FAQ

What kind of app is Collins?

Call it an Agent-First IDE, an AI-Native Workspace, or an Agent Orchestrator — Collins is an opinionated version of what a desktop workspace built around a coding agent should look like: the agent front and center, with your sessions organized around it.

Why did you remove Cursor support?

Can't support the new owner.

Will Collins support other agents?

No. Collins is a tool for Claude specifically, and there are no plans to introduce support for other agents.

Is Collins affiliated with Anthropic?

No. Collins is an independent, unofficial community tool — not affiliated with or endorsed by Anthropic (or any other agent vendor). It's a desktop companion for the claude CLI you already use.

Will it modify my Claude Code sessions?

No. Transcripts under ~/.claude/projects/ are read-only to Collins — names, favorites, emoji, and every other bit of app state live in ~/.config/collins/. The only exceptions are the explicit Move to trash and Delete permanently actions, both behind a confirmation. See How It Works for details.

Does anything leave my machine?

Collins makes no network calls of its own and talks to no third parties. Everything goes through the claude CLI and login you already have: resuming sessions runs claude in a terminal, auto-titling summarizes a new session's first prompt via a headless claude -p run (pre-existing sessions are titled locally, and the toggle is in Preferences), and the usage panel queries Anthropic's usage endpoint with the CLI's own stored token — read-only, never refreshed or written.

Do I need an API key?

No. If claude works in your terminal, Collins works. Session titles and the usage panel reuse the CLI's existing login — no extra credentials.

Why Linux only?

Because I wasn't happy with any of the existing claude tools for linux, while other platforms get native claude app support.

Why "Collins"?

My wife keeps referring to Claude as Collins by mistake. So now when she asks me if I'm talking to Collins, I can say yes.

See What is Collins? for the fork's full origin story.