Chat with Firstmate
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Talk to Firstmate like a teammate. Chat, answer with buttons, mention tasks with #, run commands with /, or just dictate. On deck, beside it, shows what each of your crew is doing.
Run a crew of AI coding agents without living in their terminals.
Wheelhouse is one calm page on your own machine to talk to Firstmate, see what your crew is doing, and review real results.
npm i -g @chrisjowen/wheelhouse- Serves only your own computer
- Firstmate stays in charge
- v0.2.1, MIT licensed
Take the tour
Under two minutes on the chat, decisions, the Harbour, a project, a task, PR review and plugins. Pick a chapter to jump to it. In Wheelhouse, Help in the header brings the tour back.
Everything on one bridge
Each page reads what Firstmate and its crew already record, and says so when something is unknown rather than guessing. Screenshots show a demo crew working on made-up projects.
Preview cards
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When a reply is about a task with a running app, its live preview shows as a card underneath: the page itself, the pull request and its checks, and a full-size view.
Decision cards
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Every open decision shows as a card in the chat, answered in place. When a question lists options, the card shows them as choices with the recommended one picked.
Decisions
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Every open question in one stack, answered in one tap: Approve, Fix, Skip or Ask me later, with keyboard shortcuts.
The ship’s bell
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Rings for green pull requests, questions, stuck workers and landed merges, each with a one-click answer.
Harbour
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Every project at a glance: a card each, the one that needs you first, what waits on you, the work under way and its step, and what landed this week.
Project pages
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Each project has its own page: a banner with what needs you, and tabs for its work, issues, links, secrets, passage and any plugin that adds one.
Radar
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Watch the whole fleet flow from Queued through Building, Testing and Pull request to Landed, live.
Task pages
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Every check, file, pull request and log for a task in one place, step by step, with the failing tests’ output where it matters and a live console for its worker.
Live preview
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Click around the real app under review and send feedback straight to the worker, with Firstmate’s reply beside it.
The conversation
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Every question a worker asked and how it was answered, including the automated review’s questions and Firstmate’s call on each.
PR review
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With the PR review plugin, Review on any pull request opens a guided review: a walkthrough, a quality pass, then the key changes stop by stop, with the reviewer’s notes pinned above the lines they discuss.
Docket casebook
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With docket’s plugin, a project’s Docket tab is its casebook: browse the team-memory graph, table and history, ask questions, search and sync. Shown here is docket open’s own page; the Docket tab draws the same UI inside Wheelhouse.
Passage editor
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Add your own steps to a task’s passage, like a local deploy after merge, and test them on a landed task before you keep them.
Vault
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Give the crew secrets by name with wh-vault. Values stay in the macOS Keychain; the Vault page shows names, grants and use, never a value.
Decided for you
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Every call Firstmate made on your behalf, grouped by day, with each call and its reason.
Where time went
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Spot the bottleneck: each task’s time split into building, review, CI and waiting on you.
Headroom
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Never run out of allowance: Claude headroom left this session and this week, and each task’s share of recent use.
Improvements
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With the improve plugin, your harness gets better, only with your approval: reviews due, proposals waiting for your call, and the size of the harness.
Day or night
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A calm logbook look in light, deep navy after dark.
How it works with Firstmate
Firstmate runs the crew: one Claude Code session that takes your requests and hands tasks to workers. Wheelhouse sits beside it as your window and your voice. Close Wheelhouse and the crew keeps working.
You
Chat, answer decisions, review previews and pull requests. From the browser, or from your phone over Discord.
Wheelhouse
A local web app and CLI. It starts Firstmate’s session, or finds the one already running, and shows the whole fleet.
wheelhouse open
http://127.0.0.1:4310
http://127.0.0.1:4310
Firstmate
The supervisor session in tmux. Your messages arrive in its inbox like any other note; it decides, dispatches and reports back.
fm-inbox.sh note
fm-fleet-snapshot.sh
fm-fleet-snapshot.sh
The crew
Workers in their own git worktrees build, check and open pull requests, with live previews of the running app.
worktrees, checks, PRs on GitHub
It reads, it never steers
Wheelhouse reads the fleet snapshot, the ledger, transcripts, reports, diffs and check logs. The one thing it writes is your message, through Firstmate’s own inbox. It never stops, reconfigures or bypasses Firstmate.
Yours, and only yours
- Listens on
127.0.0.1and refuses requests from anywhere else. - Secrets reach the crew by name with
wh-vault; values stay in the macOS Keychain. - The Discord gateway only connects out and hears only the account you pair.
Plugins add, never control
Plugins fill fixed slots (tabs, cards, pages, a header pill) through a read-only context, with timeouts and error boundaries, so one failing plugin never takes a page down. How Wheelhouse reads Firstmate
Plugins
Install a plugin from its GitHub repository with one command, or with Install plugin under Settings → Plugins. Each one is off until you turn it on, for every project or only the ones you choose.
7 screenshots
PR review
Review a pull request in stages: a walkthrough, a quality pass, the key changes stop by stop, then a skim pile. A chat sits beside the code at every stage.
A PR review tab on each project. Claude by default, or a local model through Ollama. Nothing is posted or sent until you click.
wheelhouse plugin install chrisjowen/pr-review-wheelhouse
3 screenshots
Localhost proxy
Opens the crew’s localhost previews and links through Wheelhouse’s own port, so they work when Wheelhouse runs in Docker, a cloud workspace or on another computer.
A host route and an address rewrite: http://localhost:5173/app opens as http://5173.localhost:4310/app. Only Wheelhouse’s port needs forwarding.
wheelhouse plugin install chrisjowen/localhost-proxy-wheelhouseDocket
A project’s team-memory casebook inside Wheelhouse: Browse (graph, table, history), Ask, Adapters, the inspector, chat, quick search and sync.
A Docket tab, on for every project whose clone has .docket.yaml, plus docket’s MCP app in the chat. The screenshot is docket open’s own page; the tab draws the same UI.
wheelhouse plugin install chrisjowen/docket6 screenshots
Improve
Governed, evidence-driven improvement of your Claude Code harness. Each suggestion arrives as a decision for you, like any other.
An Improvements page, a Harness tab on the home rail, a header pill when a review is due, and the proposal on each decision.
wheelhouse plugin install chrisjowen/improve
5 screenshots
Git insights
Who is working on a project, its latest commits, the files that change most, open pull requests and a few figures, from git and GitHub, read again every hour.
An Insights tab on each project, with a 7, 30 or 90 day view.
wheelhouse plugin install chrisjowen/git-insights-wheelhouse
3 screenshots
Ship’s weather
The fleet’s health as weather, from Clear to Storm. Click it for a brass barometer, the forecast, why, what’s wrong and the ship’s log.
A pill in the header on every page.
wheelhouse plugin install chrisjowen/ship-weather-wheelhouse
4 screenshots
Captain’s log
A short digest in three plain lines: what landed since you were last here, what waits on you, and what is under way and next.
A Log tab on the home rail and a Captain’s log page with the last seven days.
wheelhouse plugin install chrisjowen/captains-log-wheelhouse
5 screenshots
Giffy
A pre-checked catalogue of 492 GIFs in 16 occasions. Firstmate puts one in good news like a merge or a release, and never in bad news.
A GIFs page in the menu and an MCP server for Firstmate. No API key, no live search.
wheelhouse plugin install chrisjowen/giffy-wheelhouseNo screenshot yet
Share previews
Share a live preview as a password-protected HTTPS link through your own k3s cluster.
Being built now. The repository holds only its README so far.
No release yet.
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GitHub issues
Lists each project’s open issues that match your watch rule, labelled ready-for-pr or assigned to you by default, and hands any of them to Firstmate.
An Issues tab on the home rail and on each project. Can ring the bell for new issues, or hand them over itself.
Nothing to install: turn it on in Settings → Plugins.
2 screenshots
Project links
Links to a project’s repository, README and pull requests, and each task’s pull request, preview and branch.
A Links tab on projects and tasks, a Harbour card and evidence under the Pull request step.
Nothing to install: turn it on in Settings → Plugins.
2 screenshots
Vault
What wh-vault holds, by name only: every secret, the projects it is granted to, when it was set and last used.
A Vault page to add, grant and revoke, a Secrets tab on projects and a Secrets used tab on tasks.
Nothing to install: it is on from the start.
Write your own
Plugins are panels and providers: a provider reads on the server through a read-only context, and its output fills one of eight fixed slots.
project.taba tab on each projectharbour.carda card on a project’s worktask.sectiona section on a task pagestep.evidenceevidence under a passage stepbridge.carda card under a chat replyhome.carda tab on the home railheader.indicatora pill in the headernav.pagea page in the menu
Get started
Three commands from nothing to your first conversation with the crew.
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Clone Firstmate
Wheelhouse is a window onto a Firstmate home, so you need one first.
git clone https://github.com/kunchenguid/firstmate.git -
Install Wheelhouse
From npm. Run the same command again to update.
npm install -g @chrisjowen/wheelhouse -
Open it from your Firstmate folder
Wheelhouse opens in your browser at the local address it prints.
cd firstmate && wheelhouse open
You need
- Node.js 22 or newer
- A Firstmate home
tmuxand Claude Code on yourPATH
Options
wheelhouse open --help lists them, such as a different Firstmate home or port.
Learn more
- The guide: every page, the Firstmate session, Discord
- Passage files: your own steps, like a local deploy
- The vault: secrets by name for the crew
- Plugins: write and install your own
Releases
Published to npm as @chrisjowen/wheelhouse. A clone shows an arrow in its header when GitHub has a newer version, and upgrades on a click.
0.2.1
- Review on a pull request opens it in a plugin’s review tab
- The built-in PR review gives way to the PR review plugin
0.2.0
- Live previews and decisions as cards in the chat
- Harbour with a page per project
- Discord gateway, the vault, plugins installed from GitHub, MCP apps
0.1.0
- First release on npm: the Harbour, the Firstmate chat, task pages with live consoles and previews
- Passages, Decided for you, Where time went and Headroom