Lever

A desktop app for managing development services, terminals, and Git worktrees — all in one place.

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Lever replaces the mess of terminal tabs, manually started services, and scattered dev scripts with a single interface. Define your services once, organize them into groups, and start everything with a click. Switch between Git worktrees without losing context. Split terminals like tmux — but with a GUI.

Features

Service Management

• Define services with commands, args, working directories, and optional stop commands
• Organize services into logical groups (e.g. "Backend", "Frontend", "Infrastructure")
• Start/stop services individually or monitor real-time logs
• Automatic log capture to ~/.lever/projects/<id>/logs/

Terminal Workspaces

• Integrated terminal powered by xterm.js
• Split panes vertically and horizontally
• Multiple workspaces per project with quick switching
• Auto-respawn shell on exit

Git Worktrees

• Create and manage Git worktrees directly from the sidebar
• Each worktree gets its own isolated set of service groups
• Branch autocomplete when creating new worktrees
• Live Git status — current branch, staged/unstaged changes, dirty state

Project Launcher

• Start page with project cards showing service counts and last-opened time
• Create projects from any folder with automatic Git detection
• Import/export project configs as JSON
• Clone and rename projects via right-click context menu

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Cmd+T	New workspace
Cmd+D	Split pane vertically
Cmd+Shift+D	Split pane horizontally
Cmd+W	Close pane
Cmd+[ / Cmd+]	Focus previous / next pane
Cmd+1 – Cmd+9	Switch to workspace by index

All shortcuts are scoped to the active worktree context.

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Desktop framework	Tauri 2 (Rust)
Frontend	React 18, TypeScript, Vite
State management	Zustand
Terminal	xterm.js
PTY	portable-pty
Git operations	git2

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+
• Rust (stable)
• Tauri 2 CLI — cargo install tauri-cli --version "^2"

Development

# Install frontend dependencies
npm install --prefix ui

# Run in dev mode (starts both Vite and the Tauri window)
cargo tauri dev

The frontend dev server runs at http://localhost:1420 with hot reload. Rust changes trigger an automatic recompile.

Build

cargo tauri build

Produces a bundled .app (macOS) or .exe (Windows) in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/.

Installation

Download the latest .dmg from Releases, open it, and drag Lever to Applications.

Note: The app is not code-signed. macOS may flag it as damaged on first launch. Fix with:

xattr -cr /Applications/Lever.app

Project Structure

lever/
├── src-tauri/          Rust backend — PTY management, Git ops, service lifecycle
│   ├── src/main.rs     Tauri command handlers
│   └── Cargo.toml
├── ui/                 React frontend
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── components/ UI components (Sidebar, MainPanel, StartPage, Modals)
│   │   ├── stores/     Zustand stores (config, services, worktrees, workspaces, git, theme)
│   │   ├── hooks/      PTY management, keyboard shortcuts, Tauri events
│   │   ├── lib/        IPC wrappers, pane tree logic
│   │   └── types/      TypeScript interfaces
│   └── package.json
└── .github/workflows/  CI/CD release pipeline

Service Configuration

Services are defined in JSON groups within each project:

{
  "groups": [
    {
      "id": "backend",
      "label": "Backend",
      "services": [
        {
          "id": "api",
          "label": "API Server",
          "command": "npm",
          "args": ["run", "dev"],
          "cwd": "/path/to/api",
          "service_type": "service"
        },
        {
          "id": "db",
          "label": "Database",
          "command": "docker",
          "args": ["compose", "up"],
          "cwd": "/path/to/project",
          "service_type": "service"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Each worktree can override these groups with its own service definitions, so feature branches can run different configurations without affecting the main workspace.

License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.