A themed terminal for Claude Code. One exe, zero setup. Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Built in Rust. No GPU. No Electron. Just pixels.

Grab the latest from Releases:

First launch auto-installs Claude CLI on all platforms (+ Git on Windows). No manual setup needed.

macOS Gatekeeper: macOS may flag the app as unidentified. After unzipping, run:

xattr -cr WindowedClaude
./WindowedClaude

Or: System Settings > Privacy & Security > click "Allow Anyway" after the first blocked launch.

Terminal

• Multi-tab sessions (Ctrl+N / Ctrl+W / Ctrl+Tab)
• Real PTY (ConPTY on Windows, Unix PTY on macOS/Linux)
• Full VT100/xterm-256color emulation via alacritty_terminal
• Mouse text selection + clipboard (Ctrl+Shift+C/V)
• Scrollback via mouse wheel

Window

• 9 polished themes with full ANSI 16-color palettes
• Rounded corners (12px transparent masking)
• Adjustable transparency + opacity
• Configurable padding (0-48px)
• Custom title bar with drag, resize, traffic light buttons
• Theme pill, Settings pill, Keybinds pill in title bar

Settings Panel (click "Settings" in title bar)

• Theme, font size, transparency, opacity, padding
• Reinstall shortcuts button
• Hover highlighting + click flash feedback

Keybinds Editor (click "Keybinds" in title bar)

• View and rebind all 12 keyboard shortcuts
• Shows default vs current values
• Save, Discard, Reset to Defaults
• Click a row, press your new combo, done

Auto-Accept Mode

• Dedicated shortcuts: "WindowedClaude (Auto-Accept)" on Desktop + Start Menu
• Or run: windowed-claude --auto-accept

Session Recovery (after crash)

• If Claude crashes mid-session, a red bar appears at the bottom
• Press Ctrl+J to save the terminal scrollback as a JSON file to your Desktop
• Press Enter to start a fresh session
• Feed the saved JSON to Claude in the new session to restore context

Uninstall (Windows)

• windowed-claude --uninstall removes everything
• Also in Add/Remove Programs

All shortcuts are rebindable via the Keybinds editor.

VirusTotal: 1/72 — Clean

The single flag (Microsoft Program:Win32/Wacapew.Clml) is a generic heuristic false positive common with unsigned Rust executables. All 71 other engines report clean.

The source code is fully open. You can audit every line and build from source yourself.

git clone https://github.com/aaf2tbz/WindowedClaude.git
cd WindowedClaude
cargo build --release

Cross-compile for Windows:

rustup target add x86_64-pc-windows-gnu
cargo build --release --target x86_64-pc-windows-gnu

Sign the exe (optional, reduces SmartScreen warnings):

.\scripts\sign.ps1

Settings auto-save to:

• Windows: %APPDATA%\windowed-claude\config.json
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/windowed-claude/config.json
• Linux: ~/.config/windowed-claude/config.json

{
  "font_size": 14.0,
  "theme_id": "claude-dark",
  "opacity": 1.0,
  "transparent": false,
  "padding": 12,
  "keybinds": { ... }
}

All settings can be changed via the Settings panel or Keybinds editor.

Rust, winit, softbuffer, fontdue, alacritty_terminal, portable-pty, arboard. JetBrains Mono embedded.

Claude Code may crash with exit code 3221225477 (0xC0000005 — access violation) during extended agent sessions on Windows. This is a bug in Claude CLI's Node.js runtime, not in WindowedClaude.

When this happens:

1. A red status bar appears at the bottom of the window
2. Press Ctrl+J to save your session scrollback as a JSON recovery file (saved to Desktop)
3. Press Enter to start a fresh session
4. In the new session, paste the contents of the saved JSON file and ask Claude to continue where it left off

What's preserved: All file changes Claude already wrote to disk are safe. Only the in-memory conversation context is lost.

Workaround: Use Ctrl+Shift+K to force-kill a stuck process before it crashes, if you notice it freezing.

This issue should be reported to Claude Code with the exit code and reproduction steps.

MIT