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What is Nexis?

Nexis is an open-source, lightweight, cross-platform AI-native terminal and developer environment (ADE). It combines a fast native terminal, a full code editor, a file explorer, source control, local ML and creative workbenches, and an AI assistant into one app. API keys live in the OS keychain, and Nexis ships with zero telemetry.

The welcome screen, with its particle wordmark, shown when no tabs are open.

It is built on Tauri 2, Rust, and React 19: a native PTY backend in Rust drives multi-tab terminals, while the UI is a modern web front end rendered in the system webview — which is how the whole app stays so small.

What’s in the box

Section titled “What’s in the box”
  • Terminal — WebGL-rendered xterm.js, unlimited tabs, split panes, a native PTY that works with zsh, bash, pwsh, fish, and cmd. See Terminal.
  • Editor — CodeMirror 6 with syntax highlighting for dozens of languages, AI inline autocomplete, and per-hunk AI diff approval. See Editor.
  • Language tooling — real LSP go-to-definition/hover/completion and a DAP debugger with breakpoints and a variable inspector. See Language tooling.
  • Git & source control — stage, commit, branch, diff, and stash without leaving the app, with AI-generated commit messages. See Git.
  • AI panel — 12+ providers or fully offline via LM Studio, MLX, and Ollama; multi-agent workflows with explicit tool approval. See AI panel.
  • ML Lab — train small models on your own data with live charts and an inference playground. See ML Suite.
  • Atlas & Benchmark — focused companion windows for machine-wide repository intelligence and local-model comparison.
  • Workbench packs — tune the surface for Standard, Web Dev, Mobile, AI / ML, Art, or Everything workflows. See Workbench & packs.

Part of an ecosystem

Section titled “Part of an ecosystem”

Nexis is now the hub of a wider ecosystem. Atlas and Benchmark were absorbed into the main app; the ML Suite engines remain separate local executables that Nexis drives through a shared protocol. See The Nexis ecosystem.

Who it’s for

Section titled “Who it’s for”

Developers who live in the terminal and want an editor, an AI assistant, and source control in the same window — without a heavyweight Electron IDE, without sending their code to a vendor, and without telemetry.

A note on origins

Section titled “A note on origins”

Nexis began as a personal fork of terax-ai, an open-source AI terminal. The core PTY architecture and AI tooling are rooted in that work; Nexis builds on top with its own direction, branding, and a much expanded feature set. Nexis is released under the Apache-2.0 license.

Next steps

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