The full tour

Coding agents, choreographed.

Every surface in Iris Code exists for one reason: keep the operator in flow. Here's what each feature does, why it exists, and how the pieces fit together.

01 / Orchestrator

Iris is the single point of conversation.

One agent, one chat window, one mental model. Tell Iris what you want to accomplish and she decomposes the work — drafting a plan, spawning workers, watching their progress, and surfacing the next decision for you to confirm with a click.

You never have to remember which terminal had which task. Iris keeps the thread of the whole engagement, and writes a calm, structured summary at every milestone.

Iris
worker · refactor
worker · tests
worker · docs
02 / Parallel sub-agents

N workers, side by side.

Iris Code spawns multiple claude subprocesses simultaneously. Each lives in its own working directory (or sandbox copy), each streams its output independently, and each can be paused, cancelled, or branched without disturbing the rest.

You can give different agents different API keys, different models, even different system prompts — they're real, isolated processes, not multiplexed views. 

┌──────────┐   ┌──────────┐   ┌──────────┐
│  agent 1 │   │  agent 2 │   │  agent 3 │
└────┬─────┘   └────┬─────┘   └────┬─────┘
     │              │              │
   refactor        tests           docs
     │              │              │
     └──────────────┴──────────────┘
                    │
                ▼ orchestrator
03 / Spotlight overlay

Ask from anywhere.

A global hotkey, Ctrl + Shift + Space, summons a translucent overlay over whatever application you're in. Ask a question, paste an error, drop a stack trace — the response streams back in‑place. Press Esc when you're done and your previous focus is restored.

It's a launcher, a rubber duck, and a research assistant — without ever opening a window or breaking the rhythm of what you were doing.

Ctrl+ Shift+ Space
Iris · overlay Why is my fetch() returning a 401 in dev but not prod?
04 / Sandboxed workspaces

Try things without breaking anything.

Toggle sandbox mode on a thread and Iris Code clones your project into a scratch directory. The agent works there, freely. When you're satisfied, export the changes back as a patch, a branch, or an overlay onto your real working tree.

Perfect for risky refactors, experimental rewrites, or just trying three approaches in three parallel sandboxes and merging the best one.

Repoyour working tree
Sandboxscratch clone
Patchexport back
05 / Encrypted key vault

Per‑agent API keys, locked down.

Store as many Anthropic keys as you like, each with a friendly name — "personal", "client‑a", "experiments" — and assign a different key to each agent. Keys are encrypted at rest via the OS keychain (DPAPI on Windows; Keychain on macOS).

No plaintext keys in config files. No leaking through logs. Rotate any key from one place and every agent picks up the change.

  • personal · sk-ant‑*****
  • client‑a · sk-ant‑*****
  • experiments · sk-ant‑*****
  • team-shared · sk-ant‑*****
06 / Live streaming UI

Token‑by‑token. Tool‑by‑tool.

Iris Code renders the assistant's output as it arrives — character by character — with first‑class UI for tool calls. Every read_file, edit_file, run_shell shows up as a card you can expand to see the exact arguments and result.

Long turns get a milestone timeline at the side, so you can scrub a fifteen‑minute session in two seconds.

read_filesrc/auth.ts
edit_file+ src/middleware/auth.ts
run_shellpnpm test --filter auth
07 / Codex‑grade design

Warm dark. Gold accents. Quiet motion.

Every color, radius, and easing curve was chosen to feel like a high‑end editor: calm enough to live in for hours, expressive enough to surface state without announcement. The result is a tool that looks like the kind of thing professionals choose, because professionals chose it.

No bright reds. No flat enterprise blue. No marketing chrome. Just the work.

Iowan Old Style
Inter / Segoe UI Variable
08 / Command palette new

Every action, one keypress away.

Press Ctrl + Shift + P and a fuzzy search opens over the entire app. New thread, switch agent, change model, open settings, pin this thread, export to markdown — type a few letters, hit return.

The keyboard is the source of truth.

Ctrl+ Shift+ P
09 / Workflow templates new

Start fast, with intent.

Iris Code ships with curated templates — Code Review, Refactor, Test Coverage, Documentation, Bug Hunt, Migration — each preloaded with a system prompt and a short list of starter actions. One click and you're already useful.

Custom templates are coming in v0.3. For now, fork any built‑in template and tweak.

  • Code Review
  • Refactor
  • Test Coverage
  • Documentation
  • Bug Hunt
  • Migration
10 / Stats dashboard new

See the work, at a glance.

A live dashboard tracks every thread, message, tool invocation, and token consumed. Sort by agent, by template, by week. Spot the threads where you're losing time and the templates that pay back.

No telemetry leaves your machine. Stats are local‑only.

248threads
3,481messages
9,204tool calls
14hthis week
11 / Conversation export new

One click to markdown.

Any thread, exported as a clean markdown file — code blocks intact, tool calls formatted as collapsible blocks, headings for each turn. Drop it in a PR, an issue, or your knowledge base. 

# Refactor auth flow

> Move the auth middleware out of
> server.js into its own module...

## Iris
I've extracted the middleware...

- tool: read_file(server.js)
- tool: edit_file(src/middleware/auth.js)
12 / System notifications new

It pings you when it's done.

Kick off a long refactor. Switch to your inbox. Iris Code raises a native OS toast when the agent finishes — or when it stalls on a question only you can answer. Configure exactly which events trigger which kind of nudge.

i
Iris Code "Refactor auth flow" finished · 6 files changed
13 / Pinned threads + snippets new

Your favorites, one keystroke away.

Pin threads you return to often — they sit at the top of the sidebar with a small gold ring. Save prompts as snippets; type / in any chat input to see and insert them with fuzzy search.

Build a personal vocabulary of prompts that work for you, then summon them with two keystrokes.

/review
snippet/review · Do a thorough code review of the diff…
snippet/refactor · Refactor this file for clarity…
How it works

A small Electron shell around a big idea.

Iris Code is intentionally thin. The heavy lifting happens in claude; we just give you a calm cockpit to fly N of them at once.

Youkeyboard · spotlight · command palette
Iris orchestratorconversation, planning, suggestion, summary
claude #1sandbox · key A
claude #2sandbox · key B
claude #3repo · key A
Your repo, your machine, your keysnothing leaves the box
What's next

The v0.3 roadmap.

What we're working on right now, ordered roughly by likelihood of landing first.

  • v0.3 · Mode B

    Bring‑your‑own backend.

    An optional "Mode B" runtime that talks to non‑Anthropic APIs (OpenAI, local models via OpenAI‑compatible servers, others) while keeping the same orchestrator UX.

  • v0.3 · Browser pane

    Live browser via Playwright MCP.

    Embed a controllable browser pane next to the chat. Agents can navigate, click, and screenshot — perfect for testing UI changes against the running app.

  • v0.3 · Diff viewer

    First‑class diff viewer for file edits.

    Every edit_file tool call expands into a syntax‑highlighted diff. Approve, reject, or amend before the change is written.

  • v0.3 · Custom templates

    Author your own workflow templates.

    A small editor for system prompt, starter actions, and default tool config. Share templates as a single JSON file.

  • v0.4 · Mac & Linux

    Native builds for macOS and Linux.

    Signed DMG for macOS, AppImage and deb for Linux. Hotkey, keychain, and notification integrations on each platform.

One orchestrator. N agents. Zero context‑switching.

Iris Code v0.4.0 is ready. Try it now, share what you build.

Download for Windows Read the docs