Needlecast

A modern approach for an agentic coding environment

Use any vibe coding CLI and get tooling around it to quickly edit files or interact with media files. When even VS Code is too heavy. Offers a customizable project tree for all 100+ projects you created this week alone XD

Features

Project management

• Use any vibe coding CLI (Claude, Codex, Opencode, Kilocode, etc.)
• Organize your projects into color-coded groups with a tree-style sidebar
• Fuzzy project switcher (Ctrl+P) across all groups
• Edit and view all text files in the integrated text editor with syntax highlighting
• Media viewer for images, audio, video (when you generate media via AI)
• Git branch and dirty-state indicator per project
• Run you build scripts from the UI
• Create and manage you personal prompt library (alpha)
• Manage your skills from within the application (alpha)
• Run renovate to keep you dependencies up-to-date
• Environment variables per project, injected into commands and terminals
• File explorer automatically switches to the active project's directory

Commands

• Auto-detects build tools across 14 language ecosystems — no configuration needed:

  Language	Build tool	Detected from	Highlights
  Java / Kotlin	Maven	pom.xml	Lifecycle goals, plugin detection (Spring Boot, Quarkus, JavaFX, exec), submodules
  Java / Kotlin	Gradle	build.gradle(.kts)	Tasks, plugin detection (Spring Boot, Shadow, Compose Desktop), subprojects
  JavaScript / TypeScript	npm	package.json	Extracts scripts, preferred ordering (dev, start, build, test)
  Python	uv	uv.lock or [tool.uv]	sync, run, build, test, lock
  Python	Poetry	poetry.lock or [tool.poetry]	install, run, build, test, lock
  Python	pip	pyproject.toml / requirements.txt	Fallback when no lock file detected
  Rust	Cargo	Cargo.toml	build, test, run, check, clippy, fmt; workspace members
  Go	Go	go.mod	build, test, vet, fmt; main.go and cmd/ detection
  C# / F# / VB	.NET	.sln / .csproj	Solution parsing, web/test/runnable project detection
  PHP	Composer	composer.json	Script extraction, Laravel artisan detection
  Ruby	Bundler	Gemfile	Rails server/console/test, Rakefile detection
  Swift	SPM	Package.swift	build, test, run, package resolve
  Dart	pub	pubspec.yaml	run, test, compile, analyze
  Dart	Flutter	pubspec.yaml + sdk: flutter	run, build (apk/ios/web), test, analyze
  C / C++	CMake	CMakeLists.txt	configure, build, ctest, install
  C / C++	Make	Makefile	make, clean, test, install
  Scala	sbt	build.sbt	compile, test, run, assembly
  Elixir	Mix	mix.exs	compile, test, format; Phoenix server/ecto detection
  Zig	Zig	build.zig	build, test, run, fmt
  —	IntelliJ Run Configs	.idea/runConfigurations/	Application, JUnit, Maven goal configs
  —	APM	apm.yml	install, audit, update, bundle

• Command queue — chain commands to run sequentially (clean → build → run)

• Command history with re-run support (last 20 per project)

• Desktop notification when a command finishes in the background

Terminal

• Embedded JediTerm terminal per project
• Multiple tabs per project
• Configurable font size (Ctrl+scroll)
• Terminal colors automatically inherit the active UI theme; override per-color in Settings

Editor

• Syntax-highlighted editor (RSyntaxTextArea) with multiple tabs
• Selectable syntax theme (Monokai, Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, VS, and more) — Settings → Layout & Terminal
• Font zoom (Ctrl+scroll, 6–72 pt); zoom survives theme switches
• Find & Replace (Ctrl+F / Ctrl+H)
• File explorer with right-click context menu (create, rename, delete, copy path)
• Show/hide hidden files toggle
• Tab right-click menu: Close, Close All to the Left, Close All to the Right, Close All

Image & SVG viewer

• Click any image file to open an inline viewer (JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF, BMP, TIFF, ICO)
• Click .svg files for a vector viewer — stays crisp at any zoom level
• Ctrl+scroll to zoom, double-click to reset to fit
• Re-clicking a file that has changed on disk reloads it automatically

Log Viewer

• Dockable panel that discovers .log files in the active project
• Live tailing with 500ms polling and log rotation detection
• Colour-coded log levels: ERROR (red), WARN (orange), DEBUG/TRACE (grey)
• Level filtering toggles, follow mode (auto-scroll), and incremental search (Ctrl+F)
• Supports Logback, Log4j2, JSON structured logs, and plain text with stack trace grouping

Renovate (dependency updates)

• Dockable panel that scans the active project for outdated dependencies
• Runs renovate --platform=local — no token or GitHub access needed
• Results shown in a sortable table: dependency, current version, available version, update type
• Colour-coded: major (red), minor (orange), patch (green)
• Select updates and apply them directly to project files (Maven properties, Dockerfiles, etc.)
• Install Renovate via Settings → Renovate tab (npm, Scoop, Chocolatey, Homebrew)

AI & Prompts

• Prompt Library — reusable templates with {variable} substitution, paste into active terminal
• AI Tools menu with auto-detected CLI tools (Claude, Gemini, Codex, apm, …)

Appearance & Layout

• Follows OS dark/light theme automatically (FlatLaf with 30+ bundled themes)
• Dockable, resizable panels — layout persists across sessions
• README preview below the command list when a project is selected
• Git log viewer with git show on click
• Keyboard shortcut editor — rebind any default shortcut
• Automatic update checks every 15 minutes with Sparkle4j

Screenshots

Main Window	Renovate Panel	Log Viewer

Settings	Prompt Library	Project Switcher

Screenshots are auto-generated in CI on every push to develop.

Requirements

• Java 21 or later
• Windows, macOS, or Linux

Running

mvn -pl needlecast-desktop compile exec:java

Or build a JAR first:

mvn -pl needlecast-desktop -am package -DskipTests
java -jar needlecast-desktop/target/needlecast-desktop-0.6.17.jar

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/rygel/needlecast.git
cd needlecast
mvn -pl needlecast-desktop -am package -DskipTests

Run the full test suite (non-UI tests only — UI tests require Xvfb):

mvn -pl needlecast-desktop test -T 4 -Dexcludes="**/*UiTest.java,**/*UiTest.kt"

Full Swing/desktop UI tests require Xvfb — see CONTRIBUTING.md for the container-based setup.

Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+P	Project switcher (fuzzy search across all groups)
Ctrl+T	Focus / open terminal
F5	Rescan projects
Ctrl+1	Focus project list
Ctrl+2	Focus command list
Ctrl+3	Focus console
Ctrl+F	Find in console output or editor
Ctrl+H	Replace in editor
Ctrl+scroll	Zoom editor or terminal font

Shortcuts can be rebound in Settings → Shortcuts.

Configuration

Config is stored in ~/.needlecast/config.json and migrated automatically on version upgrades.

Environment variables per project

Open a project's context menu → Environment Variables. Key/value pairs are injected into every command and terminal session for that project.

Logging

Log output goes to ~/.needlecast/needlecast.log (rotates at 10 MB, keeps 5 archives). Warnings and errors are also printed to stderr.

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md.

Documentation

See the docs index at docs/README.md.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.