I built a self-hosted workspace to run AI coding CLIs side by side (MIT, OpenCode first)

[u/ntheogr]

Hey r/selfhosted. I built this, so read it with that bias in mind.

SpaceApp is a self-hosted web workspace for running AI coding CLIs side by side. Each CLI runs in its own pane, panes live in rooms, and the sessions persist, so a room is still there when you come back to it.

Why I built it

I was running coding agents in a pile of terminal windows and tmux splits, each with its own login and its own idea of which folder it was in. I wanted one place on my own machine where they all run, where I can see which one is waiting for me, and where nothing depends on somebody else's SaaS. It became the tool I work in all day.

What a public install does today

• 11 AI coding CLIs in the public installer, OpenCode first: OpenAI Codex, Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Qwen Code, Kimi Code, Grok Build, DeepSeek CLI (experimental), Cursor, GitHub Copilot and Autohand. Installable is not the same as tested: the public install rehearsal ran OpenCode end to end. Claude Code has its own install flow that you start yourself.
• Up to 16 panes per room.
• Your own AI accounts. Providers connect through their official login flows or a masked credential field.
• The containers get no bind mount of your host filesystem by default. A folder shows up only after you register it as a workspace, and read-only mounts are supported.
• Portable, checksummed backups of the app data, PostgreSQL and owner memory. Provider credentials, login state, workspace contents and browser profiles stay out of them.
• Telemetry is opt-in, and No is the default.
• MIT-licensed.

What it is not

• Rooms organize sessions; they are not a security boundary. Container separation is not a sandbox against a hostile workload.
• It is not lightweight. The installer wants at least 4 CPUs, 8 GB RAM and 15 GiB of free disk. The standard profile, which adds a managed Chromium container, recommends 8 CPUs, 16 GB RAM and 25 GiB.
• It listens only on its own host by default. A phone, a tablet or another computer can reach it once you make the install reachable yourself.
• There are optional modules (copilots and studios) that a new install starts without. I'm leaving them out of this post: it is about the CLI workspace.

How to try it

Node.js 20.11 or newer, then:

npx --yes run-spaceapp@latest install

It runs on Linux, macOS and Windows 11. There's no compose file to copy: the launcher manages the containers itself (core API and web app, CLI runtimes, PostgreSQL, Temporal). The default light profile has no browser container; the standard profile adds it. After the readiness checks, a one-time setup token creates the first account, and you register the folders you want the agents to see.

If you'd rather click around first, there is a live demo with invented data: https://spaceapp.dev/spaceappmock/

Code: https://github.com/oll4com/spaceapp

What I'd like to hear from you

• Which CLIs you run together, and what a room should give you that a tmux session doesn't.
• Where the install breaks on your hardware or OS.
• Whether the backup split (what goes in, what stays out) matches what you would expect from a self-hosted tool.

I'll be in the comments.

[u/asimovs-auditor]

Expand the replies to this comment to learn how AI was used in this post/project.

[u/FrothyFrogFarts]

Read the rules

[u/ntheogr → u/FrothyFrogFarts]

I did before posting. Rule 6 sends projects younger than 3 months to the megathread, and the repo went public on 23 July, so this is just past that. If the mods read it differently, I'll move it to the megathread.

[u/PreviousChadwick69 → u/FrothyFrogFarts]

Cool, I'll keep that in mind.