Nerve

A transparent, local-first desktop coding harness with the focus of a small agent and the workflow of a complete workbench.

Nerve keeps agent activity visible and gives you direct control over models, permissions, tools, approvals, Git, and background tasks while working with local projects.

Website · Documentation · Install guide · Contributing · Security

Note

Nerve is beta software. It runs on Linux, Windows 11, and macOS and is distributed under the Apache-2.0 license.

Quick start

Nerve requires Node.js 24 or newer. Launch the latest published desktop app directly from npm:

npx @nervekit/desktop@latest
# or
pnpm dlx @nervekit/desktop@latest

The first launch may download Electron's platform binary. Nerve starts a local loopback daemon by default, and its application data stays under ~/.nerve.

Highlights

• Follow streaming messages, reasoning, tool calls, plans, approvals, questions, logs, and task output.
• Change the model, thinking level, agent mode, and permission policy without restarting a conversation.
• Work with conversations, files, Git changes, pull requests, project notes, and background tasks in one workbench.
• Configure providers, tools, global skills, and project resources from the UI.
• Keep projects and Nerve state local by default, with opt-in browser, LAN, mobile, and remote-daemon workflows.

Documentation

The website is the primary source for product and developer documentation:

• Get started
• Use the workbench
• Configure and operate Nerve
• Troubleshoot installation and runtime issues
• Understand the architecture
• Read the Protocol v1 reference

Develop from source

The repository requires Node.js 24 or newer and pnpm 11.17.0.

pnpm install
pnpm desktop

Use pnpm dev for the daemon and browser UI development servers. See the development guide and CONTRIBUTING.md for the complete workflow. Release engineering details remain in docs/release.md.

Support

If Nerve is useful to you, you can support its continued development on Patreon.

Contributing, security, and license

Contributions are welcome. Read CONTRIBUTING.md before opening a change, and report vulnerabilities through the private channels in SECURITY.md.

Nerve is licensed under Apache-2.0. See LICENSE and NOTICE.