Pixet

A pixel-art Claude Code desktop client. Tauri-based fork of winfunc/opcode — same underlying engine, completely different vibe, plus a stack of upstream-bug fixes you can feel.

Features · Screenshots · Pixet vs opcode · Getting started · Repo layout · Acknowledgments

⚠️ Pixet is a community fork. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the upstream opcode project or its authors. For the original, unmodified client, see winfunc/opcode. All upstream copyrights and the AGPL-3.0 license are preserved — see NOTICE and LICENSE.

Screenshots

_{Main chat — pixel-art rail, mascot, sessions}	_{In-rail file tree + modal code viewer}
_{Running shells across every chat tab, with Stop}	_{Agents & MCP — opcode features, pixel-styled}

Pixet vs opcode (tl;dr)

	opcode (upstream)	Pixet
Visual style	Modern smooth UI	Pixel-art overlay, Pixelify Sans, 12-color palette
Icon set	`lucide-react`	`pixelarticons` (+ lucide fallback)
Chat sidebar	Full-page navigation between sessions	Dense in-place rail: mascot, sessions, file tree, running shells, stats
Session rename	Filesystem-only	Inline rename with localStorage persistence
File viewer	Open external	Modal overlay inside the rail
Running processes	Per-session Stop only	Cross-tab Running panel with per-row Stop
Streaming on macOS/WebKit	Drops events silently (#71, #26)	Disk watchdog merges JSONL history every 4 s — zero extra API tokens
Multi-tab streaming	Generic events leak between tabs	Session-scoped listeners; tabs stay isolated
Prompt queue	Drops sends after the first	Hoisted dispatch, queue clears reliably
Bash kill	Orphans descendants on cancel	`pgrep -P` sweep before killing claude
External links	Can hijack the Tauri window	Routed through `plugin-opener`
Analytics	Opt-in default, can re-enable silently	Opt-out default, never silently re-enables
Project paths	Encoded folder name only (#465)	Full JSONL scan + sidecar resolution
Prompt input	Runtime `require()` breaks in webview (#462)	Static ESM import

What Pixet adds

🎨 Visual layer

Global pixel-art overlay (src/styles/pixet.css) — stippled dot patterns, Pixelify Sans typography, step-end animations across every animated surface.
Twelve-color palette anchored on a single orange accent. All hardcoded purple / violet / cyan / rose Tailwind classes were removed throughout the app — loaders, MCP widget, gradients, picker buttons.
Pixel-art mascot diorama (PixetMascot.tsx) — a creature at a CRT workstation, rendered as inline SVG, with hanging plant, bookshelf, lamp, steaming mug, and a mouse darting across the floor.
Custom Pixet wordmark + platform icons regenerated from the original mascot SVG for every Tauri target (.icns, .ico, PNG set).
Defensive Radix overlay (src/styles/pixet-radix.css) — keeps portaled content (popovers, dropdowns, tooltips) on-style.
Icon shim (src/lib/icons.ts) — re-exports pixelarticons where a pixel equivalent exists, falls back to lucide-react otherwise. See FALLBACK_ICONS.md.
Readable model + thinking pickers — full names instead of truncated buttons, larger hit targets.

🪟 Chat-surface rail

A dense sidebar that lives inside every chat session:

Mascot at the top.
Project sessions list (PixetProjectSessions.tsx) — inline rename (localStorage-backed via sessionNames.ts), one-click in-place session switching, no full-page navigation.
File tree of the active project (PixetFileTree.tsx) — lazy-loaded, recursive, virtualized where it counts.
Modal file viewer (PixetFileViewer.tsx) — click any file in the tree, get a code-styled overlay without leaving the chat. Backed by the new read_file_text Tauri command.
Running-shells widget (PixetRunningShells.tsx) — lists every Claude / Bash process the Rust ProcessRegistry has tracked as alive, across all chat tabs. Per-row Stop uses the same cancelClaudeExecution path as the main Stop, plus a pgrep -P sweep that picks up orphaned bash descendants. Hidden when nothing is running.
Usage stats (PixetSidebarStats.tsx) — project / session counts at a glance.

🔧 Reliability (upstream-bug workarounds)

Streaming-output watchdog — works around the Tauri-v2 event-broadcast IPC issue (opcode #71, #26) where the live event channel silently drops messages on macOS / WebKit. Pixet polls the on-disk session JSONL every 4 s (1.5 s for the first poll) and merges (not replaces) new entries, eliminating the vanish-and-reappear flicker. Loading state clears as soon as the result JSONL row from the Claude CLI is seen. Pure local disk reads, zero extra Claude API tokens.
Debounced loading indicator — visibleIsLoading absorbs micro-flicker between events and disk polls.
Stick-to-bottom auto-scroll with a programmatic-scroll suppression window — the disk watchdog can no longer flip stickToBottom mid-animation when it injects merged history.
Prompt queue unblock — hoisted the API dispatch out of the listener-init branch so prompts after the first don't drop silently. Removed the isLoading gate on send/cancel so long-running bash no longer traps the queue.
Bash descendant capture — before killing a Claude turn, Pixet runs pgrep -P and tracks orphaned bash children so they end up in the Running panel and can be stopped explicitly.
Multi-tab event isolation — generic Tauri events without a session id no longer leak between tabs. Each chat scopes its listeners by session id.
Pre-registered session listeners on resume — closes the race where messages streamed before the listener was attached.
Project-path resolution (opcode #465) — resolves a project's real on-disk path from a full JSONL scan plus the sidecar file, instead of guessing from the encoded folder name. Fixes paths containing hyphens.
Prompt-input ESM fix (opcode #462) — replaced a runtime require() with a static ESM import so the prompt input works in the Tauri webview.
External link hardening — printed http://localhost:… URLs from the CLI are routed through plugin-opener instead of being followed inline, so a stray URL can't hijack the Tauri window.

🔒 Privacy

Analytics default to opt-out and never silently re-enable. If you turn it off, it stays off across upgrades.

⚙️ Backend & build

read_file_text Tauri command (src-tauri/src/commands/claude.rs) used by the in-rail file viewer.
pixet-web binary — separate Cargo bin for the optional web-server mode (src-tauri/src/web_main.rs).
justfile rewrite (bun + Tauri CLI) for repeatable local dev — just dev, just build, just web.
@tauri-apps/api aligned to match the Rust tauri minor (2.11 / 2.7 against 2.8 crates).
default-run = "pixet" so tauri dev doesn't ask which binary to run.
Default window bumped to 1440 × 900, with macOSPrivateApi, transparent decorations, and centered placement.

Smoke-tested platforms

Platform	Status	Notes
macOS · Apple Silicon · Darwin 25.x · WebKit	✅ daily-driven	Tauri's broadcast event IPC is degraded here — the streaming watchdog is what keeps chat usable.
Linux / Windows	inherits upstream	Pixet hasn't been verified on these targets. PRs welcome.

Getting started

Prerequisites

Rust toolchain (stable)
Node.js + either bun or npm
Tauri prerequisites for your OS — Tauri prerequisites guide
Claude Code CLI installed and on PATH

Install + run

git clone <this-repo>
cd pixet
bun install          # or: npm install
bun run build        # first build — populates dist/
bun run tauri dev    # spawns the native window

bun run tauri dev compiles the Rust side (a few minutes on a cold cache) and then opens the Tauri window. The Vite dev server runs in the same process.

If bun isn't installed: brew install oven-sh/bun/bun on macOS, or use the upstream's npm scripts.

Just recipes (justfile)

just dev             # tauri dev
just build           # production build (dmg via build:dmg)
just web             # run the pixet-web binary

Type + Rust check before commit

bun run check        # tsc --noEmit && cargo check

Repository layout

The parts Pixet added or changed:

src/
  styles/
    pixet.css                  # global pixel-art overlay
    pixet-radix.css            # defensive overrides for Radix portal content
  components/
    PixetMascot.tsx            # the diorama SVG
    PixetLogo.tsx              # wordmark
    PixetSidebarStats.tsx      # usage / project counts in the rail
    PixetProjectSessions.tsx   # session list with rename + switch
    PixetFileTree.tsx          # lazy-loaded recursive file tree
    PixetFileViewer.tsx        # modal overlay for file contents
    PixetRunningShells.tsx     # cross-tab running-process widget + Stop
    ClaudeCodeSession.tsx      # rebuilt streaming/queue/auto-scroll
    claude-code-session/
      useClaudeMessages.ts     # merge-not-replace disk-watchdog hook
  lib/
    icons.ts                   # pixelarticons ⇄ lucide-react shim
    sessionNames.ts            # localStorage rename store + hook
    analytics/consent.ts       # opt-out-by-default consent gate
    api.ts                     # + listRunningClaudeSessions, killTrackedSubprocess, readFileText
  main.tsx                     # plugin-opener link routing, palette boot

src-tauri/
  src/commands/claude.rs       # + read_file_text, watchdog diagnostics, pgrep-P sweep
  src/main.rs                  # default-run = "pixet", registry wiring, window size
  src/web_main.rs              # pixet-web binary entry

NOTICE                         # upstream attribution + summary of changes
FALLBACK_ICONS.md              # icons that stayed on lucide
CONTRIBUTING.md                # contribution guidelines
docs/screenshots/              # README screenshot drop-in directory

License

Pixet inherits the upstream's GNU Affero General Public License v3.0. All Pixet modifications are released under the same license. See NOTICE for the full attribution + change summary.

Acknowledgments

opcode by mufeedvh, 123vviekr, and contributors — the parent project. Pixet is a thin reskin and bug-fix layer on top of their work; none of the pixel-art polish would matter without the substantial backend and chat-session engineering they built.
pixelarticons by halfmage — the icon set that gives the icon shim real pixel-art icons.
Pixelify Sans (Google Fonts) — the pixel typeface used throughout. Bundled locally in src/assets/fonts/pixelify-sans/.
Tauri, React, Vite, Bun — the platform underneath.

—

_{Made with pixels. Powered by Claude.}

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
.cargo		.cargo
.github/workflows		.github/workflows
cc_agents		cc_agents
docs/screenshots		docs/screenshots
scripts		scripts
src-tauri		src-tauri
src		src
.gitignore		.gitignore
CONTRIBUTING.md		CONTRIBUTING.md
FALLBACK_ICONS.md		FALLBACK_ICONS.md
LICENSE		LICENSE
NOTICE		NOTICE
README.md		README.md
bun.lock		bun.lock
bun.lockb		bun.lockb
index.html		index.html
justfile		justfile
package-lock.json		package-lock.json
package.json		package.json
shell.nix		shell.nix
tsconfig.json		tsconfig.json
tsconfig.node.json		tsconfig.node.json
vite.config.ts		vite.config.ts
web_server.design.md		web_server.design.md

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Pixet

Screenshots

Pixet vs opcode (tl;dr)

What Pixet adds

🎨 Visual layer

🪟 Chat-surface rail

🔧 Reliability (upstream-bug workarounds)

🔒 Privacy

⚙️ Backend & build

Smoke-tested platforms

Getting started

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Acknowledgments

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Pixet

Screenshots

Pixet vs opcode (tl;dr)

What Pixet adds

🎨 Visual layer

🪟 Chat-surface rail

🔧 Reliability (upstream-bug workarounds)

🔒 Privacy

⚙️ Backend & build

Smoke-tested platforms

Getting started

Repository layout

License

Acknowledgments

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