Open-source lightweight cross-platform AI-native terminal (ADE)
Wiki · Downloads · Changelog · Roadmap · Contributing
Nexis is a lightweight, AI-first terminal and developer environment built on Tauri 2, Rust, and React 19. Native PTY backend, multi-tab terminals, a full code editor, file explorer, source control, and an AI panel that runs on your own API keys — or entirely offline with LM Studio, MLX, or Ollama. Under 10 MB, keys stored in the OS keychain, zero telemetry.
This README is the short version. The wiki has the full story — installation, quick start, features, keybindings, AI provider setup, and troubleshooting.
- Terminal — xterm.js with WebGL rendering, unlimited tabs and split panes, native PTY (zsh, bash, pwsh, fish, cmd, WSL). Shell integration (cwd tracking, prompt markers, live tab titles), fuzzy shell-history search, private terminals the AI can't read, session recording, and read-only live sharing over LAN.
- Editor — CodeMirror 6 with highlighting for 20+ languages, AI inline autocomplete, per-hunk approval of AI-proposed edits, minimap, Vim mode, formatting on save, snippets, project-wide search and replace, and a fuzzy file picker.
- Language tooling — real LSP servers (go-to-definition, hover, completion, diagnostics, rename, refactors), a DAP step-through debugger, and a problems panel.
- Source control — stage, commit, and branch without leaving the app; commit graph, stash manager, merge-conflict resolver, worktrees, and AI-generated commit messages and PR descriptions.
- AI — 12+ providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Groq, xAI, Cerebras, DeepSeek, Mistral, OpenRouter, Hugging Face, any OpenAI-compatible endpoint) or fully offline via LM Studio, MLX, and Ollama. Multi-agent workflows with tool approval, an agent task queue, semantic codebase search, voice input, prompt templates, and a context inspector that shows exactly what the model sees.
- ML Lab — train small models on your own data, locally, with live charts, an inference playground, and run comparison. See docs/ML_LAB_GUIDE.md.
- Themes — ten built-in themes, custom
.nexis-themefiles with live preview, and background images with opacity and blur. - Workbench — file explorer, web preview for local dev servers, and sidebar panels for background jobs, ports, SSH connections, tests, databases, build tasks, and releases.
- Private by design — API keys live in the OS keychain (never on disk), AI tools run against an approval-gated sandboxed surface, SSRF and DNS-rebinding protection, and no telemetry of any kind.
Download the latest release for your platform from Releases: macOS .dmg, Linux .AppImage / .deb / .rpm (plus an AUR package), Windows NSIS / MSI.
Per-platform notes (SmartScreen, FUSE, Wayland, WSL) live in the wiki: Linux · Windows · macOS.
- Open Settings → AI
- Choose a provider and paste your API key — it's stored in the OS keychain via Rust's
keyringcrate, never on disk - For local/offline models, point Nexis at your LM Studio, MLX, or Ollama URL — no key needed
Full provider list and configuration details: AI providers.
Prerequisites: Rust (stable), Node 22+ with pnpm 11+, and the Tauri platform prerequisites.
pnpm install
pnpm tauri dev # dev with hot reload
pnpm tauri build # production buildTests and checks: pnpm test (Vitest), cargo test in src-tauri/, pnpm exec tsc --noEmit, cargo clippy. pnpm test:e2e runs the WebdriverIO E2E suite against a release build.
Everything contributor-facing lives in docs/.
- Wiki — user documentation: installation, features, configuration, FAQ, troubleshooting
- docs/architecture/ — how the internals work, in prose: the two-process model, PTY & shell integration, the terminal renderer pool, the AI subsystem, and the security model
- docs/vault/ — a linked navigational map of the codebase (module maps, subsystem notes, flows, decisions)
- CHANGELOG.md — the canonical record of everything that shipped
- ROADMAP.md — what's planned, and the hard limits on what won't be built
- docs/ML_LAB_GUIDE.md / docs/ML_SUITE.md — ML Lab usage guide and architecture
- SECURITY.md — security posture and reporting
docs/vault/ is an Obsidian-compatible knowledge base — plain markdown with
[[wiki-links]] and YAML frontmatter, no plugins required. GitHub renders those links as literal text, so
it's worth opening properly: in Obsidian choose Open folder as vault and point it at docs/vault/
inside your checkout (not the repo root). Home.md is the entry point, and the graph view shows how the
subsystems connect. Obsidian's per-user config goes in docs/vault/.obsidian/, which is gitignored.
Prefer not to install anything? Every note reads fine in any editor, and the prose guides in docs/architecture/ are plain markdown that renders correctly right here on GitHub.
Nexis began as a personal fork of terax-ai, an open-source AI-native terminal by @crynta. The foundations Nexis inherited from that project — the PTY session architecture, the shell-integration approach, and the original AI tooling layer — shaped everything that came after, and several later designs (the renderer-pool memory work among them) were informed directly by upstream's own fixes.
Nexis has since taken its own direction, branding, and a substantially expanded feature set, but the lineage is real and worth stating plainly. If you find Nexis useful, go give terax-ai a look and a star.
Nexis is Apache-2.0, as is the upstream work it builds on.
Tauri 2 · Rust · portable-pty · React 19 · TypeScript · xterm.js · CodeMirror 6 · Vercel AI SDK v6 · Tailwind v4 · shadcn/ui · Zustand
PRs and issues are welcome. Check CONTRIBUTING.md before opening anything non-trivial, and see the good-first-issue and help-wanted labels for tracked tasks.
Apache-2.0. See LICENSE.