One terminal for every coding agent.
Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Cursor, OpenCode and 31 more, in one keyboard-driven window, side by side, working as a team.

chord brings Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI and other coding agents into one terminal interface: the same transcript, diffs, permission prompts, slash commands, @ mentions and plans. It connects to agents through the Agent Client Protocol.

Run agents side by side or give a task to a team. For example, have Codex write a fix and Claude review it, each with its own model and role. Agents exchange messages, permission requests come to you, and a saved team can take on your next task.

npm install -g @chorded/chord
chord            # choose an agent, here
chord codex      # or any other agent

chord opens a title page with the logo, version and directory above the agent picker. Smaller windows shrink the art, then leave just a line, then the picker.

Why chord

• Any agent, one interface. 36 agents out of the box, from the ACP Registry and their own CLIs. Switch agents without relearning keys.
• Agents that work together. Open a second agent beside the one you talk to, hand a job to a saved team, and watch each of them in a list under the prompt. Messages go between them; permissions still come to you.
• Every action has a key. Nothing on screen needs a mouse. ? lists them all, and a keybindings file moves them.
• Nothing to set up. One binary, no account, no daemon. chord starts the agent, keeps the session, and gives it back with chord --continue.
• Open source. MIT, built on OpenTUI and the ACP SDK.

A tour

Replies and diffs you can read

Edits arrive as whole, numbered, highlighted diffs, with long lines wrapped under their code. Copied replies join wrapped text; code outside quotes copies without its box. Blank lines between blocks stay.

You stay in charge

Each permission the agent asks for is a choice under the transcript, answered with a number or the arrows. Between turns, it leaves your typing alone: ctrl+x a moves into the box to answer. shift+tab cycles permission modes.

Agents beside the main one

/new [agent] opens an idle agent beside main and goes to it. The list under the prompt shows agents and teams, their state and unseen news. /fork [name] continues the current conversation in a separate agent where the runtime supports it. /clear starts the picked agent afresh. ctrl+x a takes you to what waits.

Subagents, folded

When the agent fans out, its subagents run as one tree; ctrl+o shows their whole task and work. Claude launches and messages appear as → to Agent(<title>) and ← from Agent(<title>) rows. Claude, Codex and Cursor subagents join monitors and spawned tasks in the background summary under the agents list. From an empty prompt, ↓ past the agents reaches it; Enter opens a frame above the prompt, at most half the screen. Enter shows the item's work or a monitor's command and latest output; x stops where offered.

Teams

Describe how you work and the agent proposes a team: a lead and its members, each on the runtime, model and mode you want. Save it once, then hand it any job with /team run bugfix <job> using its saved composition. In conversation, its instructions can ask the launching agent to read provider limits and select supported settings for that run, leaving the saved team unchanged. Limits are read on request on Apple silicon Macs with installed official Codex or native Claude Code; see the guide for their limits.

Pick up where you left off

chord --resume opens a title page listing earlier sessions by the agent's title, or the first prompt if untitled. Inside a session, /resume opens the list. When you quit, chord prints the command to bring main back.

Install

npm install -g @chorded/chord   # or bun, pnpm, yarn

The package is a small shim around a prebuilt binary for macOS and Linux, arm64 and x64; the macOS binaries are signed and notarised. chord upgrade updates it through the package manager that installed it.

chord starts each agent for you (through npx or uvx, or the agent's own CLI where it has one), so the agent's own login is all it needs: sign in to Claude Code, Codex or Gemini as you normally would.

To build from source, with Bun 1.4.4 or newer:

git clone https://github.com/IKatsuba/chord && cd chord
bun install
bun dev compile --install   # into ~/.local/bin/chord

Use

chord                  # choose an agent in this directory
chord gemini -C ~/src/app
chord agents           # agents, startup commands and own CLI availability
chord acp codex         # serve ACP on stdin and stdout for another client
chord --continue       # the latest session here, again
chord --resume <id>     # a recorded session, on its own agent
chord --resume         # pick an earlier session
chord -p "Explain src/main.tsx"          # one reply on stdout, for scripts
git diff | chord -p "Review this" --output-format json

Inside the window, completion lists, history search, ? and command pickers float over the transcript above the prompt, keeping its height and scroll. The prompt, status and agents stay on their rows:

Settings live in ~/.config/chord/settings.json and the project's .chord/settings.json: the default agent (highlighted in the startup picker when listed), each agent's model, effort and mode, MCP servers, theme and notifications. Each new unnamed interactive start asks again; the pick applies to that run and is not saved. Main's agent can read settings and ask to change allowed keys through settings; each change needs your yes. Reads return only checked settings, with env, headers, command, args and url values masked. Unknown server fields such as token are left out; values under real setting names and agent, server and env key names can reach the model.

The guide has everything else: every flag, setting, key, the team file format, chord's MCP tools for agents, and how sessions are recorded.

Supported agents

Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Copilot, Cursor, OpenCode, Cline, Qwen Code, Kimi Code, Kiro, Goose, Junie, Factory Droid, Auggie, Kilo, bob, Devin, fx and more: chord agents prints the full list, and any other ACP agent runs with chord --agent-command "my-agent --acp".

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. CONTRIBUTING.md has how to run chord from source against its scripted test agent, choose checks for a change, and follow the code conventions. Found a security issue? See SECURITY.md.

The screenshots above are chord itself, captured by bun dev screenshots with fixture settings and sessions and the scripted test agent.

Licence

chord's code is MIT. Its binary includes FFmpeg under LGPL-2.1-or-later through OpenTUI. npm platform packages include LICENSE-FFMPEG, LICENSE-ZLIB and FFMPEG-SOURCE.md beside chord's LICENSE; the guide explains how to rebuild with a modified library. The Chorded name and chevron mark are trademarks of Igor Katsuba, outside the licence; a fork should draw its own (TRADEMARKS.md).

chord is the open sibling of Chorded, a native macOS workspace for agent sessions driven by key chords.