File manager · terminal + desktopTwo panes. Everything under control.

A two-pane file manager for local files, SFTP and S3, in your terminal or on your desktop.

Copies keep running in the background. AI agents only reach what you authorize. Every operation is recorded in one journal.

See how it works · 20 s

v0.3.0-alpha.16·Linux x86_64 · installer, .deb, .rpm, AppImage

Free & open source · AGPL-3.0 · MCP · No account · No telemetry

● Real captures from the current build. No mockups.

Two panes
Terminal + window
Local
SFTP
FTP
S3
ZIP / TAR / RAR
MCP
Journal
Pause & resume
7 keymaps
10 themes
WASM plugins
No telemetry

Why norte

The familiar model, ready for how files move now.

Two panes for people. Jobs that outlive the window. Clear limits for agents.

01

Everything is a pane

Browse local disks, SFTP, S3 and archives the same way, with the same keys and the same operations.

ada@norte — SFTP
Everything is a pane

Local → SFTP → S3→ ZIP / TAR / RAR

  1. 02

    Start the copy. norte finishes it.

    It keeps running in the background when a window closes. Pause it, resume it or cancel it cleanly.

  2. 03

    An agent asks. You set the limit.

    Choose which folders it can reach, which operations it can run and for how long.

  3. 04

    No account. No cloud. No telemetry.

    norte works on your machine, and its diagnostics stay there too.

Everywhere your files are

A Raspberry Pi, a bucket or a zip is just another pane.

Local disks, SFTP, FTP, S3 and archives go through one virtual filesystem: the same keys, the same copy dialog, the same journal. The daemon keeps the connections open for every client.
ada@norte — SFTP
Then the Pi is a pane like any other: browse, view, copy.
SFTPThen the Pi is a pane like any other: browse, view, copy.
ada@norte — S3
Buckets and prefixes as folders. AWS, MinIO, anything that speaks S3.
S3Buckets and prefixes as folders. AWS, MinIO, anything that speaks S3.
ada@norte — Archives
ZIP, TAR (gz, zst…) and RAR open as read-only directories. Browse, view and copy out without extracting first.
ArchivesZIP, TAR (gz, zst…) and RAR open as read-only directories. Browse, view and copy out without extracting first.

Agents, governed

Let your AI touch your files, on your terms.

Claude, Codex or any MCP client reaches your files through the same core the human frontends use: scoped access you grant, expiring grants, changes held until you approve them, and every change in the journal under the agent's name.
  1. Agentasks for a scope: folders, operations, how long
  2. Yougrant it — and an ask rule can hold each change until you approve it by pressing y
  3. Coreenforces the policy; outside the scope, nothing
  4. Journalrecords every change under the agent's session

Outside a scope an agent gets nothing, not even a listing. It asks for a folder, the operations it wants and for how long, and waits.

photo-helper — an MCP client
It has to ask

photo-helper is an MCP client scripted for these captures, not an AI. Everything else on screen is norte.

01

Closed by default

No scope, not even a listing. No rule in your policy, no changes — even inside a scope. A request nobody answers is denied after a minute.

02

One place to check

The policy engine sits in the core. There is no side door for a plugin, an agent or a frontend.

03

Every change has a name on it

The journal records what each agent session did, next to what you did, so you always know who changed what, and when.

Hook up Claude Code — or any MCP client

$claude mcp add norte -- norte mcp serve --session claude

Background work · the journal

Close the window; the copy keeps going.

Open ntc with --daemon, or use the window, and the work runs in the norte daemon: it keeps the task alive when a screen closes, and any other client finds it at the same percentage. Every change lands in one journal, with who made it.
ada@norte — ntc #1
ntc #1 — starts a copy out of an S3 bucket
ntc #1 — starts a copy out of an S3 bucket
ada@norte — ntc #2
ntc #2 — another terminal, same daemon: the copy is there, live
ntc #2 — another terminal, same daemon: the copy is there, live
  1. 01

    The job does not live in the window

    Copy, move or sync and keep working. The daemon keeps the operation alive; pause, resume or cancel it without leaving half a file.

  2. 02

    One change. One entry. One author.

    Terminal, window, script or agent: every operation reaches the same journal, in order and attributed.

  3. 03

    Start here. Continue there.

    Open ntc over SSH, then resume on your desktop. Tabs, directories and marks come with ntc --attach.

A tour, in real captures

A quick tour, straight from the build.

ada@norte — Two panes
One is where you are. The other is where things go.

One is where you are. The other is where things go.

The orthodox model: no dialog ever asks where to. Marks, sizes, free space and the encoding of the listing are always on screen. Names are bytes, so 東京 and Tromsø are just names.

TabInsertF5
Every feature, in real captures→

Ten themes, both frontends

Make it look like the rest of your desk.

Catppuccin, Gruvbox, Nord, VS Code, two CRT phosphors and norte's own. One theme file paints the terminal and the window alike, and the window can follow your desktop between a light one and a dark one.
norte-gui — Catppuccin Mocha
norte in the Catppuccin Mocha theme, window

Pick one: real captures, nothing recoloured.

In norte.toml

[ui]
theme = "catppuccin-mocha"

Yours is not here? Bring it from VS Code.

norte theme import reads a VS Code colour theme and writes a norte theme the picker offers by name. --use makes it the one you see.

$norte theme import dracula.json --use

Coming from somewhere?

norte next to mc, Far, Total Commander and yazi.

They are great tools, kept alive by people we admire, and norte owes them the orthodox model. It is not here to replace any of them, only to be one more friendly option. Here is what it adds; the full table also says what it lacks.

Only norte, of the five

  • Several screens on one core (daemon)
  • AI agents, under a policy (MCP)
  • Plugins, sandboxed with consent
See the full comparison→

When norte is not the one for you

You need macOS binaries today.

Far Manager's far2l and yazi ship them; on macOS norte builds from source for now.

You want decades of battle-testing.

Midnight Commander has them. norte is an alpha, and says so.

You like Miller columns and a big Lua ecosystem.

That is yazi, and it is excellent at it.

Whichever you pick, you are in good company. If one of them serves you well, star it, report a bug, send a patch or just thank its maintainers: the orthodox family is still going because of them.

Collaborators and sponsors wanted

Looking for people to build it with, and people to fund it.

norte is still an alpha. More people would mean faster code, docs, packages and testing, and sponsorship would pay for time, CI on macOS and Windows, and code signing.

compilando/norte

Star it to follow along, watch it for releases, open an issue when something breaks, ask or propose in Discussions.

Star on GitHub

Collaborators

Rust, the desktop window, docs, translations, packaging, testing on macOS and Windows. Pick an open issue, read the contributing guide, or write to me first and we'll pick something.

Open issues

Sponsors

If you or your company would like norte to keep going, sponsorship pays for the hours and for signed releases. Write to me and we'll work something out.

Write about sponsoring

Or just write:parhelion@tutamail.com

Contributing→

Download

Ready to point north?

Install the Linux alpha today, or build norte anywhere Rust runs. No account and no telemetry.

Terminal · Linux x86_64v0.3.0-alpha.16

ntc — the file manager

$curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/compilando/norte/releases/download/v0.3.0-alpha.16/norte-tui-installer.sh | sh

norte — daemon, CLI, MCP

$curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/compilando/norte/releases/download/v0.3.0-alpha.16/norte-cli-installer.sh | sh
All downloadsBuild from source

The window · one bundle, three binaries

.debDebian · Ubuntudpkg -i54 MB↓.rpmFedora · openSUSEdnf install54 MB↓.AppImageAnything elsechmod +x126 MB↓

Windows · first preview, unsigned

setup.exeWindows 10 · 11 x64installs per user, no admin38 MB↓.zipPortableunzip, run norte-gui.exe56 MB↓

Each package carries norte and ntc with it, so a clean install always has a daemon to talk to.

Linux x86_64, and a first Windows x86_64 preview. macOS builds from source; binaries come the day releases are built in CI.