Tessera

Tessera

A keyboard-driven tiling window manager for macOS — tmux/Zellij workflows for any app.

_{▶ Watch the full demo — tiling, tabs, and modal keys in action}

Tessera brings terminal-multiplexer ergonomics — tabs, splits, panes, a command palette, modal keys — to arbitrary GUI apps by puppeting their windows through the macOS Accessibility API. It's a menu-bar agent (look for the ▚ glyph); no Dock icon, no window.

Install

Install via Homebrew:

brew tap pa/tessera
brew trust pa/tessera              # required once: Homebrew gates 3rd-party taps
brew install tessera
brew services start tessera        # run now + at login

brew trust is a one-time consent step Homebrew requires for any third-party tap — it can't be pre-approved on your behalf. Without it brew install stops with "Refusing to load formula … from untrusted tap".

Then grant System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility → Tessera (the menu has a one-click shortcut), and keep Stage Manager off (it hides inactive apps' windows and fights every macOS tiling WM).

Note — it's a menu-bar agent, not a Dock/Applications app. After install, look for the ▚ glyph in the menu bar (start it with brew services start tessera); there is intentionally no icon in Launchpad or /Applications. brew install --HEAD compiles from source, so the first install takes a few minutes. It needs the Xcode Command Line Tools (Swift toolchain), which Homebrew already installs — so no extra setup. Prefer a /Applications app or a faster install? See Build from source below.

Highlights

• Intentional placement — every split and new tab asks exactly which app/window belongs in the new pane; new windows stay unmanaged until you attach them.
• BSP tiling with configurable padding — split any focused window horizontally/vertically.
• Virtual tabs — independent workspaces; a tab can be a stacked (monocle) stack of windows.
• Modal keys (Zellij-style) — ⌃P pane · ⌃T tab · ⌃R resize, with a live, context-aware hint bar.
• Command palette & workspace navigator — fuzzy-find apps, windows, tabs, and panes.
• Floating windows, full-screen zoom, window ↔ tab moves, session restore.
• Organize by app — one keystroke lays every open window out as one tab per app.
• Works with stubborn apps — disables AXEnhancedUserInterface around resizes so Chromium/Electron apps (Brave, VS Code, Slack) actually tile.

Not yet / known limits

Stated up front so nothing surprises you after install:

• Multi-monitor is not supported yet. Tessera manages the main display only — every layout, tab and pane is computed from the main display's bounds. On a multi-display setup a second monitor is not tiled independently, and a window explicitly placed from another display will be pulled onto the main one. This is the next thing on the roadmap; until then ⌃⌥⌘P (Pause) hands every window straight back to macOS if you need the other screen.
• Apps with a minimum window size overflow their pane. A pure-Accessibility window manager cannot force an app below the size it will accept — only SIP-disabled approaches can. Tessera anchors such a window at its pane origin and lets it overflow rather than faking a fit. Manual float (w in Pane mode) is the escape hatch.
• Stage Manager must be off — it hides inactive apps' windows and fights any macOS tiling WM. Tessera detects it and warns in the menu bar.
• macOS 15+ and Apple silicon. That's what's verified and what the prebuilt bottle targets; older versions compile but are untested.
• No IPC/CLI yet (send-cmd, query state --json) — also on the roadmap.

Quick start

Default prefix is ⌃⌥⌘ (Control-Option-Command). A few to get going:

With no saved workspace, Tessera opens the picker for the first pane. New windows remain unmanaged; focus one and press ⌃P, then w, to deliberately attach it to the current tab.

Everything is rebindable in Settings (⌘, or the menu). Full reference on the documentation site.

Build from source

Prefer not to use Homebrew — or want a real .app in /Applications? Build it yourself. You only need the Xcode Command Line Tools (which include the Swift toolchain); install them once with xcode-select --install.

git clone https://github.com/pa/tessera && cd tessera
./scripts/build-app.sh                    # compile + assemble Tessera.app
cp -R .build/Tessera.app /Applications/    # (optional) install to /Applications
open /Applications/Tessera.app             # launch — look for ▚ in the menu bar

Because the app is built locally (not downloaded), it isn't Gatekeeper- quarantined, so it launches without the "unidentified developer" prompt. Grant Accessibility on first launch as above.

Developing

swift build -c release    # compile just the binary
swift test                # run the TesseraCore unit tests (no app needed)

For daily local testing of the shipped bare-binary/service flow, run:

./scripts/test-local-service.sh

This builds the release binary and restarts a per-user launchd service. The .app flow above remains useful when you specifically want to test bundle packaging. See CLAUDE.md for the architecture.

License

MIT.