Installation & Setup

What is Daintree?

Daintree is a free, open-source desktop application that hosts AI coding agents in a review-first workspace. Each task can run in its own isolated Git worktree, so several agents work in parallel without touching each other's branches. Agents run as CLI processes inside panels you watch live. Review Hub is where you inspect, stage, and commit their changes before any of it goes upstream. You delegate the work, watch it run, and check the result before it merges.

If you already run agents from the command line, the model maps onto what you do today:

System Requirements

Daintree runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux. You need three things:

• Git. Daintree manages Git worktrees, so Git has to be installed and on your PATH.
• Node.js v18.0.0+. Used to install agent CLIs via npm. Skip it if you install your agents through a different package manager.
• One or more AI agent CLIs. At least one of the supported agents, installed and on your PATH (see below).

Download & Install

Download the latest release for your platform. Architecture (x64 vs arm64) is a separate question from the packaging format. Pick the format you want; Daintree sorts out the architecture:

Most people want the DMG on macOS and the NSIS installer on Windows. The Windows installer is a single .exe that picks the right architecture at runtime, so there's no separate arm64 download to choose.

sudo dpkg -i daintree_*.deb

chmod +x Daintree-*.AppImage
./Daintree-*.AppImage

sudo sysctl -w kernel.apparmor_restrict_unprivileged_userns=0

echo 'kernel.apparmor_restrict_unprivileged_userns=0' | sudo tee /etc/sysctl.d/99-daintree-userns.conf

sudo apt install libfuse2t64

Installing Agent CLIs

Daintree runs AI coding agents as CLI processes. Install the ones you plan to use:

Claude Code

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

For one-off use without a global install, run npx @anthropic-ai/claude-code instead.

Gemini CLI

npm install -g @google/gemini-cli

Codex CLI

npm install -g @openai/codex

OpenCode

npm install -g opencode-ai@latest

OpenCode also installs through platform-specific methods:

curl -fsSL https://opencode.ai/install | bash

brew install opencode

scoop install opencode

choco install opencode

curl -fsSL https://opencode.ai/install | bash

brew install opencode

Cursor Agent

curl https://cursor.com/install -fsS | bash

irm 'https://cursor.com/install?win32=true' | iex

curl https://cursor.com/install -fsS | bash

Once it's installed, run cursor-agent login to authenticate.

Kiro

curl -fsSL https://cli.kiro.dev/install | bash

Confirm the install with kiro-cli --version, then sign in:

kiro-cli login

The Kiro CLI documentation has the rest.

Copilot

npm install -g @github/copilot

Confirm the install with copilot --version, then sign in:

copilot login

The Copilot CLI documentation has the rest.

First Launch

The first launch opens the Welcome Screen. Nothing pops up over you, and no wizard takes the window. The Welcome Screen shows one setup nudge at a time, and you decide when to act on it.

Daintree runs as a single instance. Try to open a second copy and it focuses the existing window instead.

Welcome Screen

The Welcome Screen is what you see when no project is open. It shows exactly one nudge at a time, in priority order, so you never face a stack of competing cards:

1. Set up your AI agents. A banner with a Set up agents button (opens the wizard) and a Not now link. Dismiss it and it stays dismissed across sessions.
2. Installed agents found. After Daintree scans your PATH, if it finds agent CLIs you haven't pinned to the toolbar, this card lists them as chips with a Pin all to toolbar button. It shows up only after the banner is dealt with, when there's at least one launchable agent and none are pinned.
3. Getting Started checklist. The inline checklist (covered below) takes over once the cards above are cleared.

Agent Setup Wizard

The wizard never opens itself. It runs only when you ask for it, from the Set up agents banner on the Welcome Screen, the Set Up Agents item in the agent tray, Settings, or the Action Palette. There's no post-creation wizard, so creating a worktree won't trigger it.

It runs in three steps: select your agents, install any that aren't set up yet, and confirm. A step counter in the header tracks where you are.

Step 1: Select agents

Step 1 puts theme selection, system requirements, and agent selection in one view.

At the top is a collapsible System requirements accordion. It's collapsed by default, showing your Git and Node.js versions inline in the header when everything passes. If a required tool is missing, it expands on its own:

• Git (required) and Node.js v18.0.0+ (required) have to be present.
• npm and GitHub CLI are recommended but don't block setup.

After you install a missing tool, click Re-check to update the results.

Below the requirements check is the theme picker, with two cards: Daintree (dark) and Bondi Beach (light). Each card shows a mini UI preview, and clicking one applies it right away. The rest of the themes live in Settings > Appearance.

Next is a Help improve Daintree toggle for anonymous crash reports. No file contents and no credentials are ever included.

The agent list comes last, split into two tiers:

• Featured agents: Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Codex
• More agents: OpenCode, Cursor, Kiro, Copilot

Installed agents float to the top of their tier and are pre-selected. Click Continue to move on, or Skip to close the wizard without changing anything.

Step 2: Install agents

Step 2 installs any agents you selected that aren't already on your system. If everything you picked is already installed, the wizard goes straight to Step 3.

Each agent shows as a card with a status badge: Installed, Installing, Failed, Manual, or Not installed. Click Install on a card to run that agent's install command, or use Install All to run them one after another.

Agents with more than one install method (npm versus Homebrew, for example) carry a method switcher on their card. If an install fails, expand Show error log for the stderr output, or copy the manual install command from the card.

At the bottom is a Skip Permissions section, for agents that can launch without interactive permission prompts. Turn it on per agent to have Daintree launch those agents in skip-permissions mode.

Use Back to return to Step 1 if you need to change your selection.

Step 3: Setup complete

The final step confirms how many agents are ready. Three agents ship with default shortcuts; you bind the rest yourself from Settings > Keyboard Shortcuts.

OpenCode, Cursor, Kiro, and GitHub Copilot install fine from the wizard but ship without a default launch shortcut. Assign one in Settings > Keyboard using the Cmd+Alt+letter form. The full list is in Agent Shortcuts.

Click Finish Setup to close the wizard.

Agent Tray Discovery

The agent tray (the plug icon in the toolbar) tracks which agents are available. When it spots a newly available agent you haven't seen, it puts a small blue discovery badge on the tray icon and a New pill next to that agent in the dropdown. The badge holds off while the Installed agents found card is on screen, so the two don't compete for your attention, and it stops flagging an agent after about two weeks even if you never launch it.

The dropdown groups agents into Launch (ready to go), Needs Setup, and Available Agents (the fallback list when nothing is installed yet). At the bottom are Manage Agents, Customize Toolbar, and Set Up Agents. For pinning and managing agents, see AI Agents.

Getting Started Checklist

A short checklist tracks the core Daintree workflows. It shows up in two places:

• Inline on the Welcome Screen. The counter starts at 1/5, because installing Daintree counts as the first item and is already checked for you.
• Floating panel pinned to the bottom-right corner once a project is open. Its counter runs 0/4 through 4/4 over the four workflow items below.

The four workflow items are the same in both places:

1. Open your project. Connect a local folder. Clicking it opens the folder picker.
2. Ask AI to help with your code. Agents can write code, fix bugs, and answer questions about your codebase. Clicking it opens the agent palette.
3. Start a parallel task. Work on two things at once without switching branches. Clicking it opens the create worktree dialog.
4. Run two agents in parallel. Start a second agent while the first keeps working. This is the job Daintree is built for. Clicking it opens the create worktree dialog so you can start the second task in its own branch.

Items tick themselves off as you do the matching action, so you never check anything by hand. Each check badge fills accent green with a small pop as it completes. The floating panel stays accent-tinted while there's work left and goes neutral once you're done; the counter switches to accent only at the final All set state.

When all four are done, a short burst of confetti fires from the panel. With reduced motion turned on, you get a single success-tinted flash instead of particles. The checklist doesn't close itself when you finish, so you decide whether to leave it up or put it away.

Keyboard Shortcut Tips

Daintree teaches its shortcuts as you go. Hover over a control for a moment, or tab to it with the keyboard, and a small Tip: chip appears with the shortcut for that action (for example Cmd+K). It shows up before you've used the action and steps back once you know it, so it's there when it helps and quiet when it doesn't. For the full reference and how to customize bindings, see Keyboard Shortcuts.

Opening a Project

Open a project from File > Open Directory (Cmd+O on macOS), or with the project switcher in the toolbar.

A Daintree project has to be a Git repository. Select a directory that isn't one, and Daintree walks you through initializing it:

1. Run git init
2. Optionally create a .gitignore file
3. Stage all files and create an initial commit

The dialog lets you pick a .gitignore template (Node, Python, Minimal, or None) and decide whether to create an initial commit. A progress log shows each step as it runs.

Once a project is open, Daintree scans for existing worktrees and loads any saved state: terminal sessions, panel layout, recipes.

If you don't have a local copy of the repository yet, you can clone one from inside Daintree. See Cloning a Repository for the details.

Recent Projects

Recently opened projects are under File > Open Recent. They're sorted by the last time you opened them, and each entry shows the project path so you can tell them apart.

Daintree CLI

The daintree command (macOS and Linux only) opens any directory in Daintree straight from your terminal. It works like code . in VS Code. If Daintree is already running, it handles the request internally and opens the directory in a new window rather than launching a second instance.

Installing the CLI

Install the CLI from inside Daintree, via Terminal > Install Daintree Command Line Tool in the menu bar.

echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Usage

Once it's installed, open any directory in Daintree from your terminal:

daintree .              # Open the current directory
daintree ~/projects/my-app  # Open a specific directory
daintree --status       # Check if Daintree is running
daintree --version      # Print the CLI version
daintree --help         # Show usage information

The --status flag exits with code 0 when Daintree is running and 1 when it isn't, which is handy for scripting.