Cate v1.0 is out: The Infinite canvas workspace for developers

Excellent post. Thank you.

I love looking through awesome-web-desktops. Most aren't infinite canvases but they are canvases, canvases of programs. There's fun stuff. UI paradigms being cooked up. I'll pitch in particular AetherOS, as being a neat web desktop that also is interestingly connected, networked, which is neat. https://github.com/syxanash/awesome-web-desktops https://bsky.app/profile/aetheros.computer

I do think we need to ask a little more "what next?". Taking Niri as a real desktop example, it's just so good, such simple but enjoyable new bones for a doing computing atop. So close to what was but so unique and nice. It intuitively connects me to the many many what ifs all around, makes me feel like there's such imminent possibility.

Especially today, who can make a UI that can be spoken well with, that is conversationally capable: that frontier feels barely explored. 9p is by far far far the most agentic desktop we have ever had, looked at this way. So beyond how it looks and works, how do computing surfaces express themselves?

Agreed. I'm actually excited to hope for a cambrian explosion of IDE experiments.

LLM powered visual diagramming of the code as you work? The ability to edit the diagrams and have tje LLM apply that back to the code? Visualisation of test coverage over the UI you are working on? Allowing you to attach user submitted videos of bugs directly to tests in the code?

I don't know if any of that is a good idea, but I really hope a bunch of people try.

Yeah, I agree. I think we are in an interesting phase where people are rethinking the “IDE as one fixed rectangle” model. Cate is one attempt at that from the spatial side: persistent canvases, terminals, browsers, notes, agents, docks, tabs, splits, worktrees etc. It may not be the final shape, but I think there is room for more experimentation around how long-running AI/dev workflows are organized.

I know that feeling, it's like pattern recognition

I feel that this single-pane-of-glass approach works better for some folks' mental models

That’s a fair question but I can think of one big advantage of going this way and that’s to do with distraction-free workspaces.

To use a comparison, have you ever picked up your phone to enter an TOTP / one time auth code and then accidentally found yourself texting a friend, or some other non-work activity. It’s particularly easy to get distracted if you have an open notification you didn’t see until you went to use that one time code on your phone.

Having a desktop app for your workspace helps hide Slack and other distracting items while context switching between different productivity apps.

Window layout isn’t the key feature, creating a spatial map of open files and other resources is.

I conceptually agree that managing windows should be the task of... the window manager, but at the same time it's easier and lower friction to both develop inside of an app and get some user to test new features

agree , it should be WM isntead of a very limited electron app.

Because native virtual desktops still mostly preserve app windows, not project context. Cate is more scoped: one workspace per project/folder with terminals, browser previews, editors, notes, agents, worktrees, docked tabs/splits, and restored panel positions. It’s not meant to replace GNOME/KDE/macOS/i3 globally, more to keep the messy project-specific layer in one persistent place.

I like Obsidian for note taking and it does have an infinite canvas, but it feels bolted on. I would love to have a more canvas first note taking app, maybe with folders for visual declutter.

Navigation in default Obsidian is one of the weakest points imo

That’s a valid concern and probably one of the biggest risks with an infinite canvas. The goal is not “infinite mess”, but persistent context with enough structure: docking, tabs, splits, search via Cmd+K, detachable panels, project-based canvases, and restored layouts. I also think things like expiry/cleanup, saved views, folders or semantic grouping would make sense over time. Retention of context is basically the whole product question here.

I totally agree that this should be a window manager (and I'd really love it to be one, my brief poke at this has just made me want my entire operating system to work like this). I can see why you'd start by prototyping at least in a single app context though, it gives you immediate cross platform support rather than just targeting Linux which is the only place you can really build a window manager this different to what the OS expects, and its just a generally more tractable problem.

Why would you say a window manager would be better? I can imagine for power users maybe, and definitely for architecture astronauts, but being able to have workspaces managed by an app that can control all of a set of "windows" being opened at once depending on what work is being done is a lot more functional. And you can have your email etc open in a separate real OS window.

I think the infinite canvas is a key feature, so you couldn't just disregard this to make it into a window manager.

That’s fair. I probably need to explain that distinction better. Cate is not trying to replace the OS window manager globally. It’s more a project workspace where terminals, browser previews, notes, agents, editors, and docs can stay arranged together and be restored per project. A native WM version would be interesting, but the app approach makes it easier to test the workflow across macOS, Windows, and Linux without asking people to replace their desktop setup.

Yeah, I understand that direction. A more native/headless or Rust-based version could be interesting long term, especially for performance and battery life. For v1 I kept it as a cross-platform desktop app so people can try the workflow without changing their OS setup. But collaborative sessions, remote/headless workspaces, and AI-assisted sessions are definitely in the same general direction as what Cate is trying to explore.

Thanks for the pointer, I actually didn’t know Haystack before. Looks like it belongs in the prior-art / inspiration section, so I’ll add it to the README.

From a quick look, I agree there is overlap around the canvas editor idea. Cate is aiming a bit more at the broader project workspace layer: terminals, browser previews, editors, notes, agents, git/worktrees, docking/tabs/splits, and persistent layouts around a project.

But yes, fair callout. Appreciate the input.

Do you mean the demo on website?

Nice, I just checked terminaldraw. Very similar core idea, but interesting that you used tldraw more directly as the canvas engine.

Cate is a bit broader in scope: Electron desktop app, persistent project workspaces, node-pty/xterm terminals, browser panels, Monaco editors, docs, git/worktrees, docked tabs/splits, and now agent panels as well.

PTYs were a fun rabbit hole. The basic idea is simple, but making terminals feel native inside a canvas is where it gets tricky: lifecycle, resize behavior, restoring sessions, shell fallback, scrollback, performance, and not breaking when panels are moved/docked/detached.

Cool to see someone else exploring the terminal + canvas direction too. I’ll take a closer look at your repo.

That’s fair. Infinite canvas is not for everyone. I think the important part is that it does not have to mean “everything everywhere forever”. Cate also has docking, tabs, splits, project-based layouts, and search, so you can use it more structured if you want. But yes, for some people a finite or stricter workspace model will feel better.

Yeah, that was one of the main challenges and still is.

We chose Electron because the goal for v1 was to make Cate easy to try across macOS, Windows, and Linux without asking people to change their OS setup or use a specific window manager. A native implementation would probably give us more control and better performance in some areas, but it would also make iteration and cross-platform support much harder at this stage.

The HTML/canvas approach definitely has tradeoffs. Large canvases, XY transforms, terminals, browser previews, editors, and agents all in one workspace can get expensive if handled naively. We’ve been working on viewport-based rendering, transform handling, and avoiding unnecessary re-renders, but it is still an ongoing performance challenge.

So yes, we accounted for it, but I would not claim it is “solved”. v1 is much better than the early builds, and we’re continuing to improve it.

Fair point. I probably should have submitted it as Show HN.

I posted it more as a progress/update thread because I was mainly looking for feedback from people with heavy terminal or multi-window workflows, but I agree that the format fits Show HN better.

fair point

Yeah, that’s pretty much how I see it too.

Cate is not trying to compete with tiling/scolling WMs. Those are better if the main problem is arranging normal OS windows.

The goal here is more project-scoped: one spatial canvas where terminals, browser previews, editors, docs, notes, agents, git/worktrees, and saved layouts live together. More like a persistent workspace for a single project than a global desktop environment.