CLIque — standing rules

Folder-organised, CLI-agnostic coding sessions in a browser, persisted in tmux. Replaces Codeman + CodemanPanel. Python stdlib only — no framework, no node_modules, no build step. 24 MB resident against Codeman's 253 MB, and that gap is the product.

Docs, each with one job — read the one that matches the question:

On-demand guidance (skills in .claude/skills/)

• Motion (clique-motion): CSS/WAAPI only, never a library; animate transform and opacity; reduced-motion ships with it.
• After any web/ change, and before calling a session done (clique-release-check): tools/visual_check.py, tools/shipped_check.py, release steps.
• End of any panel feature (clique-three-surfaces): does Android need this, and if not, why not? Answer out loud.

The API is the whole surface

Every action in the panel is an HTTP call — there is nothing the UI can do that a script cannot. Keep it that way: a feature reachable only by clicking is a feature an agent driving CLIque cannot use.

A new route, settings key or PATCH-able field means a line in API.md in the same commit. tools/api_drift.py fails otherwise, so this is not a thing to remember — but write the description properly, because the check only proves the name is present, not that the prose is any good.

It has to work on a stranger's machine

Every feature is designed for someone who installs the package, opens the panel, and is off. Not for this box. If a feature only works because of something in /root/platform, a cron job we run, a file another tool of ours writes, or a key in our vault, it is not finished, and it is a trap: it will look complete here and be dead on arrival everywhere else.

Where a feature genuinely needs a fact from somewhere else, ship the thing that fetches it and declare the vendor-shaped parts in clis.toml, which is where they already belong.

The three rules

1. Filesystem, tmux, and process state only — optional git detection. If a feature needs to know which AI vendor is running, understand its protocol, or interpret what a model "thinks", it does not belong in the core. This is why the working indicator is built from tmux's activity clock.
2. A driver, not an IDE. Make it trivial to jump to the tool that already does the job well. Do not reimplement that tool.
3. Clean room on Codeman. Its features are fair inspiration and the backlog is full of them. Its code is not — none of it, ever. Do not read Codeman's source to implement something here; work from observed behaviour and build it our own way. CLIque wins by being smaller, faster, lighter and more powerful, and a lifted implementation forfeits all four. The same applies to any other tool we borrow ideas from, including the VS Code Claude Code extension.

It has to work on a phone

Every feature, menu and settings pane is built for a phone browser and the installed PWA from the start, not retrofitted. The overall layout is not responsive yet — that is a known, tracked job — but nothing new should add to that debt.

• Overflow wraps or is visible. Never hidden behind a scrollbar that is itself hidden: that is how the About tab disappeared.
• Nothing lives only behind right-click or hover. There is no hover on touch, and no right-click either — anything reachable that way needs a long-press or a visible control too.
• Sheets and popovers size to the viewport (min(Xpx, 9Xvw)), and touch targets are big enough to hit with a thumb.

Where state lives

Anything a person chose, chose once, or half-typed goes on the server. Settings, snippets, themes, folders, names, modes, drafts, and the workspace itself — which tabs are open, in what order, which one is in front, which view-groups are shut — they sync, they survive a reload and a closed laptop, and they follow him to another device. Losing one is a bug, and localStorage is not storage for them.

Restore the workspace on the first poll only, never on later ones: two panels open at once would otherwise drag each other's tabs around mid-read.

The only things that stay in the browser are the ones that are genuinely about this screen in front of me: sidebar width, sidebar shown or hidden. A phone should not inherit a 400px sidebar from a desktop.

When in doubt it goes on the server. The test is not "is it small" — it is "would he be annoyed to set this twice".

Two consequences worth stating

• Adding a CLI is config, never code. A block in clique/config/clis.toml and a reload. If it ever needs a code change, the design has failed.
• tmux underneath does not mean a terminal on top. A clean, advanced UI is wanted — with a switch to turn it off for anyone who wants the bare terminal feel.

Where things live

clique/app.py routes and HTTP · tmux.py the session engine (socket clique, sessions prefixed sm-) · store.py state · registry.py the CLI registry · web/ the front end, hand-written JS with no build.

Runs under systemd as a user unit (deploy/clique.service): systemctl --user restart clique, port 3200, loopback only. Password is an scrypt hash in $CLIQUE_HOME/password.