The Desktop App
Eidos MD is Eidos with no terminal in the way. It is the page eidos browser serves and the same core the CLI runs, in an app of its own: install it, open a folder, and the root is there, with every plugin the page carries. Nothing else to install, no Node, no npm.
Install it
Section titled “Install it”| Platform | Build | |
|---|---|---|
| macOS | Apple Silicon (M1 and later), Intel | Open the .dmg and drag Eidos MD to Applications. Both builds are signed and notarized, so the Mac opens them without a warning. |
| Linux | AppImage, deb | chmod +x Eidos-MD-*.AppImage and run it, or sudo apt install ./Eidos-MD-*.deb. |
| Windows | Installer (Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit) | Run the installer. It installs for you alone, with no administrator prompt, and lets you pick the folder. It is signed. |
Each platform has a link that always points at the current build: /download/mac-arm64, /download/mac-x64, /download/win, /download/linux-appimage, and /download/linux-deb. Use them in a README or a message and they never go stale.
Several roots
Section titled “Several roots”Open Another Root, the + on the strip at the top, shows the Launcher: Open Folder…, New Root…, and the workspaces you opened recently. Pick any folder in or around a root: the app finds the root the way the CLI does, in the folder itself, above it, or up to two levels beneath it. New Root… opens a setup page that fills its place and keeps you there until the root is made. Pick the folder, then Where inside it the root goes (Blueprints by default, or any folder such as docs/blueprints, never over a root that is already there), then how. Set up with Plato has you pick the AI first; Plato can read what is already in the folder, if you say yes (the folder and nothing above it), say which Registry frameworks fit and why, and propose a framework of its own when none does, with a product name, a naming convention, and the plugins. Use these fills the steps with its picks, and you change any of them there. Set up yourself walks the same steps by hand: the framework, the name, the AI, the plugins. The Review shows every answer and the eidos install and eidos configure: commands that make the same root, and nothing is written until Create root. The root opens on its Home with Plato beside it, and Open Folder… on a folder with no root offers the same setup.
Each root on the strip is named for the product it defines (eidos setup --product, or the pencil on the Home), else for the repository it sits in. Several are open at once, each served by its own process on a port of its own, so one busy root never slows another and the app runs beside eidos browser without either noticing.
Inside a root, pages open in tabs above the main area, and the keys an editor gives its tabs are theirs:
| macOS | Windows and Linux | |
|---|---|---|
| Open Folder… | ⌘O |
Ctrl+O |
| Switch Root… (the one in hand) | ⇧⌘O |
Ctrl+Shift+O |
| New Tab | ⌘T |
Ctrl+T |
| Close Tab | none (⌘W closes the window) |
Ctrl+W |
| Next and previous tab | ⌃⇥ and ⌃⇧⇥ |
Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab |
| Go to tab 1 to 9 | ⌘1 to ⌘9 |
Ctrl+1 to Ctrl+9 |
| Reopen Closed Tab | ⇧⌘T |
Ctrl+Shift+T |
| New Window | ⇧⌘N |
Ctrl+Shift+N |
| Close Window | ⌘W |
Ctrl+Shift+W |
In focus mode, one page at a time with no tabs, those keys go back to the roots: ⌘T opens another root, Ctrl+Tab and ⌘1 to ⌘9 move between roots, and Ctrl+W closes the root off a Mac. Close Root, Next Root, and Previous Root are always in the File and Window menus.
The app’s commands are in the palette beside the page’s, and the page’s commands are in the menu bar. The mouse’s back and forward buttons walk the history, as a browser’s do. Closing a root or quitting saves what an editor holds, as leaving a page does in the Browser, and the app reopens with the roots and the tabs you had.
Updates
Section titled “Updates”The app checks for a new release when it starts and once a day, downloads it in the background, and offers to restart when it is ready. Ignore the offer and you keep working; the update installs the next time you quit. Check for Updates… in the palette asks now. After an update each root opens the new release’s page, once (Preferences turns that off); Help → What’s New lists every release and Help → Show Release Notes opens the one you are on.
The app’s version is the CLI’s: one number, one release history.
eidos on the PATH
Section titled “eidos on the PATH”The app offers this once, on its first launch, when no eidos is on the PATH yet; after that, Put eidos on the PATH… in the palette or the Help menu installs a small eidos command that runs the CLI the app carries, the way VS Code offers code. A terminal gets the command without npm, and so does a coding agent working in that terminal. It goes in /usr/local/bin on macOS, which asks for your password, in ~/.local/bin on Linux, and in %LOCALAPPDATA%\eidosmd\bin on Windows, added to your own PATH so a new terminal finds it.
The command runs the app’s CLI at the app’s version. If the CLI from npm is installed too, whichever comes first on the PATH answers, and the app says so when it offers. See the CLI.