A cross-platform terminal aggregator with built-in AI Agent panels for Claude Code and OpenAI Codex, featuring multi-workspace management, Git worktree isolation, session persistence, and token cost monitoring.
Better Agent Terminal (BAT) is a cross-platform desktop terminal aggregator built with Electron 41 + React 18, currently at version 2.1.3, developed in TypeScript under the MIT license.
Its core value lies in deeply integrating terminal emulation with AI coding Agents. It directly drives Claude Code and Codex Agents in-app via @anthropic-ai/claude-agent-sdk and @openai/codex-sdk, with the Claude Code binary bundled — no global installation needed. The Claude panel supports four permission modes (Default / Accept Edits / Plan mode / Bypass), sub-agent tracking, session persistence and forking, and auto-compact. The Codex panel supports GPT-5.5/5.4/5.3-codex/o4-mini/o3/GPT-4.1 models with three-level sandbox and approval strategies.
For workspace management, it supports organizing multiple workspaces by project directory, drag-to-reorder, grouping, config file switching, independent window pop-out, and per-workspace environment variables. The terminal is based on xterm.js with a 70%/30% split layout and full Unicode/CJK support.
The cost awareness system includes 15 configurable status bar items (with a drag template editor), per-turn cache read/write breakdown, per-model cost calculation, cache TTL countdown floats, and a confirmation dialog for large cache expiration.
Auxiliary features include a file browser (with syntax highlighting), Git integration (log/diff/branch), GitHub PR/Issue panel, SQLite-backed code snippet manager, live Markdown preview, Procfile-based Worker panel, optional cx semantic code navigation (tree-sitter), multi-account switching, and i18n (EN/zh-TW/zh-CN). A built-in bat-server enables remote WebSocket access.
Installation
- Homebrew (macOS):
brew install --cask tonyq-org/tap/better-agent-terminal - Chocolatey (Windows, listing status pending):
choco install better-agent-terminal - Quick install script:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tony1223/better-agent-terminal/main/install.sh | bash - Build from source: Node.js 18+, pnpm 10,
pnpm install && pnpm run dev
Slash Commands
/resume— Restore historical Claude session/model— Switch Claude model/new//clear— Reset session/abort— Stop agent immediately/snippet— Show code snippet to Claude/switch— Switch Claude account/login//logout— Log in/out of Claude/whoami— Show account info and usage/auto-continue//ac— Auto-continue prompts
Key Shortcuts
Shift+Tab— Toggle Terminal and Agent modeCtrl+P/Cmd+P— File pickerCtrl+Shift+T/Cmd+T— New terminal quick selectCtrl+↑/↓/Cmd+↑/↓— Switch workspaces