Install

spekterm is distributed as an AppImage: one file that runs without installing anything system-wide. Linux builds are available today. macOS and Windows are not supported yet.

Requirements

• Linux on x86_64. The AppImage needs libfuse2 to run. Ubuntu 22.04 and later no longer install it by default — see If the AppImage does not start.
• Claude Code for agent sessions: the claude command must be on your PATH. spekterm runs the real CLI with your own login and subscription; it never asks for an API key. Shell sessions work without it.
• OpenSpec is optional. The side panel reads the openspec/ directory of your repositories directly; a few details, such as the order of a change’s artifacts, come from the openspec CLI when it is installed. Without an openspec/ directory you still get terminals and the Files view.

Download and run

1. Open the latest release and download Spekterm-<version>.AppImage.

2. Make it executable and start it:

   chmod +x Spekterm-<version>.AppImage
   ./Spekterm-<version>.AppImage

The first start opens an empty workspace. Continue with Your first workspace.

spekterm reads your shell environment once when it starts (your login shell’s PATH, and the variables your agent sessions need). If you change your .zshrc or .bashrc, restart spekterm for new sessions to see the change.

If the AppImage does not start

If you see an error like dlopen(): error loading libfuse.so.2, the AppImage cannot mount itself. Either install the library:

sudo apt install libfuse2

or run the AppImage without FUSE, which unpacks it to a temporary directory first:

./Spekterm-<version>.AppImage --appimage-extract-and-run

Both work; installing libfuse2 makes every start faster. More problems and fixes are on the Troubleshooting page.

Add it to your applications menu

The AppImage runs from wherever you put it. If you build spekterm from source, the repository has a command that installs the built AppImage into ~/.local/bin and adds an entry, with its icon, to your desktop’s applications menu:

git clone https://github.com/spekhq/spekterm.git
cd spekterm
npm install
npm run build && npx electron-builder --linux   # → release/Spekterm-<version>.AppImage
npm run install:desktop                          # → ~/.local/bin + your applications menu

You need Node.js 22 to build. The first packaging run downloads the Electron binary, so it needs network access. To remove the menu entry and the installed copy, run npm run uninstall:desktop.

Where spekterm keeps its data

Everything spekterm remembers — your folder list, sessions, side panel positions, preferences, the inbox — lives in ~/.config/Spekterm. Nothing is written into your repositories. Removing that directory resets spekterm to a fresh install; it does not touch your code.

Updating

There is no automatic update yet. Download the new AppImage from the latest release and run it in place of the old one. Your data in ~/.config/Spekterm carries over. Settings → About shows which version you are running.