Installation & Setup

Plexi is a tiling terminal host with a scriptable CLI for macOS, Linux, and Windows. Its stable v1 surface includes panes, subcontexts, agent status hooks, Quick Note, and the local app runtime.

Install

macOS (Apple Silicon)

curl -fsSL https://plexiapp.com/install | bash

This downloads the current Apple Silicon alpha release. It requires bash, curl, tar, and shasum, but not Git, Rust, a package manager, or administrator access. macOS Intel has no current download path; build from a checkout instead.

Linux (x86_64, X11)

curl -fsSL https://plexiapp.com/install | bash

This downloads the current Linux x64 alpha release. It requires bash, curl, tar, and sha256sum (or shasum), and installs into user-owned directories. Plexi supports X11 sessions; Wayland is not supported. This is not an apt, yay, AUR, Flatpak, AppImage, .deb, or .rpm package.

On Linux, secrets are kept in a mode-0600 file rather than an encrypted OS keyring. Hardware video decoding is not implemented on Linux.

Windows (x64)

Run this in Windows PowerShell 5.1 or later:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ianjamesburke/PLEXI/alpha/scripts/install-windows.ps1 | iex

This downloads the current Windows x64 alpha release, verifies its SHA-256 checksum, and does not require Rust or Visual Studio. It does not build from source. The installer adds its user-owned command directory to the user PATH and records the installed tag; Windows shell completions are TBD. The Unix curl | bash command is not a Windows installer.

Source builds and unsigned releases

From a macOS or Linux checkout, use scripts/install.sh --from-source alpha to build and install from source; it requires Rust and Python 3. Windows has no equivalent source-install script. All alpha builds are unsigned and not notarized. Follow the unsigned build opening guide before bypassing a Gatekeeper or SmartScreen warning. Linux users who unpack an archive manually may need chmod +x plexi.

Plexi does not request Accessibility permission on first launch. Its app bundle declares camera and microphone permissions for video rooms, which macOS requests only when a feature uses them.

Script the Host

The CLI is designed for scripts and tools that need to control a running host. It covers panes, contexts, status reporting, notes, and local apps. The v1 surface exposes agent status hooks; it does not ship a full Assistant product.

If you use a tool that supports skills, you can install the Plexi skill to document that CLI surface:

npx -y skills@latest add ianjamesburke/plexi-skills

Run it in a project to install for that project, or add -g for a global install. To update it later, run npx skills update.

To pin the skill to a Plexi release, use the same current CLI:

npx -y skills@latest add "ianjamesburke/plexi-skills#v0.2.0"

If a pinned install reports a clone URL with the #v… ref embedded in it and ends with not valid, a stale skills CLI is being used. Run the command above instead of bare npx skills add.

Your First Session

Plexi opens with a single terminal pane. From there:

Action	Shortcut
Split horizontally	⌘D
Split vertically	⌘⇧D
Navigate panes	⌘H / ⌘J / ⌘K / ⌘L
Close pane	⌘W
Rename pane	⌘R

Build Channels

Plexi ships three channels. Each is a fully isolated instance with its own binary, profile directory, and app bundle — you can run all three simultaneously.

Channel	Binary	Profile
Stable	plexi	~/.plexi/
Beta	plexi-beta	~/.plexi-beta/
Alpha	plexi-alpha	~/.plexi-alpha/

Stable v1 keeps Assistant, marketplace, and MCP client surfaces gated. Use a beta or worktree channel only when you are explicitly testing those features.

Next Steps

• Quick Note — open a persistent scratch pane from anywhere
• Panes & Pages — understand the layout model
• Apps — build and run Plexi apps
• Python SDK — author apps for the local runtime