devchain-cli

Quick Start · Docs · Mobile App · Releases

DevChain is a local-first orchestrator for AI coding agents. It runs Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Antigravity, and GitHub Copilot as coordinated teams — each agent in its own real tmux terminal, sharing a board of epics, a chat, and a code-review flow. You describe the work, the teams plan and build it in parallel, and you review and merge from the web UI — with an end-to-end-encrypted mobile app to keep an eye on everything when you step away.

Key features

• Teams that manage themselves — the Builders team adds Coders when work piles up and picks the right model per task: cheaper models for routine changes, top-tier models for harder work. The Planning team researches plans from several angles in parallel before you approve them.
• Real terminals, live — every agent runs in a tmux session streamed to your browser with full TTY support. Watch it work, scroll back, or take over at any moment.
• A board agents actually use — kanban-style epics and sub-epics with drag-and-drop; agents pick up tasks and update statuses themselves through MCP tools.
• ClickUp and Jira integration — connect your work boards to see assigned tasks in DevChain, import them as Epics with links back to the source, manage statuses and subtasks, and log time without leaving the app.
• Code review built in — live pre-commit diff viewer with inline comments, @mentions, and threading, wired into the agent workflow.
• Session reader and context tracking — full transcript viewer for all five providers, with per-turn token usage, cost tracking, and compaction events; live context-window bars for every agent.
• Skills and MCP — sync community skill packs (Anthropic, OpenAI, Vercel, and more) and expose them to agents; the full MCP toolset is auto-configured before each session.
• Local-first — everything lives in a local SQLite database and runs on your machine, with your provider accounts and keys.

Supported providers

Provider	CLI	Sessions	Transcripts
Claude Code	claude	✔	✔
Codex	codex	✔	✔
OpenCode	opencode	✔	✔
Antigravity	agy	✔	✔
GitHub Copilot	copilot	✔	✔

Model families such as GLM are available through per-provider configs, and you can switch the provider or model of any agent on the fly.

Quick start

Requirements: Node.js 24 LTS or newer, tmux (brew install tmux / sudo apt install tmux), and at least one provider CLI from the table above.

npm install -g devchain-cli
devchain start

The browser opens automatically. Create a project, import a template, and start the Brainstormer session with a description of what you want to build. Run devchain start --help for ports, host binding, and foreground mode; devchain stop shuts the server down.

Native installation

better-sqlite3 v13 ships bundled Node-API artifacts, so mainstream supported installations do not need a C/C++ compiler for SQLite. DevChain's postinstall check opens an in-memory database, executes a query, and closes it; an unusable artifact now fails installation instead of only printing a diagnostic. Set DEVCHAIN_SKIP_POSTINSTALL=1 only when intentionally bypassing that verification.

CI executes the application and SQLite checks on Linux x64 with Node 24, plus a focused Node 26 compatibility lane. Published binaries or image manifests for other platform/architecture combinations prove artifact presence only; they are not runtime-execution evidence for macOS, Windows, or arm64.

Template	Agents	Best for
teams-dev (recommended)	Planning team (Brainstormer + Architect), Builders team (Epic Manager + Coders), Code Reviewer	Auto-scaling Builders, parallel planning, tier-aware model routing

How it works

graph LR
    Browser["Web UI<br/>(React)"] -->|HTTP + Socket.IO| App["Local App<br/>(NestJS + Fastify)"]
    App --> DB[("SQLite<br/>local storage")]
    App <-->|tmux / PTY| Sessions["Agent terminal sessions"]
    Sessions --- CLIs["Provider CLIs<br/>claude · codex · opencode · agy · copilot"]
    CLIs <-->|MCP tools| App
    Mobile["Mobile app<br/>(iOS / Android)"] <-->|E2EE relay<br/>sealed data only| App

The Local App serves the web UI and stores all state in a local SQLite database. Agents run as provider CLIs inside tmux sessions and coordinate through DevChain's MCP tools — epics, chat, reviews, skills, and team management. The optional mobile app connects through an end-to-end-encrypted relay: the cloud only forwards sealed data it cannot read.

Mobile app

Monitor and steer your agent teams from your phone, in open beta on iOS (TestFlight) and Android (Play Store). Chat with agents, answer their questions the moment they ask, reassign epics and comment on the board, watch a live terminal viewport, and get push notifications when a session stops or needs you. Reviewing and merging stay on the web — the phone is your mission control on the go. Everything between your PC and phone is end-to-end encrypted.

Resources

• Homepage — product overview and screenshots
• Quick Start Guides — visual step-by-step setup for both templates
• Releases — versioned release notes
• Contributing — development setup and project structure

Community and support

Questions, bug reports, and feature requests are welcome in GitHub Issues. Watch Releases to follow what ships.

Contributing

Development setup, prerequisites, and project structure live in CONTRIBUTING.md. Issues and pull requests are welcome.

License

Free and source-available under the Elastic License 2.0. You may use, copy, and modify DevChain freely; you may not provide it as a managed service or a competing commercial offering.