Anthill
Anthill turns a coding task into a workflow you can see. You draw the steps, or
let your agent draft them: who does each one, and where work loops back. Then
you watch Claude Code, Codex, Pi or VS Code's agent carry it out, step by step,
on a live diagram.
Anthill plans and observes. It never runs, stops or steers an agent: the work
happens in your own CLI session, signed in as you.
Use it when a task is big enough to need a plan, such as a feature with review
and tests or a refactor shared between several agents, and you want to see
where the session actually is.
Install
macOS (Apple Silicon): download the .dmg from
Releases, open it and drag Anthill
to Applications. After that, Anthill updates itself: it checks GitHub for a new
release, shows it under Anthill → Check for Updates… and in
Settings → About, and installs it when you choose Download and Install.
Turn the automatic check off on the same page.
Linux: Anthill runs as a local web app, built from source:
npm install && npm run build
npm install --global ./apps/cli
anthill # opens Anthill on 127.0.0.1
Windows (experimental): there is no release or installer for Windows yet.
You can build Anthill from source to try it, the same way as on Linux, with
Node.js 22 and Git:
git clone https://github.com/anthillapp/anthill.git
cd anthill
npm install
npm run build
npm install --global ./apps/cli
anthill # opens Anthill on 127.0.0.1
It hasn't been validated on Windows yet, so some features, integrations and
local storage may not work, and there is no compatibility, data-safety or
support guarantee. Anthill says so once when it first starts, keeps an
Unsupported Windows build chip in view, and turns off anything known not to
work, saying why. If something breaks,
report a Windows issue.
macOS: desktop app and CLI. Linux: CLI. Windows support is coming soon – building from source is possible for experimentation, but Windows is not yet officially supported and some features may not work.
You need at least one of Claude Code,
Codex, Pi or
VS Code with its agent, installed and signed
in.
Plugins
The plugin lets your coding session hand its workflow to Anthill, so you don't
have to copy and paste a prompt. It is optional, but it is the recommended way.
It needs Node.js on your PATH.
Claude Code:
claude plugin marketplace add anthillapp/anthill
claude plugin install anthill@anthill
Codex:
codex plugin marketplace add anthillapp/anthill
codex plugin add anthill@anthill-local
Then start a new session.
VS Code (beta): VS Code has no command for plugins, but it opens two links that do the
install, each after you confirm it in VS Code: the first adds Anthill's
marketplace, the second installs the plugin from it.
macOS:
open "vscode://chat-plugin/add-marketplace?ref=anthillapp/anthill"
open "vscode://chat-plugin/install?source=anthillapp/anthill&plugin=anthill"
Windows (PowerShell):
Start-Process "vscode://chat-plugin/add-marketplace?ref=anthillapp/anthill"
Start-Process "vscode://chat-plugin/install?source=anthillapp/anthill&plugin=anthill"
Linux: the same links with xdg-open.
Then start a new session in the Agents window (New: ⌘N on macOS,
Ctrl+N on Windows and Linux) and try /anthill:workflow watch <your task>.
If you installed the plugin from nstr/anthill before the repository moved,
uninstall that one in Customizations ▸ Plugins first, or you will have two.
By hand, if the links do not open VS Code: first add Anthill's marketplace
to VS Code's settings, then install the plugin from that marketplace.
-
Open Settings (⌘, on macOS, Ctrl+, on Windows and Linux) and search
for chat.plugins.marketplaces. Under Chat › Plugins: Marketplaces,
choose Add Item, enter anthillapp/anthill and choose OK. The marketplace
that is already there stays.
Or in settings.json (Preferences: Open User Settings (JSON) in the
Command Palette, ⇧⌘P / Ctrl+Shift+P). The setting replaces VS
Code's list, so keep its own marketplace in it:
"chat.plugins.marketplaces": ["github/awesome-copilot#marketplace", "anthillapp/anthill"]
-
Open the Agents window: run Open Agents Window from the Command
Palette, or press ⇧⌥⌘A on macOS, Ctrl+Shift+Alt+A on Windows and
Linux.
-
Choose Customizations at the top left, then Plugins, then Browse
Marketplace next to Available.
-
Type anthill in the search box, choose Install on anthill, then
Trust when VS Code asks about anthillapp/anthill.
-
Back to Installed now lists anthill with "1 skill · 1 MCP server". Start
a new session (New: ⌘N on macOS, Ctrl+N on Windows and Linux)
and try /anthill:workflow watch <your task>.
When VS Code asks for permission, allow Anthill's tools (exchange: …) with
Allow in this Session. For terminal commands, choose Allow Once from
the button's arrow menu: Allow in this Session on a terminal command offers
to auto-approve every command.
More in the Claude Code,
Codex and VS Code
plugin guides.
Pi has no plugin. Copy the prompt from Anthill and paste it into Pi.
Use
There are two modes. The difference is who owns the plan.
design: you shape the plan before any work starts. The agent asks what it
needs to know, drafts the workflow and stops. Edit it in Anthill, press
Save, and tell the session to go.
/anthill:workflow design Add retry-once to the checkout flow # Claude Code, VS Code
$anthill design Add retry-once to the checkout flow # Codex
watch: the agent plans and starts at once, and Anthill shows the work as
it happens.
/anthill:workflow watch Rework the importer # Claude Code, VS Code
$anthill watch Rework the importer # Codex
run: run a workflow you already have again, as often as you like. Export
in Anthill copies the command with the workflow's path in it, and each run is a
new session in Anthill.
/anthill:workflow run "<path to workflow.json>" # Claude Code, VS Code
$anthill run "<path to workflow.json>" # Codex
Without a plugin, build the workflow in Anthill, press Copy prompt, and
paste it into your CLI. Anthill recognises the session and follows it the same
way.
Principles
- Local. Workflows are plain
.workflow.json files. Run data stays on
your machine. There is no account and no sync.
- No requests out, except diagnostics. Anthill sends nothing anywhere
except the anonymous diagnostics below, and
you can turn those off. Your CLI talks to its own provider as usual; Anthill
does not.
- Read-only. Anthill reads what your CLI already writes on disk and never
sees private reasoning. In your project it writes only the agent files you
hand over (
.claude/agents/, .codex/agents/).
- Instructions, not enforcement. Order, conditions and loop limits are
instructions for the agent. Anthill shows whether they were followed. It
cannot force them.
What leaves your machine
Three kinds of diagnostics. All three are on by default, and each can be turned
off in Settings → Privacy:
- Anonymous usage analytics (PostHog): a random app identifier and the
names of a few actions, such as opening Anthill or saving a workflow. No
prompts, workflow contents, paths or clicks.
- Error reports (Sentry): stack locations, with messages and user data
removed. IP addresses are not stored.
- Crash reports (macOS, Sentry): a memory dump when the app crashes. It may
contain data that was in memory at the time.
On macOS only release builds send diagnostics; the Linux CLI sends them too
unless you turn them off. The macOS app also asks GitHub for the newest release
when it opens and every few hours, a request for the public release list that
carries nothing about you or your workflows; turn it off in
Settings → About. Nothing else leaves your machine. Details are in
CONTRIBUTING.md.
Links
Website ·
r/AnthillApp ·
Buy me a coffee ·
Report an issue ·
Build from source and contribute
MIT licensed. See LICENSE.
