Coxswain

The one at the helm, who steers the boat and keeps the crew in time.

Coxswain is a two-panel file manager in the Norton Commander tradition, built for developers. It comes as a terminal app (coxswain, Rust and Ratatui) and a desktop app (coxswain-gui, Tauri and Svelte 5), both on one shared Rust core and one config file. It finds any file by its name, its text or what it is about, previews over 60 kinds of file, opens archives like folders, shows git in every panel, and keeps everything on your machine.

Find: type a word and names, the text inside files and what files are about come in, grouped, as you type.

Why Coxswain

• One core, two apps: a terminal app and a desktop app with the same keys, the same settings and one search store.
• Finds by name, by the words inside files and by what they are about, offline, with a small model on your machine or your own Ollama or LM Studio.
• Ask your files a question in your own words, and get an answer with numbered sources, from a model on your machine.
• Archives, git history, branches and ZFS snapshots open like folders: go in, look, copy out.
• Runs where you work: FreeBSD first, then NetBSD, OpenBSD, illumos, Linux (ARM too), Android (Termux), macOS and Windows; 29 languages.
• Nothing leaves your machine unless you ask, and online-only cloud files are never downloaded behind your back.

Highlights

• On FreeBSD and illumos: browse ZFS snapshots like folders. Alt+Z lists a folder's snapshots, Enter shows it as it was, Diff compares a file with now and F5 copies it back, with no root; the dataset, its compression and space sit in the footer. Properties names a file's package and lists its files, shows and sets chflags, and the sidebar has your boot environments and jails. OpenZFS on Linux and macOS too, and on TrueNAS over SSH. ZFS snapshots · FreeBSD
• FreeBSD, the other BSDs, illumos, Linux, macOS and Windows: both apps on FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Linux, macOS and Windows, the terminal app on NetBSD and illumos too, each BSD and illumos with an install line, its own package tool for what is missing, its own service for the search helper (rc.d, rcctl, SMF) and a manual page; TrueNAS over SSH. FreeBSD · NetBSD · OpenBSD · illumos · TrueNAS
• Norton Commander at heart: two panels, the F-key bar, a command line and NC's keys. Panels and keys
• One Find for names, words, meaning and answers: Ctrl+F and type; the hits come in groups (Names, In files, About this, History) ranked by words and meaning together, Ctrl+Enter asks, one key limits it to this folder, inside your zip, 7z and tar archives too; you choose what is read and what is left out (*.log, a folder). Search · Inside archives · Choosing the folders
• Gentle with your cloud: OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive, Proton Drive and iCloud files that are only online are found by name, marked with a cloud, and never downloaded unless you open one. Cloud files
• Ask your files: a question in your own words, answered from the closest passages with numbered sources, by your own chat model or one built in that needs no server (on a Mac it uses the GPU). Ask · Without a server · Set it up
• Search by meaning, in any language: a small model on your machine (on Apple Silicon it uses the GPU), or your own Ollama, Lemonade or OpenAI-style server. Search by meaning · Set it up
• See before you open: code, Markdown, PDF, Word, PowerPoint, spreadsheets, SQLite and Parquet (in the terminal app F3 too), HTML, fonts, video and more. The preview pane · Data
• Builds what needs building: LaTeX, Office, PlantUML and Graphviz previews, with your tools or a sealed container. LaTeX · Tools
• Reads cryptography bills of materials: a CycloneDX CBOM as a rated tree or sunburst, compared with last month's scan, in both apps. CBOMs
• Reads build provenance: SLSA and in-toto files as inputs → build → outputs, with who signed them, whether the files here are the ones built, and whether the commit is in your checkout, in both apps. Build provenance
• Archives are folders: zip, 7z and tar (gz, bz2, xz, zst): go in, preview, copy, move, rename, pack, with passwords to open them and to lock new zips and 7z (AES-256). Archives
• Git in every panel: branch, ahead and behind, counts, a glyph per file, and who last committed it and when. Git
• History as folders: Ctrl+G on a file or folder lists its commits; Enter on one browses the files as they were, F5 copies an old version out, and Find finds commit messages. Git history · History in search
• Branches and worktrees too: Alt+B lists the branches, Enter browses one's files, Alt+S switches to it (git refuses to lose your changes); Alt+W lists the worktrees. The git line names a worktree, a detached HEAD and a merge or rebase under way. Git branches
• Folder sizes without asking, instant in your home folder. Folder sizes
• Finds duplicates by content across folders and disks, and marks the extra copies by rule. Duplicates
• Eighteen themes with the looks of their era, and 29 languages, listed by region: Hebrew and Persian right to left, Greek capitals without accents, Japanese and Korean lined up in the terminal. Themes · Languages
• Nothing leaves your machine unless you ask for it. Privacy

The terminal app	The desktop app in Cyber
The preview pane	Archives as folders

Smart search: names, words, meaning and answers

One field finds every file by name in a blink, by the words inside it, by what it is about in any language, and Ask answers a question from your files with numbered sources: type, and the hits come in groups, the ones that fit your query first; Ctrl+Enter asks. It all runs on your own machine, or on your own server (Ollama, Lemonade, LM Studio, llama.cpp …); nothing leaves it unless you choose a server elsewhere. Three steps:

1. Settings → Finding files → Set up… (terminal app: coxswain --setup-search). The guide finds the model servers on your machine and says what suits it.
2. Use the graphics card or NPU if you have one: the guide checks that the server does.
3. Let it read in the background: Start with my session keeps the index current between launches (a systemd user service, a launchd agent, a Run entry or an XDG autostart entry on FreeBSD; no administrator rights).

The whole walk-through: Smart search in a few minutes.

Ask with qwen3:8b on Ollama on the same machine. The wait for the first word is cut short.

Install

Quickest, per system (every option is in the table below):

fetch -qo - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mwo-dk/coxswain/master/install/install-freebsd.sh | sh   # FreeBSD
ftp -o - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mwo-dk/coxswain/master/install/install-unix.sh | sh         # NetBSD, OpenBSD
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mwo-dk/coxswain/master/install/install-unix.sh | sh       # illumos
brew install mwo-dk/coxswain/coxswain                                                                 # Linux, macOS: terminal app
cargo install coxswain                                                                                # anywhere with Rust, Termux too
brew install --cask mwo-dk/coxswain/coxswain-gui                                                      # macOS: desktop app
winget install mwo-dk.Coxswain.Terminal                                                               # Windows: terminal app

Downloads are on the releases page. The builds are not code-signed: on macOS, if the app "is damaged", run xattr -cr /Applications/Coxswain.app once (the cask does it for you); on Windows click More info and Run anyway. Why macOS may ask about your folders again after an update: macOS. Both apps check once a day for a newer release and give the exact update command (Update checks). Every way to install and update, and building from source: install/INSTALL.md. Git glyphs want a Nerd Font; without one set glyphs = "ascii" (Glyphs and fonts).

First steps

1. Start it in a folder: coxswain (or cox) in a terminal, or coxswain-gui. Two folders open the two panels: coxswain ~/src ~/Downloads.
2. Move with the arrows, Enter opens (a folder, or an archive), Backspace goes up, Tab switches panels.
3. Mark with Insert, then F5 copies or F6 moves to the other panel. F8 moves to the trash, F7 makes a folder, and Ctrl+Z undoes the last of them.
4. Find anything with Ctrl+F; Tab looks deeper. Turn on smart search (meaning and Ask): Settings → Finding files → Set up…, or coxswain --setup-search (the guide).
5. Type a command and press Enter: it runs in the panel's folder.
6. Settings, sorted by task (Finding files, Previews, Looks, Behaviour, Keys, Privacy and updates): Ctrl+, in the desktop app, F9 → Settings or coxswain --settings in the terminal app. In the desktop app, Space shows the preview pane.
7. Not sure what you can do with a file? Shift+F10 (or the Menu key, or the ⋯ on the row) lists what fits it, each with its key: pack, extract, rename, history (The action menu). Forgot a key? F9 lists every command, and F1 shows your keys.

More in Panels and keys and Every default key.

Documentation

The docs index is the full map; every feature has its own page with the keys, what you see, the settings, and the questions people ask.

Layout

crates/coxswain-core   config, fs ops, archives, git status and history, search index and store, duplicates (shared)
crates/coxswain        terminal UI (package and binaries: coxswain, cox)
gui/                   Svelte 5 frontend
gui/src-tauri          Tauri backend (binary: coxswain-gui)

Licence

MIT. Every release carries the licences of what it is built from (THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md, also inside the apps), an SBOM for each app and a CBOM of the cryptography they use; see Licences and bills of materials.

Norton Commander is a trademark of Gen Digital Inc. Coxswain is an independent project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Gen Digital.

Changelog

Newest first. Downloads for each release are on the releases page.

All versions, back to 1.0.0: the full changelog.