Your agent workbench.

Chimaera runs Claude Code, Codex, and other coding agents in parallel. Drive each as a rich chat UI or its real terminal, with the files they produce rendered beside it, and it shows you which one needs you. The daemon keeps every session alive on the host that owns the work, so you can close your laptop mid-run and nothing dies. Reconnect, and every session is right where you left it.

Download Read the docs
macOS, Linux & Windows (beta) one static binary no root, no containers runs on old-glibc systems
why it exists

One tool instead of two half-fits

Running agents on a remote machine usually takes two tools: code-server in a browser tab to read files, and tmux over SSH to keep the agents alive. Browser terminals die on reload. tmux shows no file output. The reports, plots, and tables an agent produces end up nowhere near the session that made them. Chimaera does both jobs in one window, on the machine that owns the work.

features

What's in it

Sessions survive disconnect

The daemon holds every PTY with full server-side terminal state. Reload, reconnect, or reattach from another machine and you get the same screen back, with no lost scrollback and no broken reconnect.

One launcher for your agents

Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, and Antigravity, each detected if installed, resumable per workspace, and installable from official sources. Binaries live under ~/.chimaera, and your credentials stay yours.

Chat mode or the real TUI

Every agent runs two ways on one session, a toggle apart. Chat mode, the default, is a rich structured UI: tool cards, permission prompts, rewind, and inline previews of what each turn made. Flip to the real claude or codex TUI and it looks, behaves, and bills exactly like your terminal.

Previews and a real file manager

Rich previews for the files agents make: images, Markdown, CSV/TSV, PDF, notebooks, and HTML reports, down to the MultiQC/FastQC output that usually forces a code-server install. It doubles as a real file manager: create, rename, drag to reference, and download outputs from a remote.

Git, built in

A source-control panel with side-by-side diffs, worktree create and remove, a branch per agent, and a session-scoped view of exactly what an agent changed. The review side of git, without leaving the workbench.

A real workbench layout

Split panes, tabs, drag-and-drop, focus mode, and a session strip that says where you are. Terminals and file previews are the same kind of surface, so you arrange them however the work wants.

how it works

The daemon owns the sessions. Windows are views.

local or remote

Connect over your own SSH

chimaera connect <host> shells out to your system ssh, so ProxyJump, ControlMaster, and 2FA from ~/.ssh/config all work as-is. The daemon installs into ~/.chimaera on the host, with no root and no containers.

  • Install-if-missing. Detects the target with uname and drops in the right static binary.
  • Start-or-attach. Reuses a running daemon, tunnels the port, opens the UI.
  • Self-updating. An outdated remote daemon is replaced on connect. An idle shell holding an environment is never killed without asking.
zsh · your laptop 
# run it locally
$ chimaera serve
  → workbench on http://127.0.0.1:9700

# or drive a remote host: HPC login node, dev box, anything
$ chimaera connect gpu-node
  → installing daemon in ~/.chimaera … ok
  → tunnelling :9700 … ok
  → opening workbench
built for shared machines

One static binary. Old glibc. No root.

The daemon cross-compiles to fully static musl binaries (x86_64 and aarch64) that run on old HPC systems, verified on a cluster running glibc 2.17 with no root. It is built to live on a shared login node: bounded allocations, hard ceilings on preview extraction, and about 150 MB RSS at steady state.

  • NFS-safe state. Append-only, size-capped JSONL under ~/.chimaera, so there is no SQLite near Lustre.
  • Good citizen. No busy loops, no unbounded buffers.
  • Native app included. A Tauri shell wraps the same UI with a home screen of workspaces and one-click connect. It auto-updates; quitting kills nothing.
login-node · CentOS 7.9 
$ ldd ./chimaera
  not a dynamic executable

$ ./chimaera serve --port 9700
  chimaera 0.1 · build a1b9f3c
  workspaces: 2 · sessions: 5 (3 live)
  listening on 127.0.0.1:9700
download

Get chimaera

The native app bundles the daemon and auto-updates itself. The standalone daemon binaries are for remote hosts, and chimaera connect installs them for you.

Native app

The workbench in real windows: a home screen of workspaces and remote hosts, one-click connect, and signature-verified auto-update on launch.

latest release · native app
Download for macOS
Apple Silicon · .dmg · auto-updates after install
all downloads
Linux app · x86_64
AppImage · auto-updates · .deb/.rpm on GitHub
Windows app · x64 · beta
NSIS installer · runs the daemon in WSL2 · first run may need setup
Linux daemon · x86_64
static musl
Linux daemon · aarch64
static musl
macOS daemon · aarch64
daemon binary

All releases are on GitHub.

build from source · needs Rust + Node 
$ git clone https://github.com/martinappberg/chimaera
$ cd chimaera
$ npm --prefix web-ui install && npm --prefix web-ui run build
$ cargo build --release -p chimaera
$ ./target/release/chimaera serve
faq

Good to know

How do my agents run and bill?
Two ways, a toggle apart. In the real TUI, an agent runs as the actual claude or codex terminal in a normal PTY, spawned through your login shell with your environment, so it behaves and bills exactly as it does in any terminal. In chat mode (the default), Chimaera drives the same CLI over its structured JSON protocol to render the rich chat UI; that path bills like the CLI's structured/headless mode rather than the interactive TUI. Either way, Chimaera never touches your credentials, it just owns the process. One setting (agents.defaultView) picks which mode new sessions open in, and any session flips between the two.
Do my credentials go through Chimaera?
No. Credentials stay yours. They live in your HOME and login-shell environment, independent of who installed the agent binary. Chimaera can install and update agent CLIs from official sources, but never touches your auth.
Is it only for HPC?
No. It is a general tool for running agents wherever the work lives. HPC login nodes are the founding stress test (old glibc, no root, shared machines), which is why it also behaves well on a laptop or a plain dev server.
What platforms are supported?
macOS, Linux, and Windows (beta). The app ships for macOS (Apple Silicon), Linux (AppImage / .deb / .rpm), and Windows (an NSIS installer, beta); the daemon ships as static musl binaries for x86_64 and aarch64 Linux plus an aarch64 macOS build. On Windows the daemon runs inside WSL2, so expect a couple of first-run setup steps. See the docs.
What's the license?
GNU AGPL-3.0, free to use, self-host, and modify. For a closed-source product or service built on Chimaera, a commercial license is available: get in touch. Contributions require a CLA.