Skip to main content

kiln

kiln is a native macOS IDE and LLM harness, built with SwiftUI and AppKit. No Electron, no web view. A calm, fast place to read code, run your real shell, and think alongside an assistant that can run entirely on-device. It's part of the marginal-utility suite, alongside Marginalia.

macOS 26+ (Tahoe), Apple Silicon. Built from scratch, no VS Code or Electron under the hood.

The kiln project front page: a serif title, a README headline, a live status board, and the start-here reading path.

These docs are the public companion to the app. The same feature pages render inside kiln itself (⌘3), so what you read here matches what ships.

Where to start​

  • New to kiln? Start with install, then running kiln.
  • Setting up an assistant? Providers covers on-device, cloud, and your Kiln account.
  • Want the full tour? The features section has one page per surface, kept current as behavior changes.
  • Curious who it's for? Positioning lays out the call: built for directors, not typists.

The shape of it​

kiln has three reading modes (CODE, NOTES, DOC), a chat panel called Potter, and a squad of named agents that work the project alongside you. The inbox, plan, agents, and diff thread into one piece of work. Everything that can run locally does, and cloud is a one-click switch when you want more power.

Read the feature tour for the detail.