Orcha

Install

macOS (Apple Silicon or Intel). Paste this into Terminal:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/trungkien1208/orcha/HEAD/install.sh | sh

Windows (x64). Paste this into PowerShell:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/trungkien1208/orcha/HEAD/install.ps1 | iex

powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/trungkien1208/orcha/HEAD/install.ps1 | iex"

Prefer a window? orcha for the Herdr desktop app

Same cockpit, in a real window: orcha-app dresses up the Herdr desktop app with orcha's look, fuel, accounts, hand-off and more. Two lines on macOS:

# 1. the Herdr desktop app (skip if you have it)
curl -fsSL https://releases.herdr.dev/app/install.sh | sh

# 2. orcha's look for it
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/trungkien1208/orcherd/HEAD/install.sh | sh

Then open Herdr, press ⌘⇧P, run layout.switch and pick orcha. Keep the terminal orcha too: FUEL and ACCOUNTS use its accounts. More in the orcha-app guide.

Get started

1. Open your terminal in a project folder.
2. Type orcha and press Enter.
3. That's it. orcha finds the agents you're already signed in to, and the first time it offers to bring in your projects from Orca, VS Code, Cursor or JetBrains.

The installer asks one question: do you want Easy Job, the pixel office (see below)? The answer is no unless you type y.

Any terminal works. For the nicest look, use Ghostty on macOS or WezTerm on Windows.

What you get

• Everything in one place. Your projects and their agents sit in one sidebar. Each agent shows running, needs you, done or idle, so nobody waits in silence.
• Never run out mid-task. The fuel gauge shows how much of each account's plan is left. When it gets low, Accounts moves the chat to another account or another agent, with a short summary so it can pick up where it left off.
• Close it, they keep going. Quit orcha and your agents keep working. Type orcha again to come back. (A restart of your computer does stop them.)
• Click to open. Ctrl+click a file or folder an agent mentions and it opens in your editor or file manager.
• Git at a glance. See your branch and changed files on the side, and open them in your editor or Git app with one click.
• Find any action. Click ⌕ commands at the top and type what you want: new agent, new branch, ask every agent, open in editor.
• Make it yours. Light and dark themes, colors, layout and an emoji for each project. Click ⚙ settings at the top, then Look & colors.

Why orcha, and not Orca or herdr?

All three run several coding agents at once. They just sit in different places:

	Orca	herdr	orcha
What it is	A desktop app	A terminal engine for agents	herdr with a cockpit already built on top
Where it runs	Its own window	Your terminal	Your terminal, or over SSH
Best for	People who like windows and buttons	People who like to script and shape their own setup	People who want it all set up the first time they type orcha

Coming from Orca? You keep the ideas you like: projects in a sidebar, every agent's status at a glance, a branch per task. You lose the 500 MB app: orcha is one 24 MB file that uses about 40 MB of memory, lives in the terminal you already use (Ghostty, WezTerm, iTerm2, tmux, your editor) and works over ssh. It even brings your Orca projects over on day one, so you can try both.

Coming from herdr? orcha is herdr underneath, so nothing you rely on goes away, and your settings and workspaces come along (herdr itself stays as it is). On top you get what you would otherwise build yourself:

• a ready-made look with projects, live agent status and git on the side
• fuel gauges for each account's plan, and Accounts to move a chat to another account or agent before one runs dry
• one search for every action (⌕ commands)
• a one-line install and orcha update on macOS and Windows
• Easy Job, a whole pixel office for your agents, one y away

In short: herdr is the engine, Orca is the inspiration, orcha is the two put together in your terminal.

How heavy is it?

Measured on a Mac, sitting idle with nothing to do:

	Memory	CPU	Download
orcha 0.11	about 40 MB	under 1%	25 MB
herdr 0.9.5	about 30 to 50 MB	under 1%	22 MB
Orca 1.4	300 to 400 MB	about 6%	517 MB

So orcha uses roughly a tenth of Orca's memory, and about the same as plain herdr. Your agents get the rest.

macOS on Apple Silicon, November 2026. For orcha and herdr we count the background server plus the window you look at, in a 200 × 56 terminal, with 1, 5 and 15 panes. For Orca we count all of its processes, with no agent running yet. Each number is a 10-second sample, and macOS compresses memory, so expect about ±10 MB between runs.

With every pane printing 30 lines a second, like busy agents:

Panes	orcha memory	orcha CPU	herdr memory	herdr CPU
1	43 MB	13%	44 MB	12%
5	46 to 52 MB	18 to 26%	46 to 49 MB	14 to 18%
15	49 MB	21%	50 MB	19%

orcha draws more on screen than plain herdr (projects, PROCESS, the side panel), so it uses a few points more CPU while agents print. Making that smaller is on the list.

Easy Job: a pixel-art office for your agents

Easy Job turns what orcha is running into a little office. Each project gets a bench, each agent gets a desk, and you walk the floor as the boss. Try the sample office in your browser, no install needed. Its code lives at trungkien1208/orcha-plugin-office.

• See everyone at a glance. A blue screen means working, a raised hand means it needs you, a green screen means done.
• Answer from the floor. Click an agent to read its chat, tap one of the answers it offers, or give it the next task. Press n to jump to the next raised hand.
• Everything from orcha, in one page. Change an agent's model, switch its account or hand the chat to a new agent.
• Stays on your machine. No account, no telemetry, no internet while it runs. When an agent finishes for good, two HR bouncers carry it out. Exit interviews are short.

Add it any time (the installer and orcha also offer it once, and only add it if you say yes):

orcha office install   # add Easy Job
orcha office           # open it

New Easy Job versions come out on their own schedule: orcha tells you when one is ready, and one click updates it. No need to wait for a new orcha.

Commands

orcha             # open orcha (or come back to it)
orcha update      # get the latest version, and update your plugins too
orcha uninstall   # remove orcha (asks before touching your settings)
orcha settings    # every setting on one page in your browser

Settings in the browser. Click ⚙ settings in the header, or run orcha settings. One page, in orcha's look and your theme's colors: colors and font, the layout with a live sketch of your window, your accounts and how much each one has left, what happens when one runs low, working rules and skills for each project, and what keeps running in the background. Press / to search. Changes show up at once in every orcha window. The page lives on 127.0.0.1 behind a one-time token and closes by itself a few minutes after you close the tab.

Working rules for your projects. When you add a project, orcha offers to write a few rules into its CLAUDE.md, like "plan in slices first" or "verify before saying done", so every agent there follows them. Nothing is written until you say yes, and Settings › Projects can change them later.

Hand-off before an account runs dry. In Settings › Hand-off, three marks on a fuel bar: under the first, orcha offers (with the agent between turns) to have it write a checklist of what is done and what is next to .orcha/handoff.md; under the second it offers to switch; under the third it moves the chat to the account with the most fuel by itself. The first and last are off until you set them. Pick there too whether switching keeps the chat running, restarts the agent, or opens a new pane. A hand-off points the next agent at the checklist. The next agent sums up where the work stands and waits for your go before it touches anything.

How each pane is doing. In the sidebar, every agent hangs off its project like a tree, with two small lines under it: its model and the git branch it is on (plus commits to push ↑ or pull ↓ and files changed ±), then how full its context is and the memory it holds. Numbers are green while fine, yellow when worth a look, red when too much. Next to each state, how long the agent has been sitting there (idle 12m). The bar at the bottom sums up the open pane with a face (🙂 fine, 😐 worth a look, 😵 trouble) and the one number that is the problem (for heavy RAM, the process eating it, unless that is the agent itself), and on the right how much RAM orcha uses in total.

What runs in the background. COMMANDS › Running in background (or orcha status) lists the server, every agent and its state, plugin servers and Easy Job, with Go to and Stop. The page lives on 127.0.0.1 behind a one-time token and closes by itself a few minutes after you close the tab.

Quitting orcha only closes the window. Your agents keep working in the background, and orcha brings you back. After an update, switch the background part to the new version without stopping anyone:

orcha server live-handoff --import-exe ~/.local/bin/orcha   # then open orcha again
orcha server stop                                          # stops everything, agents too

Easy Job, the pixel office:

orcha office          # open it (starts it if it is off)
orcha office status   # is it added, is it running, and on which address
orcha office stop     # close it, keep it installed
orcha office install  # add it
orcha office update   # get the newest one; a running office restarts on it
orcha office remove   # remove it (asks first, keeps its data unless you say so)

In orcha itself, the header shows ● office while Easy Job runs and ○ office when it is off: click it to open. COMMANDS (⌕ commands) has Open, Stop, Update and Uninstall for Easy Job and every other plugin.

Plugins in general:

orcha plugin list                       # what is installed, and any update waiting
orcha plugin install owner/repo         # add a plugin from GitHub
orcha plugin update <id>                # get its newest version
orcha plugin uninstall <id>             # remove it

orcha checks once a day whether a plugin has a new version, tells you once, and keeps an Update in COMMANDS. Rather not be asked? Settings, look, "plugin updates": automatic.

orcha also shows a green button when an update of orcha itself is ready.

Good to know

• Agent logos show up in Ghostty, WezTerm and iTerm2. Other terminals show simple symbols instead.
• Something looks wrong? Open an issue with your OS, terminal, orcha version and a screenshot. Beta feedback shapes 1.0.

Run orcha update, then switch the background part to the new version (quitting orcha alone keeps the old one running):

orcha server live-handoff --import-exe ~/.local/bin/orcha

Then open orcha again. Your running agents move over without stopping. If you see config.toml has unknown keys or a new feature is missing, this step was skipped. Avoid orcha server stop while agents are busy, because that stops them too.

• Your own color palette: add a style file at ~/.config/orcha/styles/<name>.toml (macOS).
• Font, size and ligature settings apply in Ghostty only.
• The macOS installer uses Python 3 for a few extras, such as hooks and the icon font.

You need Rust and Zig 0.16.

git clone https://github.com/trungkien1208/orcha && cd orcha
ZIG=/path/to/zig cargo build --release
cp target/release/herdr ~/.local/bin/orcha   # the name "orcha" turns on the orcha app

Thanks

orcha is built on herdr, which does the heavy lifting: running the terminals, keeping sessions alive and spotting which agent is which. orcha adds the look and the agent workflow on top, with plenty of ideas borrowed from Orca. herdr's own README is in docs/orcha/herdr-README.md.

Licensed under the Apache License 2.0, like herdr.