specrails-hub

The local dashboard for shipping software with AI agents.

specrails-hub turns "I'll let Claude do it" into a workflow you can see, steer, and trust. Draft specs in conversation with Claude, drag them onto execution rails, and watch the pipeline ship — all from one window, on your laptop, with every cost tracked.

It's a local-first companion to specrails-core: one window for all your projects, one place to manage specs and pipelines, one place to see what AI cost you this week.

100% local. Single user. No accounts. No telemetry leaving your machine. Your code stays on your laptop unless you spawn an agent against it.

What you can do with it

• Draft a spec by talking to Claude or Codex — open Explore, describe what you want; the live draft updates each turn. Save it as a draft and come back later, or commit when it looks right.
• Generate a spec in one shot — Quick mode for when you already know what you want. Optionally enrich it with a "Contract Layer" of names, shapes, invariants, and a file touch list.
• Drag specs onto execution rails — each rail is an independent lane. Run multiple specs in parallel, with different agent profiles per rail.
• Compare two specs side by side — drag any spec modal to the edge of the screen; a picker of your todo specs appears on the other side. Pick one and they live next to each other. Tablet-style.
• Split a big epic — SMASH a parent spec into a family of sub-specs in one click; the children carry short summaries on their cards.
• Refine a spec in place — Continue Editing reopens any draft / todo / backlog spec in Explore, with the original conversation resumed if there was one.
• Track every AI cost — every AI CLI invocation across rails, Quick spec, Explore turns, and AI edits is recorded — across both Claude and Codex. Codex cost is estimated from a local rate-card since the CLI doesn't report it natively. The Analytics page shows your burn rate, top tickets, breaks down spend per provider, and lets you export CSV.
• Customise everything — three themes, font sizes, terminal preferences, agent profiles, plugin integrations (Serena bundled today).

How specrails-hub looks

┌──────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│          │  Dashboard · Jobs · Analytics · Agents · ⚙        │
│   Arc    │ ──────────────────────────────────────────────── │
│  side-   │                                                   │
│   bar    │   SpecsBoard            │   Rails                 │
│          │   (your specs)          │   (execution lanes)     │
│ projects │                         │                         │
│          │   #1  Login flow ●      │   ▶ Rail 1   #1 #2     │
│ + Add    │   #2  Webhook retry     │     [profile: default]  │
│          │   #3  Cost limits  ●    │                         │
│          │                         │   ▶ Rail 2   running    │
│          │                         │     [profile: budget]   │
│   ⚙      │                         │                         │
└──────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                  ⌥ Terminal panel (Cmd+J)

Quick start

# 1. Install
npm install -g specrails-hub

# 2. Start the hub
specrails-hub start

# 3. Add a project from the CLI…
specrails-hub add /path/to/your/project

# …or click "+ Add project" in the dashboard sidebar at
#   http://127.0.0.1:4200

If the project doesn't have specrails-core yet, the setup wizard walks you through installing it. One flow, no tier picker. Total time: about a minute on a warm cache.

Prefer a desktop app? Download a signed build for macOS or Windows from https://specrails.dev/downloads/specrails-hub/latest/. The desktop app bundles the server, so you don't need a separate start command.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+ (specrails-core ≥ 4.6.0 for codex projects; ≥ 4.2.0 for claude-only)
• At least one AI CLI on your PATH:
  • Claude Code — claude binary. Set ANTHROPIC_API_KEY to authenticate.
  • Codex CLI ≥ 0.128.0 — codex binary. Run codex login or set OPENAI_API_KEY.
• git
• (Optional) uv if you want to use the Serena plugin

The provider is chosen per-project at install time and is immutable after creation. On macOS, the desktop app handles Homebrew/Volta/nvm paths automatically — see docs/platforms/macos.md. Windows users: see docs/windows.md for Windows 10/11 specifics. For Codex-specific topics — auth, sandbox config, estimated cost caveats, plugin support, and emergency rollback — see docs/codex.md.

Documentation

User guides:

| Guide | What it covers | |-------|----------------| | Getting started | Install, register a project, run your first pipeline | | Creating specs | Quick vs Explore, drafts, SMASH, Compare, Continue Editing | | Running pipelines | Rails, jobs, agent profiles, plugins | | Tracking cost | Analytics page, exports, per-ticket spending | | Customising the hub | Themes, settings, telemetry, kill switches | | Terminal panel | Keyboard shortcuts, shell integration, drag-and-drop | | CLI reference | Every command grouped by task |

Platform notes:

• macOS — GUI-launch PATH, broken-symlink detection
• Windows — installer formats, SmartScreen, ConPTY

Contributing or extending:

• docs/internals/ — architecture, REST reference, operations runbook, OpenSpec workflow, profile internals

Development

git clone https://github.com/fjpulidop/specrails-hub.git
cd specrails-hub
npm install                        # root deps (server + CLI)
cd client && npm install && cd ..  # client deps (separate tree)
npm run dev                        # server (4200) + client (4201)

| Script | Description | |--------|-------------| | npm run dev | Server + client with hot reload | | npm run build | Production build | | npm test | vitest | | npm run tauri dev | Run desktop app in dev mode |

CI gates coverage hard: 70 % global, 80 % server, 80 % client. Local runs must clear the same bars.

Security model

• Binds to 127.0.0.1 only. Do not expose to a network.
• No authentication (single-user local tool).
• Parameterised SQL throughout.
• Reserved paths in your project (.mcp.json, .specrails/plugins/state.json, .specrails/profiles/.user-preferred.json) are mutated surgically — read, modify owned keys, atomic rename — so adding plugin N+1 never disturbs plugin N's state.

Support

If specrails-hub saves you time, you can buy me a coffee on Ko-fi. It funds development of the open-source ecosystem.

License

MIT