Munder Difflin

Local multi-agent harness for the terminal coding CLIs you already run — Claude Code, Antigravity (Gemini), OpenAI Codex, OpenCode, Crush, pi.dev, and GitHub Copilot CLI — with bring-your-own keys and local LLMs. Autonomous agents that message, route, and remember — coordinated by a GOD orchestrator you talk to, and visualized as avatars at work on a shared office floor.

---

[!NOTE] The world's best agents. The world's worst paper company. Munder Difflin takes the terminal-agent CLIs you already run — claude, agy, codex, opencode, crush, pi, and copilot — and turns them into a self-coordinating team: each agent gets long-term memory, a mailbox, and a desk on a 2D office floor — and a GOD orchestrator agent routes work between them while you watch.

Contents

• What it is
• How it works
• Features
• Getting started
• Architecture
• Project structure
• Design system
• Roadmap
• Contributing
• License
• Acknowledgements

What it is

Munder Difflin is a desktop app that wraps real terminal-agent CLIs as fully-capable agents, wires them into a hive mind, and puts a GOD orchestration agent in charge — the one agent you talk to in order to get things done. Under the hood it runs the fastest memory layer in the world so every agent remembers what it learns and recalls it instantly.

• Every terminal is an agent. Each claude, agy, codex, opencode, crush, pi, copilot, or custom session runs as a real process in a pseudo-terminal (node-pty), byte-for-byte authentic, rendered with xterm.js.
• Every agent is an avatar. Sessions appear as characters on a Pixi.js office floor — they walk to stations as they work, and envelopes fly desk-to-desk when they message each other.
• The hive coordinates them. Agents read their memory and drain a mailbox; the router moves messages between inboxes; the GOD agent adjudicates, assigns, and escalates only when it needs you.
• Memory that's instant. A markdown-first memory layer with a semantic recall index means agents remember across sessions and recall in milliseconds.

How it works

            you ── talk to ──►  ┌─────────────┐
                                │  GOD agent  │  orchestrator / supervisor
                                │ (Michael's  │  roster · routing · adjudication
                                │   office)   │  blackboard · task ledger
                                └──────┬──────┘
                                       │ assigns · routes · escalates
              ┌────────────────────────┼────────────────────────┐
              ▼                         ▼                         ▼
        ┌───────────┐            ┌───────────┐            ┌───────────┐
        │  agent A  │  message   │  agent B  │  message   │  agent C  │
        │ provider  │ ─────────► │ provider  │ ─────────► │ provider  │
        │  + memory │            │  + memory │            │  + memory │
        └───────────┘            └───────────┘            └───────────┘
              └──────── shared hive: memory · mailbox · blackboard · log ───────┘

1. You spawn agents — each is a normal terminal process (claude, agy, codex, or custom) with its own working directory, identity, and provider-specific lifecycle.
2. Agents collaborate through the hive — a local git repo of plain files. They write to their own outbox/; the harness's router delivers into recipients' inbox/. No agent ever touches git (single-committer design avoids index.lock corruption).
3. The GOD agent runs the floor — it reads every request, resolves routine ones itself (keeping the system fully autonomous), and only escalates critical items (spend, destructive ops, scope changes) into an approvals queue you act on.
4. Everything is visible — you watch avatars move, envelopes fly, and the live terminal stream; you can type back into any session, browse its files, and read its git history.

See HIVE.md for the full multi-agent design, SPEC.md for the terminal/event plane, and DESIGN.md for the visual system.

Features

The floor

• Every terminal is a real agent. Claude Code, Antigravity (Gemini), OpenAI Codex, xAI Grok, Kimi Code, OpenCode, Crush, pi.dev, GitHub Copilot CLI, or a custom command — each in its own node-pty PTY, rendered with xterm.js.
• Every agent is an avatar. A Pixi.js office floor where agents walk to stations, envelopes fly desk to desk, and avatar state reflects real work.
• A GOD orchestrator you talk to. It routes tasks, adjudicates traffic, and escalates only what needs a human. Or press Talk and run the floor by voice.
• Per-agent git worktrees. Optional isolation so parallel agents never collide on branches.

Memory & coordination

• The hive — per-agent memory, atomic-file mailboxes, a shared blackboard, an append-only event log, single-committer git.
• Semantic recall — markdown memory mined into a shared palace, searchable from the UI, with condensation so it doesn't grow forever.
• Enterprise Knowledge Graph — your own documents and policies, queryable by any agent.

Control & safety

• Human gates — spend, scope, and destructive ops escalate to you. Steer mid-run or stop gracefully.
• Circuit breaker — a steer → constrain → stop ladder for agents that loop, storm errors, or blow their budget.
• Budgets & telemetry — per-agent token budgets, real cost from transcripts, a durable ledger, OTel spans, and a tool waterfall.

Command Center

• Kanban tasks with dependencies, scheduled missions + heartbeat, live fleet monitoring, memory search, activity log, and a CI watcher.
• Built-in Monaco IDE — file tree, editor tabs, save, plus CHANGES · HISTORY · COMPARE git rails with commit graph, diffs, branch compare, and guarded checkout. All fs/git access brokered through main.

Getting work in and out

• Slack & webhooks — message a channel or POST a webhook; Michael can spawn an ephemeral worker, reply in-thread, and tear it down.
• Shareable hires + Agent Gallery — import a role from a munderdifflin://hire link; import only pre-fills the form, a human still spawns it. Browse roles at the Agent Gallery.
• BYOK keys + local LLMs — per-provider keys in a write-only secret broker, plus Ollama / LM Studio / vLLM base URLs. Guides: open models · Mac Mini.
• Auto-update — new releases download in the background; you click restart.

[!NOTE] Status: v0.3.7 — auto-update, fixed. A CommonJS/ESM import bug meant the native updater silently never ran in any packaged build from v0.3.4 on, so the app could only ever offer a link to the releases page. It now works, the toolbar version doubles as the update button, and update errors reach the UI and a log file instead of being swallowed. Existing v0.3.5 / v0.3.6 installs carry the broken updater and must install v0.3.7 manually, once — after that, updates are automatic. macOS (signed & notarized), Windows, and Linux builds are on the releases page.

Getting started

Prerequisites

• macOS, Windows, or Linux.
• Node.js 18+ and npm.
• A C/C++ toolchain for node-pty's native addon — on macOS, install Xcode Command Line Tools:

  xcode-select --install
  

• At least one supported agent CLI on your PATH — Claude Code (claude, the default), Antigravity (agy), OpenAI Codex (codex), xAI Grok (grok), Kimi Code (kimi), OpenCode (opencode), Crush (crush), pi.dev (pi), or GitHub Copilot (copilot). Most missing CLIs self-heal: the harness runs the installer in the terminal and continues into the new binary.
• Optional: your own API keys and local LLMs in Settings → AI Engines (Ollama / LM Studio / vLLM).
• Optional: the semantic memory index for instant cross-session recall — markdown memory works without it.

Install & run

git clone https://github.com/chaitanyagiri/munder-difflin.git
cd munder-difflin
npm install        # postinstall rebuilds node-pty against Electron's ABI
npm run dev        # launches the Electron app with hot reload

On first launch you'll go through the onboarding wizard, then land on the floor. Use Add agent to spawn your first session — the GOD agent seats itself in Michael's office automatically.

Other scripts

npm run build      # production build via electron-vite
npm run preview    # preview the production build
npm run typecheck  # type-check the node (main/preload) and web (renderer) projects

If node-pty fails to load after an Electron upgrade, re-run npm install (the postinstall hook runs electron-rebuild against the current Electron ABI).

Architecture

Two data planes feed one renderer:

┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                     Electron Renderer (React)                  │
│   ┌──────────────────┐    ┌──────────────────────────────┐    │
│   │ Office Floor      │    │ Terminal + Command Bar       │    │
│   │ (Pixi.js)        │    │ Files + Git tabs (xterm.js)  │    │
│   └─────────▲────────┘    └────────────▲─────────────────┘    │
│             │ avatar state             │ pty bytes / fs / git  │
└─────────────┼──────────────────────────┼───────────────────────┘
              │ IPC (contextBridge: window.cth)
       ┌──────┴──────────┐        ┌──────┴─────────────┐
       │  Event Plane    │        │  Terminal Plane    │
       │  hooks / hive   │        │  node-pty PTYs     │
       │  router + GOD   │        │  + fs + git        │
       └────────▲────────┘        └──────▲─────────────┘
                │ hook payloads          │ stdin / stdout
                └─────────┬──────────────┘
                   ┌──────┴──────────────┐
                   │ claude / agy / codex│
                   └─────────────────────┘

• Terminal plane. The main process owns a PtyManager that spawns each agent as a node-pty process and streams output over per-id IPC (pty:data:<id>). The renderer talks only through a typed window.cth bridge (src/preload/index.ts), which also exposes sandboxed filesystem and git helpers.
• Hive / event plane. hive.ts is the on-disk multi-agent layer; hooks.ts runs the hook server that provider bridges POST lifecycle payloads to (cth-hook for Claude Code, agy-hook for Antigravity). memory.ts wraps the semantic memory CLI. The router delivers messages, drains provider outboxes, the GOD agent adjudicates, and idle/inbox wakeups keep workers draining mail.

Project structure

src/
  main/                      Electron main process (Node)
    index.ts                 window, IPC handlers, quit guard
    pty.ts                   node-pty manager (spawn/write/resize/kill/stream)
    hive.ts                  on-disk multi-agent layer (memory, mailboxes, router)
    hooks.ts                 hook server + provider hook shims (`cth-hook`, `agy-hook`)
    memory.ts                semantic memory layer (CLI wrapper, degrade-to-noop)
    config.ts                harness config persistence + home setup
    transcript.ts            reads ~/.claude/projects/ JSONL transcripts for real token/cost telemetry
    telemetry.ts             live OTel collector + usage/cost feed for observability
    usage.ts / pricing.ts    UsageProvider seam + per-model cost attribution
    breaker.ts / control.ts  cost/runaway circuit breaker (steer/constrain/stop) + HITL gate / steer / stop
    reflect.ts               MemoryReflector — memory condensation
    db.ts                    SQLite durable store (window bounds + history) + durable cost ledger
    github.ts                GitHub issue + CI run ingestion via the gh CLI
    shellEnv.ts              resolve PATH and shell env for child processes
    fs.ts / git.ts           sandboxed filesystem + git bridges
  preload/                   contextBridge → typed window.cth API
  renderer/src/
    App.tsx                  top-level layout + wiring
    design/                  tokens.css / tokens.ts / global.css (design source of truth)
    components/              PixelPanel, AgentDetailPanel, CommandBar, ApprovalsPanel, MemoryPanel, …
    CommandCenterPanel,      Michael's control surface (Terminal/Floor/Memory/Activity/Tasks/Schedules/Handbook tabs)
    ToolWaterfall,           per-agent tool-span waterfall for the observability view
    TasksKanban,             dependency-aware kanban board (Tasks tab)
    ThreadsPanel,            hive message conversation viewer (Messages tab)
    MessageQueueComposer,    park messages for a busy agent
    scene/office/            Pixi office floor: OfficeFloor, Character, Camera, cast, pathfinding, …
    store/ · hooks/          zustand store, event loop, PTY parser, typewriter
    assets/                  tilesets, maps, character sheets (see ATTRIBUTION.md)
docs/                        `logo.png`, `banner.png`, landing page (GitHub Pages → munderdiffl.in)
docs/media/                  `og.png` (social previews) + rendered Remotion clips
landing-remotion/            Remotion project that renders the landing page's "how it works" clips
HIVE.md · SPEC.md · DESIGN.md   multi-agent · terminal/event · visual design
docs/message-queue.md        who may type into an agent's terminal, and when

Design system

The aesthetic is Animal Crossing × Earthbound × SNES menu UI — pixel-snapped, chunky, friendly. DESIGN.md is canonical; every component derives from its tokens. The Munder Difflin brand layers a Dunder-Mifflin maroon (#6E1423) and gold (#F4D35E) on top for logo and chrome. The 15 avatars are the cast of The Office, differentiated by hair/skin/shirt recipes.

Roadmap

Shipped through v0.3.7 — nine agent engines with BYOK keys and local LLMs, voice orchestration, the hive (memory · mailboxes · blackboard · event log), Command Center with kanban and schedules, a built-in Monaco IDE with git rails, integrations registry + secret broker, Slack-spawned workers, shareable hires and the Agent Gallery, observability and the circuit breaker, durable persistence, session resume, multi-window floors, and working auto-update. Full history in CHANGELOG.md.

Next up:

• More chat integrations — Telegram and richer chat bridges that pipe a channel into Michael's queue and route replies back out.
• More engines & integration templates — keep growing the engine roster and the integrations registry.
• Fuller avatar coverage — drive the remaining station visits and tool-bubbles entirely from real hook events.
• Durable layout & command history — extend persistence to agent layout and per-session history.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome — this is an early prototype with a lot of surface area. Start with CONTRIBUTING.md. The short version: fork, npm install && npm run dev, keep npm run typecheck green, and derive any new UI from DESIGN.md tokens. Good first areas: wiring real hook events, the add-agent flow, the config drawer, and cross-platform work.

License

[!IMPORTANT] Asset licensing. The bundled pixel art (tilesets, maps, and the base character sheets the Office cast is recolored from) comes from LimeZu via shahar061/the-office under the LimeZu FREE VERSION license — non-commercial use only. The recolored sprites inherit that restriction. See src/renderer/src/assets/ATTRIBUTION.md. To commercialize, replace these assets or obtain a paid LimeZu license.

The source code is licensed under the MIT License — see LICENSE. The MIT grant covers the code only; the non-commercial asset restriction above is carved out in the LICENSE scope note. Munder Difflin is an affectionate parody and is not affiliated with NBC's The Office or Dunder Mifflin.

Acknowledgements

• LimeZu — pixel-art tilesets and character base sheets.
• shahar061/the-office — office tileset/map vendoring.
• Pixi.js · xterm.js · node-pty · electron-vite · CodeMirror — the libraries this is built on.
• Remotion — the landing page's animated "how it works" clips (landing-remotion/).
• The Office (US) — for Munder Difflin, Inc.