neetly

The code editor with terminal, browser, split panes and sensible notifications for building web applications with agents.

Installation instructions

1. Download neetly-macos.dmg and open the DMG and drag neetly.app to Applications.

2. Set up Claude Code notifications (one-time): Execute the following command to do a one-time setup. It adds hooks to ~/.claude/settings.json so that neetly is notified when Claude is done processing and is waiting. When Claude is done, the workspace tab turns "green". If Claude is waiting for permission, then the workspace tab turns "red". Clicking a colored workspace tab also clears the color.

   /Applications/neetly.app/Contents/MacOS/neetly notify_neetly_of_claude_events

3. Open neetly from Applications.

   macOS may block the first launch with an "unidentified developer" warning (Gatekeeper). To bypass: right-click neetly.app → Open → Open, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/neetly.app once.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/neetozone/neetly.git
cd neetly
swift build

# Symlink the CLI to your PATH
ln -sf $(pwd)/.build/arm64-apple-macosx/debug/neetly /usr/local/bin/neetly

# Run
swift run neetly-app

On first launch, add a repo and configure its default layout. Repos are persisted at ~/.config/neetly/repos.json.

Tech Stack

Layout Config

Declarative pane layout using split, tabs, run, and visit:

split: columns
left:
  run: claude --dangerously-skip-permissions
right:
  tabs:
    run: bin/setup;bin/launch --neetly
    visit: http://localhost:3000

Key	Value	Children
split	columns	left: and right:
split	rows	top: and bottom:
tabs	—	Multiple run/visit as tabs in one pane
run	<command>	Terminal tab
visit	<url>	Browser tab
size	35%	Percentage of the parent split taken by this child. Optional; defaults to 50/50.

Sizing splits

By default, every split is 50/50. Add a size attribute to any child to change that:

split: columns
left:
  size: 35%
  run: claude --dangerously-skip-permissions
right:
  run: bin/setup-mise;bin/launch --neetly

The left pane takes 35% of the width, the right pane takes the remaining 65%. If you specify sizes on both sides and they don't add up to 100%, the first one wins and the second gets the remainder — no error. size can appear in any child of a split (left/right/top/bottom) and nests naturally.

CLI Commands

The neetly CLI runs from inside any terminal spawned by neetly. It communicates with the app via a Unix domain socket.

List tabs

neetly tabs

TAB  PANE  TYPE      TITLE
--------------------------------------------------
1    1     terminal  claude *
2    2     terminal  bin/launch *
3    2     browser   localhost *

Open a browser tab

# In current pane (default)
neetly browser open http://localhost:3000

# In a specific pane
neetly browser open http://localhost:3000 --pane 3

# Without stealing focus
neetly browser open http://localhost:3000 --background

# Short alias
neetly visit http://localhost:3000

Send text to a terminal tab

# Send "time" + Enter to tab 1
neetly send 1 "time\n"

\n is converted to a newline (Enter key). \t is converted to a tab.

Open a new terminal tab

neetly run "npm test"

Workspace notifications

Change the workspace tab color to signal status across workspaces. Useful when Claude finishes a task while you're working in another workspace.

neetly notify              # green (task done)
neetly notify red          # red (needs permission)
neetly notify clear        # reset to normal

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Cmd+T	New terminal tab in focused pane
Cmd+Shift+T	New browser tab in focused pane
Cmd+W	Close active tab
Cmd+K	Clear terminal
Cmd+R	Reload browser
Cmd+Shift+]	Next tab
Cmd+Shift+[	Previous tab
Cmd+Click	Open a URL displayed in the terminal

Taxonomy

Workspace (named after your feature/bug, multiple per window)
  Pane (a rectangular region, split horizontally or vertically)
    Tab (terminal or browser — multiple per pane, one visible at a time)

Terminal Appearance

Customize the terminal font, size, and colors by creating ~/.config/neetly/terminal.json:

{
  "fontFamily": "JetBrains Mono",
  "fontSize": 17,
  "backgroundColor": "#1e1f2e",
  "foregroundColor": "#cdd8f4",
  "selectionColor": "#635b70",
  "linkColor": "#8bb8fa"
}

Field	Description	Default
fontFamily	Any font installed on your system. Falls back to Symbols Nerd Font Mono, Noto Color Emoji, then system monospace.	JetBrains Mono
fontSize	Point size.	17
backgroundColor	Hex color (#RRGGBB).	#1e1f2e (Catppuccin base)
foregroundColor	Hex color (#RRGGBB).	#cdd8f4 (Catppuccin text)
selectionColor	Background color for selected text.	#635b70
linkColor	Overrides ANSI palette blue (colors 4 and 12), where most terminals render URLs.	#8bb8fa
scrollback	Number of lines retained in the scroll-back buffer.	10000

All fields are optional — omit any to use the default. The config is read when each terminal tab is created, so restart neetly to pick up changes.

Architecture

• Terminal: SwiftTerm (pure Swift, CPU-rendered). In the future, we could swap it for libghostty (Ghostty's Zig-based engine with Metal GPU rendering) for better performance on 4K displays and large scrollback workloads. It's a "someday maybe" note, not anything planned.

• Browser: WKWebView is Apple's native web view — the same WebKit engine that powers Safari. It's built into macOS, so neetly ships with zero browser dependencies and no extra download (unlike Electron or CEF which bundle a full Chromium). Every browser tab in neetly is a WKWebView embedded directly in the window.

  Debugging browser tabs with Safari's Web Inspector: neetly enables isInspectable on all browser tabs, so you can use Safari's full Web Inspector (DOM, console, network, breakpoints) against them. One-time setup: Safari → Settings → Advanced → check "Show features for web developers". Then in Safari → Develop → (your Mac name), you'll see all of neetly's open browser tabs listed. Click one to attach the inspector.

• IPC: Unix domain socket at /tmp/neetly-<pid>.sock

• Persistence:

  • ~/.config/neetly/repos.json — list of added repos and their default layouts
  • ~/.config/neetly/workspaces.json — open workspaces, restored on relaunch
  • ~/.config/neetly/terminal.json — terminal font and color overrides
  • ~/neetly/<repo-name>/<workspace-name> — git worktrees are created here, one per workspace

• File watcher: WKWebView (WebKit) does not support HMR (Hot Module Replacement) the way Chrome's DevTools protocol does, so neetly polls the repo every 2 seconds for changes to JavaScript/React/CSS files and triggers a browser reload when anything changes.