Features
Watch the work
- Every step in the thread. Searches, file reads, edits, commands, plans and approvals appear as they happen, grouped per turn with how long it worked.
- You choose how much it asks. Ask for approval stops before every edit or command; Auto lets a quick model approve routine actions and asks only for risky ones; Full access runs unattended. Plan mode, task lists and questions back to you are built in.
- Subagents you can follow. The agent hands work to Explorer, Analyst and Worker helpers that run in the background as live cards, each on the model you pick for it.
Review every change
- Each turn lists what it changed, including side effects from commands, and opens in the Changes tab, drawn from git's own patch.
- Stage, unstage or revert by hunk, file or whole turn. Restore to before this message rewinds a thread, reverts the runs it started and puts your prompt back to edit.
- Comment on a diff line and the comment goes into your next message, with the file, line and code quoted.
Work in your repository
- Worktrees as thread checkouts. A thread can work in its own git worktree, shown on the branch chip and the Worktrees map.
- Sandboxed commands. On macOS and Linux, shell commands and the bundled Python run inside an OS sandbox. Long-running command sessions and a Terminal tab sit beside the thread.
- See what the model sees. The explorer marks the files each thread touched and their token counts, Search greps the live files with ripgrep, and the Context map shows what each model call received, with a lane per subagent.
Bring your models and tools
- Hosted models with your own key: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google AI Studio (Gemini), OpenRouter and Amazon Bedrock. Saved keys are encrypted with the operating system's credential store.
- MCP servers over stdio, Streamable HTTP or SSE, with OAuth sign-in, a catalog with Linear, GitHub, Atlassian, GitLab and Suno, MCP Apps, and server prompts as slash commands.
- Agent Skills from
.brainstrike/skills or .claude/skills, plus AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md instructions and hooks, loaded only from folders you trust.
- The web. An agent browser that navigates, clicks and types behind an egress proxy, and web search through the provider's own search or Tavily.
Pick up where you left off
- Thread search over titles, messages and folders, and branching: edit any message to try another path, then step between branches.
- Memory: Mastra's observational and working memory keep long threads in context, per thread or shared across them.
- Canvas and Artifacts, cost tracking, notifications, a tray icon that keeps runs going with the window closed, in-app updates with a beta channel, and light and dark themes with your own fonts.
[!NOTE]
Brainstrike is in beta. On Windows, commands run without a sandbox, no Python is bundled, and the installer is not yet code-signed, so SmartScreen warns before it runs.
Install
Download the build for your platform from brainstrike.ai, then add a key for one of the providers in Settings.
| Platform | Build |
|---|
| macOS 12 or later | DMG for Apple silicon or Intel, signed and notarized |
| Windows 10 or 11 | x64 installer |
| Linux | AppImage for x64 or arm64: chmod +x, then run it |
Every release lists its SHA-256 checksums in SHA256SUMS. Installers and release notes are published in brainstrike-releases.
Build from source
Use the Node version in .nvmrc and the pnpm version in package.json, then from the repository root:
pnpm install
pnpm build
pnpm dev --filter @brainstrike/desktop
CONTRIBUTING.md covers the checks, the merge queue and the build and test configuration.
How it's built
- Desktop: Electron hosts the React UI. A separate agent host process owns runs, conversations and workspace access, and records them in its SQLite state store; the window can close while it works.
- Runs: the AI SDK drives the model loop, and Mastra supplies only memory. Every model is hosted; nothing runs locally.
- Search: threads are searched through a local SQLite FTS5 index, and workspaces with ripgrep.
- Stack: TypeScript, React, Electron, Effect, Vite, Vitest, Playwright, Tailwind CSS, Turborepo and pnpm workspaces.
- Docs: design decisions and subsystem contracts.
License
MIT © 2024 Sean Dearnaley. Package-specific notices stay with each package.
