Helix gives Claude Code a set of surfaces designed for different kinds of work.
Some jobs start with a conversation. Others need a whiteboard, parallel workers, structured reviews or a live dashboard. Helix chooses the right surface and provides the shared memory, secret handling and infrastructure behind it.
Everything runs on your machine.
/plugin marketplace add TeamHelix-AI/helix
/plugin install helix@team-helixStart with:
/helix:helix-start
Describe what you want to do and Helix will choose the right surface.
If you already know where you're going, you can open any surface directly.
| Surface | Purpose | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Start | Entry point | Describe the work. Helix chooses the right surface or simply gets started. |
| Spark | Explore | Brainstorm with your agents. Good ideas become cards that you can keep, combine or discard. |
| Canvas | Decide | A shared board for questions, options, diagrams and decisions. |
| Loop | Build | Agents build, review and improve their work in rounds. You decide when it's ready to continue. |
| Arena | Compare | Generate several solutions, score them against your criteria and combine the strongest ideas into one result. |
| Swarm | Parallelise | Split a large job into independent pieces and let multiple agents work at the same time. The final report shows what was covered and where the gaps are. |
| Stream | Monitor | Watch agents work in real time. Pause them, redirect them or step in whenever you want. |
| Archive | Remember | A permanent record of a session, including its decisions, findings and outputs. |
| Fleet | Overview | See every active session across every project from one place, including the work waiting for your attention. |
These services are available from every surface.
| Component | Purpose | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Memory | Long-term knowledge | Store facts once and reuse them across sessions. Memory suggests. It never overrides. |
| Vault | Secrets | Store credentials securely. Agents can use them without ever seeing the secret itself. |
| Rails | Team standards | Rules, playbooks, coding standards and checklists shared across your projects. Humans write them. Agents follow them. |
| Shelf | Shared artefacts | Save finished work together with its context so it can be found and reused later. |
Every surface can be opened directly.
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
/helix:helix-start |
Let Helix choose the right surface |
/helix:helix-spark |
Open Spark |
/helix:helix-canvas |
Open Canvas |
/helix:helix-loop |
Open Loop |
/helix:helix-arena |
Open Arena |
/helix:helix-swarm |
Open Swarm |
/helix:helix-stream |
Open Stream |
/helix:helix-archive |
Archive the current session |
/helix:helix-fleet |
Open Fleet |
/helix:helix-memory |
Read or update Memory |
/helix:helix-vault |
Use a stored credential |
/helix:helix-rails |
Read, follow or update Rails |
/helix:helix-shelf |
Save or retrieve an artefact |
Helix supports:
- macOS
- Linux
- arm64
- amd64
The first time you run a Helix command, it downloads the helix binary (about 23 MB) into:
~/.helix/bin/
The download is verified against the bundled checksum before it runs.
Nothing else is installed.
The first time you use Vault, it creates a master key. On macOS the key is stored in the Keychain, so you may be asked to grant access once.
Helix stores everything outside your repositories.
~/.helix/
├── bin/
├── memory/
├── vault/
├── rails/
├── shelf/
├── sessions/
└── logs/
Set HELIX_HOME to move the entire directory.
Set HELIX_BIN to use your own Helix binary.
/plugin marketplace update team-helix
/plugin update helix@team-helixThe next time you run a Helix command, the matching binary is downloaded automatically.
Apache 2.0.
Published from the Team Helix repository. Issues, discussions and contributions are welcome.