
CodMate is a macOS SwiftUI app for managing CLI AI sessions: browse, search, organize, resume, and review work produced by Codex, Claude Code, and Gemini CLI.
It focuses on speed (incremental indexing + caching), a compact three-column UI, and “ship it” workflows like Project Review (Git Changes) and one-click Resume/New.
Status: macOS 13.5+, Swift 6 toolchain. Universal binary (arm64 + x86_64).
- Find anything fast: a global search panel (⌘F) with scoped search + progress/cancel, plus quick list filtering.
- Keep work organized: Projects + Tasks let you group sessions by repo and by goal, with a shareable task context file.
- Continue instantly: Resume/New into Terminal/iTerm2/Warp (or embedded terminal in non-sandbox builds), with copyable exact commands.
- Review & commit without leaving the app: Project Review shows diffs, staging state, and supports commit (with optional AI commit message generation).
Features (organized by value)
Organize and understand sessions across CLIs
- Multi-source session browsing:
- Codex: ~/.codex/sessions (.jsonl)
- Claude Code: ~/.claude/projects (.jsonl)
- Gemini CLI: ~/.gemini/tmp (Gemini’s session storage)
- Sidebar navigation:
- Projects list with counts, including “All” and an unassigned/Other bucket.
- Calendar (pinned bottom) with per-day counts and a Created/Updated toggle.
- Directory-based navigation built from session cwd statistics.
- Session list:
- Default scope is Today for fast first paint.
- Sorting: Most Recent (created/updated aware), Duration, Activity, etc.
- Rows show title, timestamps/duration, snippet, and compact metrics (user/assistant/tool/reasoning), plus states like running/updating/awaiting follow-up.
Projects + Tasks (workspaces instead of loose logs)
- Projects:
- Create/edit projects (name, directory, overview, trust level, optional runtime profile).
- Assign sessions to projects via row actions/context menus.
- Storage: ~/.codmate/projects/ (project metadata + memberships mapping).
- “New” sessions started inside a project can be auto-assigned to that project.
- Tasks (within projects):
- Create/edit/delete tasks, collapse/expand task groups, and assign/move sessions into tasks.
- Task context sync: generates/updates a shareable context file and prepares a prompt pointing to it.
- Storage: ~/.codmate/tasks/ (task metadata + relationships mapping).
Resume/New (local, remote, embedded)
- Resume:
- Launch in Terminal.app / iTerm2 / Warp, or embedded terminal (non-App Store / non-sandbox builds).
- When embedded is active, CodMate can show a Copy real command action for reproducibility.
- New:
- Start a fresh session from the focused session’s cwd (and project profile when available).
- Start sessions directly from a selected project, even without a focused session.
- Remote Hosts (SSH mirroring):
- Enable hosts from ~/.ssh/config, then mirror remote sessions over SSH.
- Remote bases:
- Codex remote: $HOME/.codex/sessions
- Claude remote: $HOME/.claude/projects
- Mirror cache is stored under ~/Library/Caches/CodMate/remote/.
Search, export, and metadata (make history useful)
- Global Search (⌘F):
- Floating window or toolbar popover style (configurable).
- Scope picker + progress/cancel for long searches.
- Rename/comment:
- Click the session title in the detail pane to edit title/comment.
- Storage: ~/.codmate/notes/<sessionId-sanitized>.json (with automatic migration from legacy locations).
- Conversation export:
- Export Markdown from the detail pane.
- Settings allow choosing which message types appear in the timeline and which are included in Markdown export.
Project Review (Git Changes) + AI commit message generation
- Git Changes surface (Project Review mode):
- Lists changed files, supports stage/unstage, and shows unified diff or raw preview.
- Commit UI with message editor and Commit action.
- Optional AI generate commit message (uses your selected Provider/Model and a prompt template from settings).
- Repo authorization is on-demand (especially relevant in sandboxed builds).
- Settings › Git Review:
- Diff options (line numbers, soft wrap).
- Commit generation: choose Provider/Model and an optional prompt template.
Providers, MCP, notifications, diagnostics (make the ecosystem manageable)
- Providers (Settings › Providers):
- Add/edit providers with Codex + Claude endpoints, shared API key env var, wire API (Chat/Responses), and model catalog with capability flags.
- Built-in templates are bundled from payload/providers.json; user registry is stored at ~/.codmate/providers.json.
- Built-in health check: Test endpoints before saving.
- MCP Servers (Settings › MCP Server):
- Uni-Import (paste/drag JSON), per-server enable toggle, per-target toggles (Codex/Claude/Gemini), and connectivity Test.
- Storage: ~/.codmate/mcp-servers.json
- Exports enabled servers into ~/.claude/settings.json (and writes a helper file ~/.codmate/mcp-enabled-claude.json).
- Claude Code notifications (Settings › Claude Code › Notifications):
- Installs/removes hooks that forward permission/completion events via codmate://notify and provides a self-test.
- Dialectics (Settings › Dialectics):
- Deep diagnostics for session roots, notes/projects dirs, environment, and ripgrep indexes.
- One-click “Save Report…” plus rebuild actions for coverage/session index.
- ⌘,: Settings
- ⌘F: Global Search
- ⌘R: Refresh (also recomputes global sidebar statistics)
- ⌘1: Toggle sidebar
- ⌘2: Toggle session list
Data locations (quick reference)
- Codex sessions: ~/.codex/sessions
- Claude sessions: ~/.claude/projects
- Gemini sessions: ~/.gemini/tmp
- Notes: ~/.codmate/notes/
- Projects: ~/.codmate/projects/
- Tasks: ~/.codmate/tasks/
- Providers registry: ~/.codmate/providers.json
- MCP servers: ~/.codmate/mcp-servers.json
- Session index cache (SQLite): ~/.codmate/sessionIndex-v4.db
- Additional caches: ~/Library/Caches/CodMate/ (includes remote mirrors and best-effort caches)
- Fast path indexing: memory‑mapped reads; parse the first ~64 lines plus tail sampling (up to ~1 MB) to fix lastUpdatedAt.
- Background enrichment: full parse in constrained task groups; batched UI updates.
- Full‑text search: chunked scan (128 KB), case‑insensitive; avoids lowercasing the whole file.
- Caching: persistent SQLite index + best-effort caches to keep subsequent launches fast.
- Sidebar statistics are global and decoupled from the list scope to keep navigation snappy.
- App: macOS SwiftUI (min macOS 13.5). SwiftPM-only build.
- MVVM layering
- Models: SessionSummary, SessionEvent, DateDimension, SessionLoadScope, …
- Services: SessionIndexer, SessionCacheStore, SessionActions, SessionTimelineLoader, CodexConfigService, SessionsDiagnosticsService
- ViewModel: SessionListViewModel
- Views: SwiftUI only (no business logic)
- Concurrency & IO
- Services that share caches are actors; UI updates on MainActor only.
- Cancel previous tasks on search/scope changes; guard Task.isCancelled in loops.
- File IO prefers Data(mappedIfSafe:) and chunked reads; avoids loading huge files into Strings.
Prerequisites
- macOS 13.5+, Swift 6 toolchain, Xcode Command Line Tools (for xcrun actool).
- Install the CLIs you use (Codex / Claude / Gemini) somewhere on your PATH.
Makefile (recommended)
make build # SwiftPM debug build
make test # SwiftPM tests (if any)
make run # Build (debug, native arch) and launch for local testing
make app VER=1.2.3 # Create CodMate.app in build/ (ARCH defaults to host)
make app VER=1.2.3 ARCH=arm64
make app VER=1.2.3 ARCH=x86_64
make app VER=1.2.3 ARCH="arm64 x86_64"
make dmg VER=1.2.3 # Create Developer ID DMG (ARCH defaults to host)
make dmg VER=1.2.3 ARCH=arm64
make dmg VER=1.2.3 ARCH=x86_64
make dmg VER=1.2.3 ARCH="arm64 x86_64" # produces codmate-arm64.dmg + codmate-x86_64.dmg
make notices # Regenerate THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md
Direct scripts
VER=1.2.3 ./scripts/create-app-bundle.sh
VER=1.2.3 ./scripts/macos-build-notarized-dmg.sh
Versioning strategy (build script)
- Marketing version (CFBundleShortVersionString): set with VER (e.g., 1.4.0).
- Build number (CFBundleVersion): controlled by BUILD_NUMBER_STRATEGY:
- date (default): yyyymmddHHMM (e.g., 202510291430).
- git: git rev-list --count HEAD.
- counter: monotonically increments a file counter at $BUILD_DIR/build-number (override path via BUILD_COUNTER_FILE).
- DMG name: codmate-<ARCH>.dmg.
- Override via environment variables when running the build script:
VER=1.4.0 BUILD_NUMBER_STRATEGY=date \
./scripts/macos-build-notarized-dmg.sh
This sets CFBundleShortVersionString to 1.4.0, CFBundleVersion to the computed build number, and names the DMG accordingly.
CLI Integration (Codex / Claude / Gemini)
- Executable resolution: CodMate launches CLIs via /usr/bin/env codex (and claude / gemini) to respect your system PATH (no user-configurable CLI path).
- PATH robustness: before launching, CodMate ensures PATH includes /opt/homebrew/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin.
- Resume:
- Uses the original session cwd when it exists; otherwise falls back to the log file directory.
- Can launch into Terminal.app / iTerm2 / Warp, and (in non-sandbox builds) an embedded terminal.
- When embedded is active, CodMate can copy the exact invocation it used (e.g. codex resume <id>).
- New:
- Starts a fresh session in the focused session’s working directory (or the selected project directory).
- When a Project Profile is present, its model/sandbox/approval defaults are applied when generating commands.
- Command flags exposed by the UI:
- Codex: sandbox policy (-s/--sandbox), approval policy (-a/--ask-for-approval), --full-auto, --dangerously-bypass-approvals-and-sandbox.
- Claude: common runtime/permission flags plus MCP strict mode (see Settings › Claude Code and Settings › Command).
- MCP integration:
- CodMate can export enabled MCP servers into ~/.claude/settings.json and also writes ~/.codmate/mcp-enabled-claude.json for explicit --mcp-config usage.
assets/ # Assets and Info.plist (not in Copy Bundle Resources)
CodMateApp.swift # App entry point
models/ # Data models (pure types)
services/ # IO + indexing + integrations
utils/ # Helpers (shell, sandbox, formatting, etc.)
views/ # SwiftUI views
payload/ # Bundled presets (e.g. providers.json templates)
notify/ # Swift command-line helper installed as `codmate-notify`
SwiftTerm/ # Embedded terminal dependency (local package)
scripts/ # Helper scripts (icons, build flows)
docs/ # Design notes and investigation docs
- Prefer a toolbar search field (far‑right aligned) over .searchable to avoid hijacking toolbar slots on macOS.
- Outline row height needs explicit tightening (see defaultMinListRowHeight and insets in the row views).
- Run tests: swift test.
- Formatting: follow existing code style; keep changes minimal and focused.
- Performance: measure large trees; first paint should be fast; enrichment is incremental.
- Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE for full text.
- NOTICE includes project attribution. SPDX: Apache-2.0.
- Third-party attributions and license texts: see THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.