ClaudeMap

Masala

A local research workspace where Claude Code or Codex works beside you: chat, files, PDFs and live Jupyter notebooks in one dock — and the agent can build new panes when none fit. Formerly Panel.

Plugins & Agentsresearchworkspacenotebookpdfdesktop-app
Visit projectinfusius/masala

Masala (called Panel until September 2026) is a research workspace that embeds an agent CLI next to your materials — Claude Code or Codex, with an optional OpenAI key adding an "OpenAI API" entry to the chat picker. You chat with an agent that can read and write files and asks before running tools; workspaces give each project its own folder, chats and saved layout; panes display files, PDFs, markdown and Jupyter notebooks, and notebooks run against a real kernel that you and the agent edit side by side. Long-running commands execute in the background where you can watch and stop them, and when a built-in pane cannot show what you need, the agent writes a custom pane or app — which you can later edit from its own tab by clicking the pencil. The Modules (literature review, hypothesis, pane-writers) are also exposed as an MCP server, so any agent that speaks MCP over stdio can call them while Masala is running. Storage is local-first and outside the repository: ~/Masala/masala.db and ~/Masala/workspaces. Requires Node 22.18+ (or 24.12+), pnpm, uv and a signed-in agent CLI; the app serves on http://localhost:4173. Early build for testers; MIT.

What it does

  • Chat, files, PDFs, markdown and Jupyter notebooks in one dock; notebooks run on a real kernel you and the agent share
  • The agent can create custom viewers and apps when built-in panes are not enough, and you can iterate on them from the pane's own tab via the pencil button
  • Modules (literature review, hypothesis, pane-writers) double as an MCP server — any stdio MCP agent can call them while the app is running
  • Workspaces keep their own chats and saved layout; long-running commands run in the background, watchable and stoppable
  • Runs with Claude Code or Codex (Codex settings kept apart in ~/Masala/codex), plus an optional OpenAI API chat option
  • Local-first storage outside the repo: ~/Masala/masala.db plus ~/Masala/workspaces survive re-clones

When to use it

Researchers and technically-minded readers who want an agent embedded next to their PDFs and notebooks — literature reviews, data exploration, hypothesis modules — without pasting context back and forth. Also fits people who want to call those flows from their own terminal agent through the Modules' MCP server.

Getting started

# prereqs: Node 22.18+ (or 24.12+), pnpm, uv, an agent CLI signed in (run `claude` once and log in)
git clone https://github.com/infusius/masala.git
cd masala
pnpm install
uv sync
pnpm start   # builds first, then open http://localhost:4173

Things to know

MIT. Explicitly an early build for testers — rough edges expected. Rough edges documented in the README: most Modules start from a plain JSON form (only the pane-writer has a form of its own), a Module's final result is not yet shown in its pane (progress plus a one-line summary only), and hypothesis modules have no view of their own, so their results can be hard to read. On Windows, Codex asks before every command because Masala does not set up Codex's sandbox. Upgrading from Panel is a one-time manual move: ~/Panel to ~/Masala, panel.db to masala.db, each Workspace's .panel to .masala, PANEL_ settings to MASALA_, run scripts/upgrade-from-panel.sql, and re-add the MCP server if you added it to your own agent (exact commands in the README).

Repository

infusius/masala

Charted

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