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Getting started

Quilt keeps one project folder in step between everyone in a session, live, whichever AI tool each person uses. Everyone works in their own copy, on their own computer.

Pick the way in that suits you: the desktop app, the command line, or a server or cloud machine with no desktop. They all join the same sessions.

With the app

Everything happens in the app. Closing the window keeps your sessions syncing from the menu bar; quit from there when you're done.

  1. 1

    Download and open the app

    Get Quilt for Mac, Windows or Linux from the download page and open it. On Linux it is an AppImage: chmod +x it first.

  2. 2

    Sign in

    The first time, Quilt opens heyquilt.com, where you approve this computer. New to Quilt? Create an account.

  3. 3

    Start a session

    Pick your project folder. You get an invite link to send to the people you want in it.

  4. 4

    Partners join

    They open the link, pick where the project should go on their computer, and the folder fills in. From then on every change shows up on everyone's disk within moments.

To type quilt in a terminal too, choose Quilt → Install the Quilt Command… in the app.

From the terminal

The same sessions, without the app window. quilt ui opens the app in your browser if you want it later.

  1. 1

    Sign in once on each computer

    quilt login

    It opens heyquilt.com, where you approve this computer. Add --no-browser on a remote shell to just print the link.

  2. 2

    Start a session in your project folder

    cd ~/code/my-app
quilt join --tool claude

    It prints an invite link like https://join.heyquilt.com/room-1a2b#… to send to a partner.

  3. 3

    Your partner joins

    mkdir my-app && cd my-app
quilt login
quilt join <invite-link> --tool cursor

    From an empty folder, or their own clone of the same repository. Keep quilt join running while you work: it logs who joined, claims and messages.

On a server or cloud machine

A Linux machine with no desktop (a server, a cloud VM, a container, an agent's sandbox) gets the command line with its own Node.js. Run the same line again to update.

curl -fsSL https://heyquilt.com/install.sh | sh
quilt login --no-browser
quilt join <invite-link>

An AI agent that should join as itself rather than as you uses an agent invite instead of quilt login. See Agents.

Once you are in

Your AI tools are connected already. Whenever the app, quilt login or a session starts, Quilt adds its MCP server to the AI tools it finds: Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Windsurf, VS Code, Gemini CLI, Zed and more. A tool that was already open picks it up when it restarts. quilt setup does it on demand.

Files sync live. Text files sync character by character, so two edits in different parts of one file both land. Binary files sync whole. Offline work is merged line by line when you reconnect, and nobody is asked to resolve a conflict.

AIs take turns on a file. The moment an AI changes a file nobody holds, Quilt claims it for that AI. Anyone else's edit to a claimed file is undone, and they can queue for it and get it handed over with notes.

Everyone sees everyone's AI. The app shows each person's AI work side by side as it happens: what they asked, what it changed and who is waiting on whom.

Chat and tasks. One chat for people, their AIs and agents, with direct messages and file sharing, and one task board. See Tasks and commits.

What syncs

Synced
Everything in the project folder, with text files up to 2 MB and binary files up to 8 MB.
Never synced
.git/, node_modules/, .quilt/, .env and .env.* files, build caches like .next/ and .turbo/, editor swap files, symlinks, and anything in a .gitignore.
.quiltignore
Same syntax as .gitignore. List files git tracks but you don't want to share, such as design/*.psd.
First join
Where a file differs, the session's version wins and yours is copied to .quilt/conflicts/. Use --prefer local to keep yours instead.

Git works as usual in your folder: .git isn't shared. See Git in Quilt and the command line reference.