The IDE for the agent era
"The Panopticon had six sides, one for each of the Founders of Gallifrey..."
— Classic Doctor Who. The Panopticon was the great hall at the heart of the Time Lord Citadel, where all could be observed. We liked the metaphor.
IDEs were built for humans who type code. Panopticon is built for humans who direct code. Command Deck is a live development environment where you spawn agents, watch them work, and stay in control. You see every file change as it lands, review diffs without leaving the conversation, talk to agents to course-correct, hot-swap the model behind them when the task shifts, and branch a conversation to try a different approach without losing the original. When you like where things are headed, the built-in specialist pipeline picks it up — automated code review, tests, and merge — so you never context-switch to a separate CI tab.
npx @panctl/cliNo install step required. npx @panctl/cli starts Command Deck and opens the dashboard in your browser. Use panctl or pan after npm install -g @panctl/cli. The packaged desktop app is published separately as @panctl/desktop.
Dashboard runs at https://pan.localhost (or http://localhost:3011 if you skip HTTPS setup).
See the full documentation for detailed setup, configuration, and usage guides.
Command Deck is the live development surface where you and your agents work together. It's built around three zones that update in real time — no refresh buttons, no polling. Every event animates in as it happens.
| Zone | What You See |
|---|---|
| Issue Header | Issue identity, pipeline stage, live cost tracking, activity sparkline, quality gate rollup |
| Agent Context | Selected agent's role, status, current tool, thinking/waiting state, round history, per-session costs |
| Conversation + Composer | Full conversation timeline with composer, or a tabbed dashboard when viewing the issue itself |
- Live diffs as agents code — every file change appears inline as the agent works. Open the diff panel to review changes turn by turn, or hit "vs main" to see the full picture without waiting for a PR.
- Talk to your agents — type in the composer to steer an agent mid-task. Correct its approach, point it at the right file, tell it to rethink — pair-programming, not babysitting.
- Hot-swap models — agent struggling? Open the model picker and switch from Sonnet to Opus (or Kimi, GPT, Gemini) without losing the conversation. Right model for each phase.
- Branch to explore — fork any conversation to try an alternative approach. Keep the original intact, compare both, merge the one you like.
- Automatic checkpoints — Command Deck snapshots agent state as work progresses. If an agent goes sideways, roll back to any earlier checkpoint instead of starting over.
- Ship without switching tabs — when the code looks right, the specialist pipeline picks it up. Automated review, tests, and merge. No CI dashboard to babysit.
Project tree, activity feed, kanban board, agent status, cost analytics, convoy status, specialist handoffs, real-time activity log, performance metrics, skill library, health diagnostics, God View (cross-project), and settings.
- You stay in the loop without being in the way. Watch agents code, review their diffs live, send a message when they drift. You're pair-programming, not babysitting a terminal.
- The right model for every phase. Opus plans the architecture, Kimi or Sonnet writes the code, Haiku handles quick commands. Panopticon routes automatically — or you override with two clicks when you know better.
- Context that outlasts the conversation. PRDs, plans, checkpoints, beads, and skills carry forward across sessions. Agents pick up where the last one left off, not from a blank slate.
- One skill format, every tool. Write a SKILL.md once and it works across Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and Gemini CLI. 70+ ship out of the box.
- A pipeline that ships while you move on. When the implementation looks right, hand it to the specialist pipeline — automated code review, tests, and merge. You click Merge when you're satisfied, or keep working on the next issue.
Issue PRD Agent Review Test Merge
┌──────┐ ┌──────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────┐ ┌──────┐ ┌──────────┐
│ Task │ ─► │ Plan │ ─► │ Write │ ─► │ Code │ ─► │ Run │ ─► │ PR │
│ from │ │ with │ │ code in │ │ rev. │ │ test │ │ merged │
│ any │ │ Opus │ │ isolated │ │ by │ │ by │ │ by │
│track-│ │ │ │ worktree │ │ spec-│ │ spec-│ │ spec- │
│ er │ │ │ │ │ │ialist│ │ialist│ │ ialist │
└──────┘ └──────┘ └──────────┘ └──────┘ └──────┘ └──────────┘
GitHub Opus Kimi/Sonnet Opus Sonnet Sonnet
Linear (routed)
GitLab
Rally
You can drive any stage from the dashboard, the CLI, or a webhook. Engage as much or as little as you want — from hands-on pair programming with a single agent to launching a fully autonomous pipeline across dozens of issues.
Panopticon auto-recovers stopped work agents, but operators can deliberately gate that behavior:
pan dev --no-resumeandpan up --no-resumestart the dashboard with boot-scoped no-resume mode. Orphan recovery and stopped-agent auto-resume stay disabled until the dashboard is restarted without--no-resume.pan pause <id> [--reason <text>]persists a per-agent pause gate and stops the agent if it is running.pan unpause <id>clears the gate without spawning;pan start <id> --forceclears it and starts immediately.- If an agent repeatedly crashes or fails to resume, Deacon marks it
troubledand backs off instead of looping forever. Investigate the root cause, then runpan untroubled <id>to clear the troubled gate and failure counters. Runpan start <id>only after the issue is safe to retry.
These controls are visible in the dashboard through top-level no-resume warnings and per-agent paused/troubled badges.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Command Deck | A live workspace where you watch agents code, review diffs inline, send messages, and manage everything from one surface |
| Inline Diff Review | See what changed file-by-file as the agent works, compare any turn against main — no waiting for a PR to review code |
| Model Hot-Swap | Switch an agent from Sonnet to Opus to Kimi mid-conversation. Six providers, automatic routing, or manual override |
| Conversation Forking | Branch a conversation to try a different approach. Keep the original, compare both, go with what works |
| Automatic Checkpoints | Agent state is snapshotted as it progresses — roll back to any earlier point if something goes wrong |
| Visual Plans | Work plans render as interactive DAGs so you can see dependencies, track acceptance criteria, and know what's done |
| Specialist Pipeline | Five agents handle code review, testing, inspection, UAT, and merge automatically — you just click Merge |
| Cloister | Lifecycle manager that routes models, detects stuck agents, tracks costs, and orchestrates specialist handoffs |
| PRD-Driven Workflow | Opus writes a detailed plan before any code is written — agents can't start without one |
| 70+ Universal Skills | Pre-built skills synced on every pan up — one SKILL.md works across Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and Gemini CLI |
| Multi-Tracker Support | GitHub Issues, Linear, GitLab, Rally — all visible in one unified kanban board |
| Workspaces | Isolated git worktrees per issue with optional Docker environments, local or remote via Fly.io |
| Convoys | Run parallel agents on related issues with automatic result synthesis |
| Cost Tracking | Per-issue, per-stage token costs with model attribution and daily rollups |
| TLDR Code Analysis | Token-efficient codebase understanding (500-1,200 tokens/file vs 10-25k) so agents stay within context |
Panopticon started as a CLI and grew into Command Deck, a desktop-class development environment. The CLI, the GUI, and any script that can make an HTTP request all drive the same REST surface — spawn an agent from a kanban card, a terminal, or a webhook without switching tools. Under the hood: an Effect.js + TypeScript server, a React frontend over typed WebSocket RPC, SQLite for state, and Electron as the shell. Launch with npx @panctl/cli; keep pan for headless and CI, or use @panctl/desktop for the packaged desktop app.
 |
 |
| Command Deck — project tree, activity timeline, specialist pipeline | Cloister Deacon, specialist agents, and issue agent management |
 |
|
| Tracker integration and capability-based model routing | |
| Tool | Support |
|---|---|
| Claude Code | Full support — agent runtime, hooks, skills |
| Codex | Skills sync and OpenAI subscription login for GPT work agents |
| Cursor | Skills sync |
| Gemini CLI | Skills sync |
| Google Antigravity | Skills sync |
- Node.js 22+
- Git (for worktree-based workspaces)
- Docker (for Traefik and workspace containers)
- tmux (for agent sessions)
- GitHub CLI (
gh) or GitLab CLI (glab) for Git operations - ttyd - Auto-installed by
pan install
- mkcert - For HTTPS certificates (recommended)
- Linear API key - For Linear issue tracking
- Beads CLI - Auto-installed by
pan install
Panopticon is actively used in production to develop itself and multiple other projects.
- 70+ skills shipped and synced across tools
- 4 tracker integrations (GitHub, Linear, GitLab, Rally)
- 6 AI providers with capability-based model routing
- 5 specialist agents in the automated quality pipeline
- Hundreds of issues completed through the full pipeline
Full documentation at panopticon-cli.com
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
| Quick Start | Installation and setup |
| Core Concepts | Architecture and key concepts |
| CLI Reference | All available commands |
| Features | Deep dive into key features |
| Guides | Step-by-step guides |
Contributions welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.
MIT License - see LICENSE for details.
GitHub · npm · Documentation