CatHouse

CatHouse brings catherd into VS Code, with a full graphical UI in place of catherd's terminal setup and TUI.

What catherd does for you

catherd runs autopilot builds from your own Claude Code session. You describe a task with /catherd, and it splits the work between models:

• Claude plans and verifies. An architect role breaks the task into milestones and lanes. An independent verifier runs each milestone and gives it PASS or FAIL, so "done" means tested, not just written.
• Cheaper workers write the code. Codex, opencode or headless Claude Code workers take one lane each. Your Claude session stays on planning and review instead of spending tokens on every line.
• Models climb only when needed. Each lane starts on the lowest model and effort that can handle it, and moves up one rung only when it fails. Budgets, failover and access rules come from a profile you control.
• Runs survive restarts. Workers are detached processes that write to disk, so a long build isn't lost when a window closes.

What CatHouse adds

With catherd alone, you install Bun, the catherd CLI, the Claude plugin and each worker backend by hand in the terminal, edit profile JSON files with no validation or diff, and follow a run through a terminal dashboard, logs and run files. CatHouse replaces that with one VS Code view:

The views in detail:

• Setup installs and checks everything catherd needs: Bun, catherd 1.2.0, the catherd Claude plugin, your Claude login, and your worker backends. Nothing is installed until you click.
• Chat runs /catherd on a task directly from the CatHouse Activity Bar view. Questions and permission requests appear as cards, and you get a notification when the orchestrator is waiting for you. A run continues after a window reload.
• Runs shows live roles, budget, climbs, routes, landed milestones, each role's reply and debug output, and state.md. You can cancel a live role.
• Profiles edits catherd profiles: rungs per role, access, failover, budget, isolation and more. Edits are staged with undo/redo, and you see a diff before saving.
• Models browses the model catalog, refreshes listings, and maps unscored rungs with treat-like.
• Diagnostics shows catherd doctor, catherd's logs, and runs heavy commands behind catherd's lock.

catherd stays the source of truth: CatHouse only uses catherd's CLI and MCP server, and never edits its files.

Requirements

• VS Code 1.100 or newer, or Cursor.
• macOS or Linux (Windows is not supported yet).
• A trusted workspace that is a git repository.
• A Claude account (Setup can open the login).
• At least one worker backend: Codex CLI (the default profile), opencode v2, or the claude CLI for claude-code: rungs. Setup shows what's missing and how to fix it.

The Claude Code runtime ships inside this extension (the VSIX is platform-specific), so you don't need a separate claude install unless your profile uses claude-code: rungs.

Install

Download the VSIX for your machine from the project's GitHub Releases. The same file installs in VS Code and in Cursor.

In either editor, open Extensions, open the view menu (…), and choose Install from VSIX.... In Cursor the Command Palette command is Extensions: Install from VSIX....

code --install-extension ./cathouse-darwin-arm64-<version>.vsix
cursor --install-extension ./cathouse-darwin-arm64-<version>.vsix

The cursor command is available after Command Palette → Shell Command: Install 'cursor' command in PATH. A newer VSIX replaces the installed extension (cathouse.cathouse).

Getting started

1. Open a git repository and click the CatHouse icon in the activity bar.
2. Open Setup and click through the items it lists.
3. The default Chat tab is ready for a task; describe it and click Start task.

Commands

• CatHouse: Check Setup (runs catherd doctor)