Claude Code Desktop

Claude Code Desktop is the GUI version of Claude Code, built into the Claude Desktop app under the Code tab. Same engine as the CLI, wrapped in an IDE-style workspace with panes you can drag, drop, and resize into whatever layout fits the task: chat, diff, preview, terminal, file editor, plan, tasks, and subagent.

The headline feature is parallel sessions with automatic git worktree isolation. Hit Cmd+N and you get a brand-new session on a fresh worktree — no stashing, no branch juggling, no stepping on your other work. Run five at once. Run fifty. Each one lives in its own sidebar tab with its own context, and Cmd+Tab cycles between them. Worktrees land in .claude/worktrees/ by default, use a configurable branch prefix, and can auto-archive when their PR merges.

Review is where Desktop really earns its keep over the terminal. The diff viewer shows file-by-file changes with inline comment threads; click any line, leave feedback, press Cmd+Enter to send the whole batch back. Click Review code and Claude grades its own diff for compile errors, logic bugs, and security issues — the things a linter won't catch. A live preview pane boots your dev server in an embedded browser and auto-verifies UI changes after every edit (screenshots, DOM inspection, click-through), with .claude/launch.json handling monorepo setups and port conflicts.

Side chats (Cmd+;) let you ask a question that reads the main thread without polluting it — perfect for "wait, what is this doing?" without steering the session off course. A tasks pane watches background subagents and shell commands. GitHub PR monitoring polls CI checks and can optionally auto-fix failures, auto-merge on green, and auto-archive the session when it's done.

Computer use (research preview on macOS and Windows, Pro or Max only) hands Claude the keyboard and screen for anything that has no CLI — native apps, mobile simulators, hardware control panels. Per-app permission tiers cap browsers at view-only and terminals at click-only, pushing Claude toward precise tools like connectors and Bash whenever they apply.

Run sessions anywhere: local, remote on Anthropic's cloud via Claude Code on the web (keeps running when the app is closed, supports multiple repos in one session), or over SSH to your own VMs and dev containers. Dispatch lets you kick off Code sessions from your phone and get pushed when they finish. Scheduled tasks handle recurring work on a cron-like schedule. Connectors plug in Linear, Slack, GitHub, Notion, Google Calendar, and any MCP server. Custom Agent Skills and plugins load automatically when relevant, or you can invoke them with /.

Desktop and the CLI share everything that matters — CLAUDE.md, ~/.claude/settings.json, hooks, skills, plugins, MCP config. Run both side by side on the same project. Type /desktop in the terminal to hand a CLI session off to the GUI mid-flow.

What you give up in Desktop: Bedrock and Foundry providers (Vertex is available on enterprise), Linux, scripting flags like --print and --output-format, and agent teams. Those stay in the CLI and Agent SDK.