An experimental modal text editor with a client–server architecture and tree-sitter integration.

Aether splits editing across two processes: a long-lived server, running locally, holds all text state — buffer contents, cursors, selections, the undo stack, per-viewport soft wrap — while thin clients render what the server sends and forward keystrokes. Multiple clients can share a buffer, see each other's cursors, and share a single undo stack.

• Modal editing (normal/insert mode)
• Tree-sitter integration (highlighting, indentation, navigation)
• Surround/unsurround, toggle-comment, join and move lines
• Undo and redo stacks for edits and cursor/selection motions
• Fuzzy pickers for files/buffers/projects, file explorer, project-wide grep
• Mouse support, soft wrap, system-clipboard integration
• Git integration (gutter, inline diff, blame, hunk staging)
• LSP (diagnostics, hover, go-to-definition, format)
• Terminal and web clients

Type Space ? for the in-app overlay. Holding the Shift key extends the selection (e.g., Shift-w); a leading count repeats a motion (e.g., 3w). There are two leader keys: Space for app/file/git/code commands, and Tab for revealing information at the cursor.

Every Ctrl edit works in both modes. The clipboard/edit keys are selection-scoped in normal and line-scoped in insert (since insert has no selection), on the same key; the rest are identical in both.

Prebuilt binaries for Linux and macOS (Apple Silicon) are attached to each release, in two variants per platform:

• aether-<version>-<target>.tar.gz — the GUI build (native window + server + terminal/web clients); needs a graphical environment at runtime.
• aether-<version>-<target>-no-gui.tar.gz — same editor minus the desktop window: server, terminal client, and embedded web client, with no graphics libraries required (headless boxes, SSH).

Each archive holds the single ae binary; unpack it and put ae on your PATH.

macOS: binaries are unsigned, so clear the quarantine flag once after unpacking: xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ./ae.

Aether is a standard Cargo workspace.

cargo build --release

This produces a single binary:

• ae — runs the server daemon, the terminal client, and (when built with the gui feature, on by default) the native GUI client. The build that ships the GUI is the default; dropping it with cargo build --release -p aether-ae --no-default-features (so iced/winit/wgpu never enter the dependency graph) is exactly the -no-gui release artifact, for a box with no display libraries.

1. Start the server:

   ae --server

2. Start the client, optionally naming a project and a file/directory to open:

   ae                     # start with the project picker open
   ae aether              # open the "aether" project in a scratch buffer
   ae aether src/main.rs  # open a file
   ae aether src/         # open the file explorer at a directory

   With no --gui/--tui flag, ae picks a client automatically: a terminal on stdout means the terminal client; no terminal but a display set (a desktop launcher) means the GUI. Pass --gui or --tui to force one.

   path is resolved against the current working directory and must fall within one of the project's roots. A directory opens the file browser there.

   Projects are created and managed from the project picker (Space p); running ae with no arguments opens it.

The web client (web/, TypeScript) is served by the same server process. Build the bundle once, then open it in a browser:

cd web
npm install     # first time only
npm run build   # tsc (typecheck + compile), then Vite bundles to web/dist

npm run build runs tsc && vite build. The server serves web/dist directly — the path is baked from the crate and read at runtime, so a rebuilt bundle is picked up without rebuilding the server. With the server running, open http://127.0.0.1:2384. There's no token to copy: the daemon is loopback-only and authorizes by Host/Origin, so a browser on the same machine just connects.

MIT