~20MB native code editor with built-in AI agents. Ships fast.

Website · Download · ClifPad · ClifCode TUI · Development

---

Two products, one monorepo:

1. ClifPad — Desktop IDE with Monaco editor, real terminal, git, and an AI agent sidebar
2. ClifCode — Terminal AI agent that reads, writes, searches, and runs commands

Both use any LLM via OpenRouter, OpenAI, Anthropic, or Ollama (fully local). No Electron. No telemetry. No subscription.

---

Get It

ClifPad — Desktop IDE Download from Releases — macOS (.dmg), Windows (.exe), Linux (.deb, .AppImage). Built-in auto-updater checks for new versions on startup. macOS "App can't be opened"? Run xattr -cr /Applications/ClifPad.app then open normally.

ClifCode — Terminal Agent cargo install clifcode npm i -g clifcode Run clifcode in any project. Built-in /update command for self-updates.

---

ClifPad

A ~20MB native Rust IDE. Tauri 2 backend, SolidJS frontend, Monaco editor.

Editor — 70+ languages, IntelliSense, multi-cursor, minimap, code folding. Same engine as VS Code.

Terminal — Native PTY. Multiple tabs, kill, clear. Launch ClifCode or Claude Code with one click.

Git — Branch, stage, commit, push/pull, per-file diff stats, visual commit graph. All in Rust.

AI Agent Sidebar — Built-in chat agent with 9 tools (read, write, edit, search, find, list, run commands). Streams responses, shows tool calls with arguments inline, context compaction for long tasks. Separate from the terminal — both can run simultaneously.

20 Themes — Midnight, Graphite, Dawn, Arctic, Dusk, Cyberpunk, Ember, Forest, Solarized Dark, Monokai, Nord, Dracula, One Dark, Tokyo Night, Catppuccin, Rosé Pine, Ayu Dark, Vesper, Poimandres, Pale Fire. Two-column theme picker split by dark/light.

Security Scanner — Detects hardcoded secrets, API keys, private keys, SQL injection, eval/exec, and more. Runs automatically before every git commit — warns before you ship a vulnerability. Full repo scan from the status bar. Enable/disable toggle. No false positives from binary files or dependencies.

Keyboard Shortcuts — Ctrl+`` toggle terminal, Ctrl+Shift+`` new terminal, Cmd+K clear terminal, Ctrl+B sidebar, Ctrl+S save, Ctrl+Shift+P command palette.

Size Comparison

	Binary	RAM (idle)
ClifPad	~20MB	~80MB
Cursor	~400MB	~500MB+
VS Code	~350MB	~400MB+
Zed	~100MB	~200MB

---

ClifCode TUI

Terminal AI agent. Like Claude Code, but works with any LLM.

  ◆ Model  anthropic/claude-sonnet-4    ◆ Mode  auto-edit
  ◆ Path   ~/projects/my-app

  ❯ refactor the auth module to use JWT tokens

    ▶ read  src/auth/mod.rs
    ▶ read  src/auth/session.rs
    ✎ edit  src/auth/mod.rs  +42 -18
    ▸ run   cargo test — 23 tests passed

  ✦ ClifCode  Refactored auth to JWT. Added token expiry and refresh.
  ∙ 2.1k tokens  ∙ ~$0.0312

Tools

Tool	What it does
read_file	Read files with offset for large files
write_file	Create/overwrite files, shows diff
edit_file	String replacement with fuzzy fallback
find_file	Recursive name search
search	Grep across 15+ file types
list_files	Directory tree view
run_command	Shell execution with 30s timeout
change_directory	Switch workspace
submit	Mark task complete

Features

1. Context compaction — 3-tier automatic context management. Truncates large results, stubs old ones, drops old turns. Runs indefinitely without hitting context limits.
2. Auto-update — Background version check on startup, /update self-replaces the binary from GitHub releases.
3. Session persistence — Every conversation auto-saves. Resume any session by ID.
4. 3 autonomy modes — suggest (confirm every write), auto-edit (apply + show diff), full-auto (hands-off).
5. Any LLM — OpenRouter (100+ models), OpenAI, Anthropic, Ollama (local), or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint.
6. Cost tracking — Per-turn token usage and cost estimate.
7. Git integration — Commits on task completion with user confirmation. Undo with /undo.

Commands

/new  /sessions  /resume  /cost  /clear  /quit
/cd   /add       /drop    /context
/mode /backend   /config  /update  /version
/status  /undo   /help

CLI

clifcode                                    # interactive
clifcode -p "explain this codebase"         # single prompt
clifcode --backend ollama                   # local models
clifcode --autonomy suggest                 # confirm writes
clifcode --resume                           # resume last session
clifcode -w /path/to/project                # set workspace
clifcode --version                          # show version

---

Build

# ClifPad
cd clif-pad-ide
npm install && npm run tauri dev

# ClifCode
cd clif-code-tui
cargo run --release

Architecture

ClifPad:  Tauri 2 (Rust) → IPC → SolidJS + Monaco + xterm.js
ClifCode: Pure Rust binary → ureq streaming → terminal UI

Project Structure

Clif-Code/
├── clif-pad-ide/          Desktop IDE (Tauri 2 + SolidJS)
│   ├── src/               Frontend (components, stores, lib)
│   ├── src-tauri/src/     Rust backend (fs, git, pty, ai, agent)
│   └── www/               Landing page (clifcode.io)
├── clif-code-tui/         Terminal agent (pure Rust)
│   ├── src/               main, backend, tools, ui, session, config
│   └── npm/               npm distribution (6 platform binaries)
└── .github/workflows/     CI/CD (semantic release, multi-platform builds)

Conventional commits: feat: bumps minor, fix: bumps patch. Semantic release handles versioning, builds, and publishing for both products.

---

FAQ

macOS "App can't be opened"? Run xattr -cr /Applications/ClifPad.app in Terminal. This removes Apple's download quarantine flag. ClifPad is open source and safe.

Does it work offline? ClifPad: yes — AI is opt-in. Without API keys it's a full editor with terminal and git. ClifCode: needs an API, but Ollama runs fully local.

What models work? Any model on an OpenAI-compatible API. Default: Claude Sonnet 4 via OpenRouter (100+ models). Local: any Ollama model.

---

License

FSL-1.1-ALv2 — Free to use, modify, and self-host. Cannot be used to build a competing commercial product. Converts to Apache 2.0 after 2 years.

_{Built by James Lawrence}