Quickstart

Deska is free to download and runs on macOS, Windows and Linux. No account is needed to start, and the app checks for its own updates in the background.

Head to the download page. It detects your operating system and highlights the right build, and you can always pick another platform manually.

• macOS: a .dmg (drag Deska into Applications) for both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. Builds are notarized.
• Windows: an installer for Windows 10 and 11 (x64), plus a plain zip if you would rather unpack it yourself.
• Linux: an AppImage (universal), a .deb package, or a .tar.gz archive. On immutable-root systems, prefer the tar.gz build.

Updates are covered in Updates, including how to switch to the Beta channel.

The first time you open Deska you land directly on the tour's opening screen: Your computer, on one desk. It is hands-on rather than a slideshow, everything in it is real, and by the end you have a working desk with your own project on it. Five steps, then the sign-in card.

1. Your project: choose Open a folder… and pick the project you are building, or take Skip, use a blank canvas. Recent projects are listed right there. The moment a folder lands, Deska lays out the desk for you: a file, a terminal inside your repository, your project's homepage. Every later step acts on this folder.
2. Your coding agent: Deska runs on your own agent. The step checks for Claude Code, Codex and opencode on this computer, offers to install or log in to the one you pick, and marks which of them answers Dex. You can change that any time in Settings under Dex. Skipping is allowed, but Dex will not answer until an agent is ready.
3. Make it yours: six curated looks (Assembly, Gold Water, Dusk Moor, Deep Valley, Vortex and Pale Shore), each pairing one of the built-in wallpapers with a matching theme and accent. They apply live, so click through a few. The same step offers a voice for spoken replies; tapping one plays a bundled sample, which works offline. Confirm with Use this look or keep the default.
4. Your first panel: double-click anywhere on the canvas and a terminal opens there, already inside your project. Panels live wherever you drop them.
5. Dex: a real turn, not a demo. The tour types a suggestion into the composer (Give me a tour of this project.) and the send is yours. Your own coding agent answers, reading the actual code you opened, so this step also proves the whole pipeline works.

After the five steps comes the sign-in card, covered in the next section, along with a readiness checklist of what you just built. Esc skips any individual step except the first one (the folder is what the rest of the tour acts on). You can replay the tour later from Settings, Getting started.

Sign-in is the tour's closing step, not something that happens after it. Once your desk is set up, a card headed Your desk is ready shows the readiness checklist and asks you to take it with you. What an account buys is reach: this computer answering from your phone, and more than one machine linked. The assistant itself runs on your own coding agent either way.

Choosing Sign in with your browser opens your browser to authenticate, and the desktop app picks up automatically when you are done. The same card carries a QR code headed Scan to sign in on your phone; when a phone registers, the step finishes by itself, with your computer already reachable from it. If you were signed in already, Finish here closes the tour. On a fresh install the account step is required to finish setting up.

You can sign in or out later from Settings, Account. The free plan includes the complete app on one linked computer plus a monthly allowance of voice minutes. See Plans & billing for what each tier unlocks. After signing up on the web, deska.dev/welcome walks the same two hookups (computer and phone) as a checklist.

The tour already asked for your first folder. From then on, a workspace with no project open is one list, headed Open a project: the projects this computer has opened before, and under them the places a new one comes from.

• Reopen a project: your recent projects are the first rows, each with its folder and current branch. One click and you are in it.
• Start from a source: a folder on this computer, one of your GitHub repos, or a git URL. The folder row opens your system file browser directly; Cmd/CtrlO does the same, and dragging a folder onto the canvas still works. On another computer that row browses that machine instead, since there is no file browser of yours to open over there.
• Start blank: take start a blank canvas and add panels later from the Panel Library.
• Import a saved canvas: restore a .workspace bundle you exported earlier.

The list belongs to the computer named in the crumb. Standing on another machine it offers that machine's repositories and folders, and the clone runs over there.

When you open a folder for the first time, Deska seeds the canvas with panels matched to what it finds: a repository gets an editor and a terminal, a folder of files gets a file explorer. After that first layout the canvas is entirely yours; nothing is seeded again.

These five shortcuts cover almost everything you need on day one:

• Cmd/CtrlK: the Command Palette, to search and run any command or open any file.
• Cmd/CtrlShiftE: the Panel Library, to browse and add panel types.
• Cmd/CtrlL: Dex, to chat about what is on your canvas.
• Cmd/CtrlShift1: Zoom to Fit, to frame everything at once.
• CtrlSpace: the Panel Switcher, to jump between open panels.

From here, learn the canvas in Workspaces & the canvas, browse everything you can place in the Panels overview, or tune the app in Settings & customization.