The VS Code sidebar for your terminal. Navigate files, preview code, and manage your project — all from the command line.
Features
A fast, keyboard-driven file tree with git awareness, syntax previews, and mouse support. No Electron required.
See modified, staged, untracked, and conflicted files at a glance. Status propagates to parent directories so you always know where changes live.
Split-pane preview with syntax highlighting for 150+ languages, Markdown rendering, binary hex dumps, and a resizable divider.
Hit / to fuzzy-filter the tree by filename. Navigate matches with Tab and Shift+Tab. The match count updates in real time.
Click to select, double-click to expand, right-click for context menus, drag to resize panes, and scroll naturally. Or stay on the keyboard.
Create, rename, and delete files and directories. Multi-select with v for bulk operations. All without leaving the terminal.
The tree auto-refreshes when files change on disk. Git status updates automatically. A debounced watcher keeps things fast.
100+ file type icons render when a Nerd Font is installed. Directories, Rust, JavaScript, Markdown — each gets its own glyph.
Right-click any node for contextual actions: open in editor, copy path, reveal in Finder, rename, delete, and more.
TOML config for hidden files, exclusion patterns, compact folders, preview settings, and custom editor commands. Manage it with croot config.
Demo
Navigate your project, preview files, and manage everything from the terminal.
Installation
Install croot with your preferred method.
brew install realzhangshen/croot/croot
# Requires Rust 1.88+ git clone https://github.com/realzhangshen/croot.git cd croot cargo build --release # Binary is at target/release/croot
# Download from GitHub Releases for your platform # Available targets: # aarch64-apple-darwin (Apple Silicon) # x86_64-apple-darwin (Intel Mac) # x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu # aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu # Example (macOS Apple Silicon): TAG=v0.4.0 curl -fsSL "https://github.com/realzhangshen/croot/releases/download/${TAG}/croot-${TAG}-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz" | tar xz sudo mv croot /usr/local/bin/
Download binaries from the Releases page.
Workflow
croot works great alongside cmux for a full vibe coding setup in the terminal — file tree on one side, editor and shell on the other.
Together they give you a VS Code-like workspace that lives entirely in your terminal. No Electron, no GUI, just fast tools that compose well.
Learn about cmux┌──────────────┬────────────────────────┐ │ croot │ $EDITOR │ │ │ │ │ src/ │ fn main() { │ │ main.rs │ println!("hello");│ │ lib.rs │ } │ │ Cargo.toml │ │ │ README.md ├────────────────────────┤ │ │ $ cargo run │ │ │ │ └──────────────┴────────────────────────┘