specterMake room for
your best work.
Your shell. Your colors. Your flow.
A thoughtfully crafted terminal that feels
right at home on your Mac.
Your next 75 seconds.
Companions, themes, and six sessions. Then a real command-line workflow, from prompt to a food delivery website.
Actual app recording · 1:15 · Edited with accelerated typing and build progress, quiet music, and added keyboard sounds. Claude Code and DeepSeek run as external tools; Specter has no built-in AI service.
Read the walkthrough
The recording opens in Specter, explores twelve companions and theme choices, and moves between six shell sessions using tabs and splits. White shortcut labels accompany the actions. A prompt in Claude Code, configured with DeepSeek, builds an HTML, CSS, and JavaScript food delivery prototype and publishes its source to GitHub. The browser shows the completed prototype before the video returns to the terminal. Generation is accelerated; the food app uses simulated orders.
AppKit, SwiftUI, and familiar shortcuts.
Original light and dark color themes.
Real PTYs across tabs, splits, and windows.
No account. No terminal telemetry.
One project.
Many moving parts.
Your server, your tests, your scratchpad. Keep them in separate shells and move between them with native tabs, splits, and a searchable session overview.
Make yourself at home →Workspace illustration. Each session in the app runs a real PTY.
Different shells.
Different personalities.
Twelve original pixel companions. Pick one for each window, tab, or split pane—even when they share a profile.
Try three combinations below.
The native app includes Wisp, Moth, Kettle, Mimic, Orbit, Moss, Bytebat, Cinder, Jelly, Origami, Imp, and Rover. Enable JavaScript to try the animated preview.
In Specter, click Companions… or press ⇧⌘M. Each pane keeps its choice; the strip follows the pane you focus.
Find your kind of quiet.
From soft morning light to the deepest midnight.
130 original palettes. One very personal workspace.
Feels like a Mac.
Works like a terminal.
Metal renders your text. A real pseudoterminal runs your shell. Native controls bring it together, with keyboard navigation, system appearance, and accessible interfaces.
Under the surface →A little guidance.
A long way to go.
Download the preview.
Apple silicon · macOS 14+ target · Free and open source
For testers: this app is not Apple-notarized. macOS may block it. Read the installation guide before opening it. No Xcode is needed for the ZIP; the source command below requires Xcode.
Unzip, move Specter.app to Applications, and open it. Specter runs on your Mac without a Specter account or hosted server. Online commands and external AI tools use their own services. Updates are manual. Runtime testing currently covers an M3 Mac on macOS 26.3.1.
Install from your terminal.
Developer preview · Apple silicon · macOS 14+ target · Full Xcode and Metal tools required.
mkdir -p "$HOME/Developer" && git clone https://github.com/shellcat-com/Specter.git "$HOME/Developer/Specter" && "$HOME/Developer/Specter/scripts/install.sh"Builds from source and installs in ~/Applications. No administrator password needed. Already cloned Specter? Run ./scripts/install.sh in your checkout.
A terminal worth settling into.
Download Specter ↗Early software, thoughtfully built. Check compatibility with your everyday tools.