Skip to content
Next Termthe IDE for your AI agents

Install and get started

Next Term is one app: a terminal with tabs, a code editor above it, and a project sidebar with git. This page takes you from the download to two agents running side by side.

What you need

Section titled “What you need”
  • macOS 13 Ventura or later, on Apple Silicon or Intel. The app is universal.
  • About 16 MB to download and 43 MB on disk.
  • The agents you want to run, installed as usual: claude, codex, gemini and so on. Next Term brings no AI of its own; it runs the command-line agents you already use.
  • zsh, the macOS default shell, gives the most precise tab status. bash and fish work too (see how detection works).

Download and install

Section titled “Download and install”

In one line, from the terminal

Section titled “In one line, from the terminal”
Terminal window
curl -fsSL https://nxtrm.mishuk.me/install.sh | bash

It downloads the latest release from GitHub, checks that its SHA-256 checksum is signed with the Next Term release key and that the download matches it, checks that the app inside is Next Term with an intact signature, and copies it to Applications (or ~/Applications when you can’t write to Applications). When a folder already on your PATH takes the nxtrm command without a password, such as ~/.local/bin or /opt/homebrew/bin, it links it there too, so nxtrm . works in any terminal; otherwise Next Term offers it when it opens. Nothing else changes: no sudo, no change to your PATH, and a Next Term that is running is never replaced (use Check for Updates in it instead). Because the download comes through curl rather than a browser, macOS doesn’t ask you to allow the first launch. Read the script before you run it, if you like; it is short.

NEXTTERM_VERSION=0.7.0 installs a particular version, and NEXTTERM_DIR=~/Apps another folder, for example curl -fsSL https://nxtrm.mishuk.me/install.sh | NEXTTERM_DIR=~/Apps bash.

Or with the disk image

Section titled “Or with the disk image”
  1. Download NextTerm.dmg: always the latest version, straight from its release on GitHub.
  2. Open the disk image and drag Next Term to Applications.
  3. Eject the disk image and open Next Term from Applications.

After this first install, Next Term updates itself. See Updates.

The first launch: “Open Anyway”

Section titled “The first launch: “Open Anyway””

Next Term is not notarized by Apple, so macOS blocks the first launch of a disk image downloaded in a browser. You allow it once:

  • macOS 15 Sequoia and later: open Next Term (macOS blocks it), then go to System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, click Open Anyway next to Next Term, and confirm.
  • macOS 13 Ventura and macOS 14 Sonoma: in Applications, right-click Next Term, choose Open, then Open again in the dialog.

macOS remembers the choice; later launches open normally. The one-line installer above skips this step.

Check the download (optional)

Section titled “Check the download (optional)”

Each release includes a checksum file, NextTerm.dmg.sha256. Download it next to the disk image and run this in that folder before you allow the app:

Terminal window
shasum -a 256 -c NextTerm.dmg.sha256

NextTerm.dmg: OK means your file matches the checksum published with the release, byte for byte. Releases are built by GitHub Actions from the public source.

First launch: choose a folder

Section titled “First launch: choose a folder”

The first time it starts, Next Term asks which folder to work in. That folder opens as a project: the sidebar shows its files, and new tabs start in it. Next time, Next Term reopens it by itself (it reopens every project window that was open when you quit).

If you cancel, you get a plain terminal in your home folder. You can open a project at any time with Shell › Open Project… (⌘O). More in Projects and git.

If Next Term finds an editor or terminal it can read settings from, such as VS Code, Cursor, a JetBrains IDE, Zed, iTerm2, Ghostty or Terminal, it asks Coming from another app? Choose one to see exactly what it would bring over (your shortcuts, fonts, terminal colours and recent projects), or keep Next Term’s own. You can do it later from Next Term › Import Settings and Shortcuts…. See Switching to Next Term.

macOS also asks whether Next Term may send notifications. Allow them: that is how an agent waiting on your decision, or done with its work, reaches you while you are in another tab or app.

Next Term also adds the nxtrm command for your other terminals, in a folder on your PATH that needs no password. When there is no such folder, as on a Mac without Homebrew, it asks first: Install the “nxtrm” command? Install… asks for your administrator password, Not Now asks again after the next update, and Don’t Ask Again never does. See Installing it.

Run two agents side by side

Section titled “Run two agents side by side”
  1. Press ⌘T for a new tab. In a project window it opens in the project folder.
  2. Start an agent, for example claude.
  3. Press ⌘T again and start another, for example codex.
  4. Or keep them in one tab: ⌘D splits it, and each pane runs its own agent.
  5. Give each a task and switch away. Each tab shows a spinner while its agent works, a green check when it is done, and an amber “!” when it is asking you something. If you are elsewhere, a notification tells you which agent needs a decision or has finished; click it to land on that tab.

Read Agent status in every tab for what each mark means.

To run an agent on one of your servers instead, press ⌥⌘T (Shell › New Remote Tab…) and give it the ssh destination. With tmux or herdr, the agent keeps working while your Mac sleeps. See Remote tabs on your servers.

Open files next to your agents

Section titled “Open files next to your agents”

Files open in the editor above the terminal:

  • Double-click a file in the sidebar (or click it once, with Open files with a single click on in Settings › Editor).
  • ⌘-click a path such as src/app.ts:42:7 anywhere in terminal output, or a Python traceback’s File "graph.py", line 42: the file opens at that line.
  • Press ⌘P and type part of its name (Go to File).
  • Run nxtrm app/User.php:42 in a tab. See The nxtrm command.

Select some lines and press ⌥⌘K to hand them to the agent in your tab, or just ask Claude Code about “the selected lines”: it sees your selection. See Agents and the IDE link.

Build from source

Section titled “Build from source”

You need macOS 13 or later and Swift 6. The Xcode Command Line Tools are enough; full Xcode is not required.

Terminal window
git clone https://github.com/MishukAdhikari/next-term.git
cd next-term
swift run NextTerm            # run a debug build
scripts/build-dmg.sh          # universal app, DMG and checksum in dist/

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”

Next Term is free and open source under the MIT licence. Made by Mishuk Adhikari. This site uses no cookies, no trackers and no third-party requests.