Platforms & requirements
Supported operating systems, the coding CLIs PaneScale works with, the tools some features rely on, and how much hardware many panes need.
Operating systems
| Platform | Status |
|---|---|
| Windows 11, x64 | Supported |
| Windows 10, x64 | Supported |
| macOS 11 or later (Apple silicon, Intel) | Supported — one universal app, signed and notarized |
| Linux x86_64 (glibc 2.35+: Ubuntu 22.04+, Debian 12+, Fedora, openSUSE, Arch) | Supported — installer, .deb, .rpm |
PaneScale is a native app with a Rust core. On Windows it uses the WebView2 runtime that comes with the system. Terminals run on ConPTY, and every pane’s process tree runs in its own Windows job object, so closing a pane always ends everything it started — including MCP servers an agent launched.
PaneScale picks your default shell in this order: PowerShell 7, Windows PowerShell, Command Prompt, Git Bash. Change it in Settings → General; open panes keep theirs.
On macOS PaneScale uses the system WebView (WebKit), on Linux WebKitGTK 4.1. Terminals run on a pseudo-terminal, and closing a pane ends its whole process group. The default shell is your login shell (usually zsh on macOS, bash on Linux); bash, zsh, fish, PowerShell 7 and sh are offered when installed. Agents started from PaneScale get the same PATH as your login shell, so CLIs installed with npm, Homebrew, pnpm, fnm or nvm are found. Keyboard shortcuts use ⌘ instead of Ctrl on macOS.
Coding CLIs
| CLI | Mode | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Code | Structured events | Live activity, hook-based status, session names from its prompts, live limits, effort switchable per pane |
| Codex | Structured events | Live activity, usage at the end of each turn, status from terminal notifications |
| Gemini CLI | Text | Status from terminal signals |
| GitHub Copilot CLI | Text | GitHub context built in |
| Cursor Agent | Text | |
| Grok Build | Text | |
| Aider | Text | Small steps, commits every change |
| Kimi CLI | Text | |
| Droid | Text | |
| OpenCode | Text |
Structured CLIs stream machine-readable events, so PaneScale can show each step live and measure token usage exactly. Text CLIs work in every pane; their status comes from terminal signals and screen detection, and their usage is shown as “not reported” instead of being estimated.
Features that run agents non-interactively — Agent mode, Chat, the tasks board, workflow agent steps, routines, the Overnight Autopilot and Point & Fix — use Claude Code or Codex.
Start options per CLI
| Option | Claude Code | Codex | Gemini CLI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Effort | --effort, switchable live per pane | model_reasoning_effort | — |
| Bypass | --dangerously-skip-permissions | --dangerously-bypass-approvals-and-sandbox | --yolo |
Other tools
| Tool | Needed for |
|---|---|
| Git | Worktrees, checkpoints, the autopilot, Point & Fix, the review in Chat |
| gh CLI | Importing GitHub issues and opening draft pull requests |
| OpenSSH client | Remote SSH terminals (built into Windows 10 and 11) |
| Ollama or your own endpoint | Model steps in workflows |
| whisper.cpp (installed from Settings) | Voice dictation and commands |
| Node.js / npm | Only if your project’s checks use npm scripts — PaneScale proposes checks from package.json |
Hardware
Every pane runs its own agent process, and agents index your workspace when they start. A waiting Claude Code session with its MCP servers needs roughly 450 MB of memory, a Codex session about 150 MB, a plain shell about 60 MB.
| Panes | Recommended memory |
|---|---|
| 1–4 | 8 GB |
| 6–12 | 16 GB |
| 16–30 | 32 GB or more |
Ready sessions adapt to what your computer has: PaneScale always keeps 4 GB of memory free, fills at most four waiting sessions at the same time at lower priority, and starts fewer when memory is tight. The toolbar in Code mode and the footer of the dashboard show how many processes your panes run and how much memory they use.
A display of 1920 × 1080 is enough for up to six panes; for 9 or more, a larger or higher-resolution screen makes terminals easier to read — or use the Compact and Dense grid densities.