels float and wires connect agents. TerminalMap is the terminal orchestrator: a grid of terminal splits with a session switcher, made for the keyboard. ⌥⌘S switches between them at any time.
- [The infinite canvas](https://thecatenary.app/docs/canvas): The canvas is the whole point. Everything else is a panel on it.
- [Terminals & agents](https://thecatenary.app/docs/terminals-agents): A terminal panel is a real terminal: xterm.js on the front, a native PTY (node-pty) on the back, rendered through WebGL. Anything that runs in your shell runs here.
- [LSP and tools for agents](https://thecatenary.app/docs/agent-tools): Catenary runs one language server for your code and shares it between the editor and the agents. It also gives every agent running in a Catenary terminal a set of tools to drive the IDE: open a file, split a terminal, start a task, ask for your attention. There is nothing to configure.
- [Extensions Hub & MCP](https://thecatenary.app/docs/extensions): The puzzle-piece icon in the sidebar opens the Extensions Hub. It has three tabs: Installed, Install and MCP.
- [Connection wires](https://thecatenary.app/docs/wires): A wire is a line between two panels. By default it is a permission: the two agents can reach each other with catenary ask, and nothing travels until one of them asks. It is the answer to copying a stack trace out of one window and pasting it into another.
- [Maestro Mode & squads](https://thecatenary.app/docs/maestro): Maestro Mode lets one agent build and run a team: recruit peers, brief them, wire them together and follow their progress. It is off by default and switched on by a human click.
- [1-click worktrees](https://thecatenary.app/docs/worktrees): The feature that makes parallel agents safe. New Task (⇧⌘N) creates an isolated git branch, its own working directory and, when you give it a task, an agent to work in it — without touching the code in front of you.
- [Monaco editor & diffs](https://thecatenary.app/docs/editor): The editor panel is Monaco — the editor VS Code is built on — running inside the canvas.
- [Keyboard shortcuts](https://thecatenary.app/docs/shortcuts): Every binding below is the shipped default, and every one of them is rebindable in Settings, Shortcuts. The combinations follow the operating system picked at the top of the sidebar — and on a Mac they are the very glyphs the app itself displays.

## Product pages

- [Home](https://thecatenary.app): what Catenary is, the canvas, the differentiators and pricing.
- [Install](https://thecatenary.app/install): download, and the operating-system warnings an
  unsigned independent build produces on first run.

## Legal

These three are binding in Brazilian Portuguese for every user, and have no English
counterpart.

- [Privacy policy](https://thecatenary.app/privacy)
- [Terms and EULA](https://thecatenary.app/terms)
- [Plan limits](https://thecatenary.app/plans)

## Optional

- [Full documentation in one file](https://thecatenary.app/llms-full.txt)