Kel — The AI Agent that sees what you see

🏆 Winner of the Anthropic AI Hackathon in Toronto!

Kel is an AI agent desktop application that lives on your computer. Access it instantly with a keyboard shortcut (Control+K) — it appears as a sleek sidebar window, ready to assist you with anything you need.

Features

• Always Accessible: Toggle Kel with Control+K from anywhere on your system
• Sidebar Experience: Clean, distraction-free interface that docks to the edge of your screen
• Persistent Conversations: All your chats are saved locally in a SQLite database
• Privacy-First: Everything runs locally on your machine — your data never leaves your computer
• Multi-Model Support: Powered by OpenRouter, giving you access to multiple AI models

Development

Want to contribute or build from source? Check out the development setup below.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+ (or compatible version)
• pnpm package manager

Setup

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/not-manu/kel.git
cd kel

# Install dependencies
pnpm install

# Copy environment variables
cp .env.example .env

# Run in development mode
pnpm dev

Available Scripts

pnpm dev              # Start development server with hot reload
pnpm build            # Build for production
pnpm build:mac        # Build and package for macOS
pnpm build:win        # Build and package for Windows
pnpm build:linux      # Build and package for Linux

pnpm typecheck        # Run TypeScript type checking
pnpm lint             # Run ESLint
pnpm format           # Format code with Prettier

pnpm db:generate      # Generate database migrations
pnpm db:push          # Push schema changes to database
pnpm db:studio        # Open Drizzle Studio (database GUI)

Tech Stack

• Framework: Electron (multi-process architecture)
• Frontend: React 19 with TypeScript
• Routing: React Router v7
• Styling: Tailwind CSS v4
• Database: SQLite with Drizzle ORM
• AI Integration: Vercel AI SDK + OpenRouter
• UI Components: Radix UI primitives
• Forms: React Hook Form with Zod validation
• State Management: TanStack Query (React Query)

Project Structure

src/
├── main/          # Electron main process (Node.js backend)
│   ├── api/       # IPC handlers for renderer communication
│   ├── db/        # Database schema and configuration
│   └── lib/       # Utilities and OpenRouter integration
├── preload/       # Electron preload script (security bridge)
└── renderer/      # React frontend
    └── src/
        ├── components/  # UI components
        ├── hooks/       # React hooks for API calls
        ├── routes/      # Page components and routing
        └── lib/         # Frontend utilities

Architecture

Kel follows standard Electron best practices:

1. Main Process: Manages windows, global shortcuts, database, and system tray
2. Preload Script: Securely exposes APIs to the renderer via contextBridge
3. Renderer Process: React application for the user interface

Communication between processes uses IPC (Inter-Process Communication) with a handler-based architecture for type-safe API calls.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

License

This project is open source and available under the MIT License.

Acknowledgments

🏆 Winner of the Anthropic AI Hackathon in Toronto

Special thanks to:

• Anthropic for hosting the hackathon and recognizing this project
• The open source community for the amazing tools and libraries

Author

Made with ❤️ by @not-manu

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Need help? Open an issue on GitHub