Install
Download the installer for your system. Each link takes the asset from the latest release.
The Mac downloads are disk images, Windows an installer, Linux an AppImage. A .deb is on the release page too.
macOS 14 or later. The Mac image is signed and notarized, so it opens without argument. Windows is unsigned, so SmartScreen asks once: More info, then Run anyway.
You need an agent first
Emaki reads and drives the coding agents already on your machine, so at least one of them has to be installed and signed in:
- Claude Code — fully supported: read, search, and continue a session from the window.
- Codex — read, search, start, continue and stop, with approvals, questions and plans on the same cards.
The Agents page in the app (⌘E) shows which are installed and which are signed in, and walks through installing git and each agent a numbered step at a time for your system, with a shell beside the instructions.
The first launch
Open the app. The first launch copies every transcript it finds into ~/.emaki/archive, and every later launch catches up. Capture does not depend on the app running: whenever you open it, it backfills every session you have ever run.
Everything Emaki keeps is under ~/.emaki:
archive/ |
every session, copied byte for byte, one folder per agent |
logs/ |
each session rendered as markdown |
search.db |
the full-text index |
config.json |
your settings |
Only archive/ cannot be rebuilt from something else. That is the directory to back up.
The one thing it changes
Emaki sets a single thing in Claude Code’s settings: its own status line, which feeds the context and rate-limit row shown under the composer. Nothing else is touched, and no hook is installed.
To put your old status line back:
emaki-core statusline restoreUpdating
The app updates itself — from Settings, or on a daily check. Nothing to reinstall.
Building from source
Rust, with GPUI:
git clone https://github.com/alkaline-software/emaki
cd emaki
cargo build -p emaki-app && ./target/debug/EmakiOn a Mac the build needs CMake (brew install cmake) for the dictation model runner.