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Overview

AI Leash

A desktop agentic harness — the editor, file tree, and terminal exist to support agent work, not the other way around. No telemetry: run an agent, inspect its work, and keep it under your control. Tool calls, permission prompts before destructive operations, and sub-agents make the process visible, whether you use the built-in runtime or connect an external ACP agent.

Built on Tauri, so the app itself is a small native binary with a Rust backend, not a bundled Chromium.

Download the latest release → 

Table of contents

Features

  • Bring any agent — the built-in runtime works with multiple model providers, and the Agent Client Protocol  backend drives external agents such as Claude Code and GitHub Copilot CLI. Each conversation keeps its own provider, model, and agent controls.
  • You stay in control — tool calls show inline, and destructive ones (shell, file edits) ask before running. All file access is checked against the project root.
  • Sub-agents — delegate independent chunks of work to isolated, concurrent agents, shown as nested threads or their own tabs.
  • AGENTS.md, memory & skills — project and global instructions, notes, and on-demand skills, picked up mid-session without a restart.
  • Actions — named project commands (.ai-leash/actions.json) that run in persistent terminals, visible to you, the built-in agent, and ACP agents.
  • Real workspace — CodeMirror editor, lazy file tree with a filesystem watcher, and interactive PTY terminals beside the chat.
  • Persistent conversations — history, tool activity, and timing are saved locally, per project, with worktree/branch switching and mark-as-done.
  • Inspectable — a debug-mode ACP events panel and a local crash log; no telemetry.
  • Small and native — Tauri with a Rust backend, not a bundled Chromium.

See docs/features for guides to using each feature.

Install

Every push to master builds and publishes fresh packages via GitHub Actions  — grab the latest one from the Releases page .

Linux

Debian/Ubuntu

Download the .deb package from the Releases page  and install it:

sudo apt install ./ai-leash_*.deb

Arch

Grab the .tar.gz archive from the Releases page  and install it:

tar xf ai-leash_*.tar.gz
cd ai-leash-bin
makepkg -si

Fedora?

macOS

Download the .dmg from the Releases page  page, open it, and drag AI Leash into Applications.

It’s not notarized, so the first launch needs a right-click → Open (or xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/AI\ Leash.app if Gatekeeper still blocks it) instead of a normal double-click.

Building from source

You’ll need Rust  and Node 20+.

git clone https://github.com/patheticGeek/ai-leash.git
cd ai-leash
npm install
 
# dev, with hot reload
npm run tauri dev
 
# a real installer/bundle for your current platform
npm run tauri build

To build the Debian package explicitly:

npx tauri build --bundles deb

On Linux you’ll also need the system packages Tauri itself needs — libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev, libayatana-appindicator3-dev, librsvg2-dev, libxdo-dev, plus the usual build toolchain. See the build workflow  for the exact apt line used in CI.

Project layout

src-tauri/src/    Rust backend — agent loop, tools + permission gating,
                  PTYs, actions, SQLite history
src/              React frontend — app shell, chat, editor, terminal,
                  file tree, settings, and Zustand store slices
docs/features/    Per-feature reference docs, kept current with the code

Status

Under active development, breaking changes land on master regularly. Not published to any package registry — build it yourself or grab a CI build from Releases.

Overview