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Get started

Three things in one page:

→ For deeper how-tos, jump to Guides. For lookups, Reference.

Install

Download for your OS from github.com/vcoeur/condash/releases/latest:

OS File
Linux condash-<version>.AppImage or condash_<version>_amd64.deb
macOS condash-<version>.dmg
Windows condash Setup <version>.exe

git must be on PATH — condash shells out to it for repo status. Linux distros ship it; on macOS install Xcode CLT (xcode-select --install); on Windows use Git for Windows.

A signed apt repository at condash.vcoeur.com/apt/ lets apt track new versions for you.

sudo install -d -m 0755 /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://condash.vcoeur.com/apt/pubkey.asc \
  | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/condash.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/condash.gpg] https://condash.vcoeur.com/apt stable main" \
  | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/condash.list
sudo apt update && sudo apt install condash

Then sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade covers updates.

The apt index covers the most-recent few releases (default 5). Older versions remain downloadable as .deb from each release on github.com/vcoeur/condash/releases — just outside apt resolution.

Linux — AppImage

chmod +x condash-*.AppImage
./condash-*.AppImage

If the window doesn't appear, install Electron's runtime deps:

sudo apt install libnss3 libatk-bridge2.0-0 libgtk-3-0 libgbm1   # Debian/Ubuntu
sudo dnf install nss atk at-spi2-atk gtk3 mesa-libgbm             # Fedora

macOS

The build is unsigned. Bypass Gatekeeper once:

  • macOS 14 and earlier: Finder → control-click condash.app → Open.
  • macOS 15+: double-click → dismiss the warning → System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway.

If macOS still refuses with "damaged":

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/condash.app

Windows

Double-click the installer. Windows shows "Windows protected your PC" — click More info → Run anyway. Each new release re-prompts (expected for unsigned binaries).

The installer appends its install directory to your per-user PATH, so condash (the GUI launcher) and condash (the command-line companion) are reachable from any new shell. Already-open shells need to be restarted to pick up the change. Uninstall removes the entry.

First launch

The first time you run condash, a native folder picker opens and asks where your conception tree lives. Pick (or create) any directory that will hold your Markdown items, for example ~/src/conception/. condash writes the choice into settings.json and reuses it next time.

Don't have one yet? The minimum is one empty subdirectory:

mkdir -p ~/src/conception/projects

If the folder you picked is empty, condash shows a Welcome screen with three cards:

  • Open my tree — opens the conception folder in your OS file manager so you can drop existing Markdown items into projects/ or knowledge/.
  • Read the welcome doc — opens the in-app welcome.md Help page.
  • Open the documentation site — condash.vcoeur.com in your browser.

The screen disappears the first time you create or open an item; the Don't show this again link below the cards persists the dismissal in settings.json (key welcome.dismissed).

→ To switch trees later, edit settings, or use a one-off path: Configure the conception path.

Your first project

From the Welcome screen, click Create your first project. The new-item modal asks for:

  • Kind — project, incident, or document. Pick project.
  • Status — pick now so the item lands in the Current group.
  • Title — anything; "Try condash" is fine.
  • Slug — auto-derived from the title; leave the default.
  • Apps — leave empty.

Click Create item. condash writes projects/<YYYY-MM>/<YYYY-MM-DD>-try-condash/README.md with this template:

---
date: 2026-05-02
kind: project
status: now
apps: []
---

# Try condash

## Goal

(your goal here)

## Steps

- [ ] (your first step)

## Timeline

- 2026-05-02 — Project created.

## Notes

That file is the whole item. The dashboard reads it on every refresh; mutations (toggle a step, change status, drag between groups) rewrite specific lines. The format is documented in README format — YAML frontmatter is canonical, the legacy bold-prose form (**Date**: …, etc.) is still accepted.

You can also create items by hand — just mkdir projects/<YYYY-MM>/<YYYY-MM-DD>-<slug>/ and drop a README.md with the header above. condash picks it up live.

Walk around

  • Projects (left pane) — items grouped by status (Current / Next / Backlog / Done). Click a row to expand it inline; click again to open the full note in a modal.
  • Code (right pane) — your repos, dirty status, open-in-IDE buttons. Empty until you set workspace_path and repositories in .condash/settings.json (Settings → Workspace + Repositories). Legacy filenames condash.json and configuration.json are still read as fallbacks.
  • Knowledge (right pane, alternate) — your reference notes, organised as cards. Hidden when <conception>/knowledge/ is empty.
  • Resources (right pane, alternate, Ctrl+R) — every file under resources/ (any extension) shown as a card with copy / open / paste-to-term actions. See Resources pane.
  • Skills (right pane, alternate, Ctrl+L) — markdown skills under .claude/skills/, edited in place. See Skills pane.
  • Logs (right pane, alternate, Ctrl+Shift+L) — per-session terminal capture viewer. Sessions are a collapsible card grid grouped by date (last 7 days per-day with today always expanded, older folded into per-month groups); clicking one opens a full-overlay viewer with virtualised text + case-insensitive search. Capture is opt-in under terminal.logging.enabled.
  • Terminal — toggle with Ctrl+` (View → Show Terminal).
  • Search — Ctrl+Shift+F opens cross-tree fuzzy search.

Next

  • Guides — embedded terminal, repos, wikilinks, knowledge tree.
  • Reference — every CLI verb, config key, README field, mutation, shortcut.
  • Background — why condash is shaped this way.