Garcon is a self-hosted visual workspace for running coding agents. Its core goal is to let users run multiple coding agents simultaneously in the browser, including Claude Code, Codex, Cursor Agent, OpenCode, Amp, Factory Droid, and Pi, coordinate their work, and drive everything from prompt to reviewed commit without leaving the browser.
Purpose
Garcon is aimed at developers who need to manage multiple coding agents at once. When multiple agents are running in parallel, one needs approval, another has already finished, and their changes still need to be understood and delivered, Garcon tries to keep the development loop coherent. It puts operations such as agents, terminals, files, and Git on the host, running under the user's own account, and uses the user's configured agent logins and model endpoints.
Main capabilities
- Visual orchestration: Tile up to four resizable windows, move local tabs between windows, organize live chats on a persistent canvas, track work with a tab-driven kanban board, and view forks, handoffs, and delegation lineage in the Chat Map.
- Control every round of interaction: Queue and reorder instructions, guide running work, approve tools, answer agents' questions, pause the queue, interrupt or stop without losing the transcript.
- Visibly coordinate agents: Exchange messages with provenance markers between chats, launch delegated sub-agents, receive their final results, and keep parent relationships auditable.
- Persistent work tracking: Create workspace tickets as lists or status boards, assign and claim work, discuss progress, and preserve attributable change history after chats are deleted and the server restarts.
- Review real changes: Browse and edit files, run terminals, view reasoning and tool calls, review diffs, then stage by line, by hunk, by file, or by folder before committing and pushing.
- Find and reuse context: Search chat metadata and indexed transcripts, save filters, tag, pin, archive, export Markdown or XML, build bounded handoffs, share snapshots, and plan prompts.
- Use across screens: Use the responsive workspace on desktop or mobile, and choose light or dark mode with Classic, Phosphor, or colorblind-friendly themes.
How to use
Quick start requires Bun, git, and a modern browser, plus at least one available coding agent or API provider. Open http://127.0.0.1:8080 On first launch, create an account at /setup, then connect agents and API providers in Settings. Authentication is enabled by default. Optional pull request support requires an authenticated GitHub CLI on the selected executor. Garcon publishes official multi-platform container images for every commit to the main branch, and the Docker guide covers running published images, building the current checkout, image tags, volumes, agent login, Git, SSH, and toolchains.
The CLI can drive ordinary visible Garcon chats through an already running server, covering live directory discovery, synchronous or detached start and resume, bootstrapping, precise turn waiting, status and decisions with permissions, chat metadata, transcript search and bounded reads, export, handoff, and stop control. bun run build-exe can produce standalone Linux x64 and macOS arm64 executables.
The companion cfal/garcon-skills package exposes the same control plane to skill-aware agents such as Claude, Codex, and Pi: garcon-captain searches, reads, organizes, monitors, and coordinates chats; garcon-agent starts or resumes a selected agent through the CLI; garcon-task starts, resumes, stops, or deletes delegated sub-chats and returns their final output; garcon-message exchanges in-band messages with up to 16 existing chats; garcon-schedule creates future or recurring prompts for the current chat; garcon-amp equips a parent with new Oracle, Finder, Librarian, and Reporter specialists; garcon-ticket manages persistent workspace tickets from a chat.
Garcon also installs six editable preambles: a Captain control room that uses the CLI for chat discovery and coordination, plus in-chat protocols for chat identity, inter-chat messaging, delegated agents, scheduled prompts, and tickets. They are excluded from automatic defaults but can be selected per chat. New workspaces receive all six; existing workspaces receive only missing entries at startup and do not overwrite edits or restore deleted entries.
Tickets can be opened from the Add menu in the workspace window. Work can be created without starting a chat, and you can switch between list and board views and filter by project, status, priority, tag, assignee, or readiness. The details pane shares properties, comments across both layouts, relationships, and activities. Settings > Automation > Ticket chat prompt can use {{ticket_id}}, {{ticket_title}}, {{ticket_project}}, {{ticket_description}} to configure templates. Tickets are stored in the workspace's tickets.sqlite, independent of chats and transcripts.
Path-prefix deployment: the webapp, API, and WebSockets can share a runtime URL prefix without rebuilding the frontend, set --base-path /garcon or GARCON_BASE_PATH=/garcon. A reverse proxy must preserve that prefix.
Remote executors: Garcon can run agents, files, Git, and terminals on Local and trusted remote workers. Either side can initiate the connection, and both directions use authenticated Noise-encrypted WebSockets. The Worker listener supports native TLS or, with explicit --no-tls, sitting behind a protected TLS proxy.
When it applies
Suitable for developers or teams who run coding agents on a host and want centralized viewing, control, review, and delivery of changes, especially scenarios that require running multiple agents in parallel, tracking delegation lineage, managing with a ticket kanban, or approving on a phone.
Limitations
- Garcon does not sandbox agents or their commands; review the security notes before exposing it outside a trusted network.
- A trusted single-user environment can disable authentication, but do not expose an unauthenticated instance to an untrusted network.
- Ticket draft recovery is not a backup; when storage reports a warning, copy the text before closing.
- Claude Code requires version 2.1.238 or higher.
- Custom endpoints must include the model ID with exact annotations in their model catalog.
- Remote executor workspace-scoped CLI access is a separate authorization that is disabled by default.
- The license is GPL-3.0. Other information not mentioned in the materials, such as pricing and platform effects, is not yet provided.
