Impulse is a terminal IDE: a fast terminal with Warp-style command blocks, a code editor with language servers, deep git integration, and first-class support for the coding agents you run in your terminals. It's built for developers who live in the terminal but want editing, review and project awareness next to it.
The app is written in Rust on GPUI, drawn on the GPU (Metal on macOS, Vulkan on Linux), with terminal emulation built on alacritty_terminal. The same code builds for both platforms and works the same on each. Impulse never calls an AI service itself; it hosts the agent CLIs you already use.
Read the documentation for how every feature works, with screenshots (also in docs/).
Features
Workbench
- Workspaces in the sidebar: one per folder, each with its own tabs, with worktrees of the same repository grouped together, plus a Scratch workspace for terminals that don't belong to a project
- Tabs in the titlebar (or listed in the sidebar) and split panes of any surface; a file tree with git status
- Session restore of every window's workspaces, layouts and terminal output
- Fuzzy command palette with modes: files,
> commands, : line, % text, @/# symbols, t: tabs, w: workspaces, b: branches, h: history, task: branches as tasks, a: project actions, set: settings (? lists them all)
- Project actions and worktree setup from
.impulse/project.toml; the impulse command-line tool, which also lets Impulse be your $EDITOR
- An optional quick terminal on a global shortcut; ⇧⌘T reopens a closed tab (or ⌘Z right after closing it)
- 19 built-in themes plus user themes; Settings and Keyboard Shortcuts as searchable tabs
- Workspace trust: language servers, formatters on save and background fetch only run in folders you trust
Terminal
- Shell integration for bash, zsh and fish; command blocks with status, duration, selection, bookmarks and actions
- A multi-line input editor with shell highlighting, history (⌃R), completions for subcommands, options, branches and scripts, and an underline on commands the shell can't run (optionally with fish's own completions)
- Find with match counts and regex; hints mode to open URLs, paths, SHAs and ports from the keyboard
- Persistent command history, background notifications, listening ports, the kitty keyboard protocol, OSC 8 links and iTerm2 session status
Coding agents
- Recognizes Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Aider, opencode, Amp, Copilot CLI, Cursor Agent, Goose, Qwen Code and Crush in its terminals, and shows when each is working or waiting for you (⇧⌘U jumps to the next one that needs you)
- Checkpoints every agent turn so you can review it, restore files from before it, or send review comments back
- A composer (⌘I), a toolbelt, and "send to agent" for code, files and command output
- Task worktrees for parallel work; hooks and resume after a restart for Claude Code, Codex and opencode
Git
- Changes panel with a commit composer and keyboard control; commit and push in one step if you like
- Review with scopes (unstaged, staged, all uncommitted, against a branch, a commit, a range, a stash, the last agent turn, or everything since your last review), hunk and line staging, and comments you can send to the agent that wrote the code
- Live change marks, blame for the current line, and a side-by-side or inline diff view in the editor
- History (⇧⌘H) with a commit graph across branches, compare, author/path/date filters and fork-point dimming
- Branch switching and management, undoable stashes and merge-conflict resolution, using git alone so any host works
- Fetch, pull (fast-forward, rebase or merge), push and force push with lease from the Git menu or palette, with optional background fetch
- Tags from History or at HEAD (lightweight or annotated, optionally pushed right away); merge and rebase from History
Editor
- Language servers: completions, hover, definitions, references, rename across files, code actions, inlay hints, highlights, formatting and diagnostics in a Problems panel
- Go to symbol in a file or the project, project-wide find and replace with a preview
- Markdown and SVG preview beside the editor, with Run buttons on shell code blocks; image preview tabs
- Optional Vim keybindings; bundled JetBrains Mono for editor and terminal
Accessibility
- Screen readers (VoiceOver, Orca) can read the controls and the terminal's text
- Reduce Motion and Increase Contrast (GNOME's high contrast and animations on Linux) are honored
Installation
Download from GitHub Releases:
- macOS:
Impulse-X.Y.Z.dmg. Open it and drag Impulse.app to your Applications folder. Requires macOS 26 (Tahoe) or later on an Apple silicon Mac.
- Debian and Ubuntu:
impulse_X.Y.Z_amd64.deb (or _arm64): sudo apt install ./impulse_X.Y.Z_amd64.deb.
- Arch and its derivatives:
impulse-X.Y.Z-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst: sudo pacman -U impulse-X.Y.Z-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst.
- Other Linux:
impulse-X.Y.Z-linux-x86_64.tar.gz (or -aarch64): unpack it and run bin/impulse-app.
Linux needs glibc 2.35 or later (Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12, Fedora 36 or newer, or a current Arch), a Vulkan driver (Mesa's on most systems) and runs on Wayland or X11. Impulse checks GitHub for new releases on launch; you can turn that off in Settings.
Language servers. Rust, Python and C/C++ use the rust-analyzer, pyright and clangd on your PATH. For TypeScript/JavaScript, PHP, HTML, CSS, JSON, Tailwind, Vue, Svelte, GraphQL, YAML, Dockerfile and Bash, run Install Web LSP Servers from the command palette (or Install All in Settings → Language Servers). That needs Node.js and npm.
This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗
