Questions and answers

MaeVae is a desktop console that runs your AI coding agents side by side and keeps each one in a pane and a profile of its own. Sign in once per profile, and nothing crosses between them: not the login, not the bill, not the memory.

A live HUD in every pane shows the model, cost, tokens, quota and context as far as each agent reports them, and an attention queue lights the pane, badges the tray and can raise a Windows notification when an agent is waiting for you. Restricted mode keeps a Claude Code, Codex CLI or Gemini CLI agent to its project folder and keeps push and deploy commands from running on their own; it is a strong guardrail, not a security boundary (what it does not stop). Every agent pane also carries an Isolation badge, which shows the result of MaeVae’s check that its profile has stayed its own.

Guide: Start MaeVae for the first time › Get to know the window

Developers on Windows who use AI coding agents and want more than one at a time, or more than one account of the same agent, kept apart and visible in one window. MaeVae does not replace those agents: it starts the command-line tools you already use, each in a pane of its own. What it adds is around them: the profiles that keep them apart, the HUD, the attention queue, Restricted mode and the Isolation check.

Guide: What you need

Claude Code, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, Qwen Code, aider and Grok CLI, plus a plain shell with no agent. Each runs as its own command-line tool in a MaeVae pane, under a profile you make for it, and you can make several profiles of the same agent. Restricted mode is offered for Claude Code, Codex CLI and Gemini CLI; Qwen Code, aider and Grok CLI run without it.

Another command-line agent can be described to MaeVae with + Add agent in Quick settings. Such an agent gets its own isolated terminal and keeps its API key in the Windows Credential Manager, but it has no Restricted mode and no HUD figures.

Guide: What you need › Install an agent’s tool and check it

No. MaeVae drives the agent’s command-line tool that you install yourself, and it bundles none. Install the tool its vendor publishes, make sure it is on your PATH, and check it in a terminal with its own version command, for example claude --version.

If you already use Claude Code, the second step of New profile offers a choice. Fresh isolated account gives the profile a folder of its own and a sign-in on its first start; Use my existing Claude login shares your usual Claude Code login, history and memory. Restricted mode is refused for a profile that shares your usual login, and turning on its HUD writes into your usual Claude Code settings, so MaeVae asks for a second click first.

Guide: What you need › Install an agent’s tool and check it; Make your first profile › Choose the account

No. MaeVae holds no agent account of its own: each profile uses your own account with the agent’s vendor, and you sign in inside the pane, in the agent’s own login. MaeVae never asks for your password. Two features you switch on keep a copy of the login token the sign-in leaves behind: the account switcher, and a backup with Include account logins ticked. aider has no login at all: its API key, set in the profile, is the account.

Guide: Sign in inside the pane

A profile is one identity: one agent, one account and one project folder. MaeVae gives each profile its own configuration folder, where that agent keeps its login, settings and memory, so two profiles never share them. A profile has a name, a color and an icon in the rail, its own pane theme, chime and HUD layout, and, for Claude Code, Codex CLI and Gemini CLI, its own Capability: Trusted or Restricted. Click it in the rail to open its pane; you can make as many as you need, several of the same agent among them.

Guide: Make your first profile

No. MaeVae is a console for the agents: every pane is a real terminal running an agent’s own command-line tool, and the agent reads and changes your files the way it does in any terminal. It sits beside your editor, not in place of it. Around the panes it adds the profiles, the HUD, the attention queue, Restricted mode and the Isolation check, and a pane’s review button opens the project’s changes with Commit all or Discard.

Guide: Work side by side

Grok here is xAI’s Grok, which MaeVae runs through its own command-line tool, Grok CLI. Groq is a separate inference cloud. To use a Groq account, pick the Groq (cloud) preset in the Endpoint field of a Qwen Code or aider profile, or in the Model endpoint (Codex) box of a Codex profile, then set the profile to API-key mode with your Groq key and fill in a model.

Guide: Other models › Use a Groq account

Yes, through the agents that take an endpoint. A Qwen Code or aider profile has an Endpoint field, and a Codex profile a Model endpoint (Codex) box, that can point at a model server on your own PC instead of the agent’s own cloud. For Qwen Code and aider a local server takes a throwaway key, which the editor offers to set. A Grok CLI profile has an Endpoint field too, but no Model field and no List models. MaeVae still runs the agent’s own tool; the profile’s endpoint and model decide which model answers. The answer to What is the Endpoint field for? has the steps.

Limit. For a model set through the profile’s Model field, Qwen Code does not know the model’s context window, so the HUD shows no context gauge for it.

Guide: Other models › Use a model server on your own computer

Not yet: MaeVae runs on Windows 10 and 11 today. macOS and Linux are coming, and no date is given for either.

From the Microsoft Store, which installs MaeVae and keeps it updated. MaeVae launches on 5 November 2026, on the Microsoft Store first. There is no setup file and no other download of MaeVae. The agents’ own command-line tools come from their vendors. The Store listing is not public yet; the Store button already points to it. The Download page lists what your PC needs.

Guide: Install from the Microsoft Store › Open MaeVae’s page in the Microsoft Store and install it

Yes, on the 64-bit edition, version 2004 or later, as on Windows 11 (64-bit). MaeVae draws its window with Microsoft Edge WebView2, which it needs on both. WebView2 is built into Windows 11; on Windows 10 it may need installing, so if Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime is not in the list of installed apps, install it from Microsoft before you start MaeVae. At launch, the Store release also says so itself: without the runtime it shows one box that names it, then closes. Each agent you want to run must also be installed and on your PATH, since MaeVae drives that tool and bundles none.

Guide: What you need › Check Windows and Microsoft Edge WebView2

MaeVae looks for each agent’s command-line tool on your PATH, and a tool it cannot find is marked “(not installed)” in the Agent list and “not installed” beside its heading in the rail. MaeVae cannot start a pane for it. New profile then says the tool isn’t on PATH and offers Copy install command, and Update agents in Quick settings shows an Install button for it, which runs that agent’s install command. At launch, in the Store release, Grok CLI’s Install shows its command with Copy instead, for you to run in PowerShell yourself. Check the tool afterwards with its version command in a terminal, then reopen MaeVae: a tool installed into a new folder is seen only after a restart.

Guide: When something looks wrong › An agent shows “(not installed)”

Usually not. An agent’s own self-update that was interrupted can leave a broken program behind, and Windows then reports, for example, that claude.exe is not a valid application. Reinstall that agent’s tool with its vendor’s install command, then reopen MaeVae. Grok CLI’s own update check is switched off inside MaeVae’s panes, because it would install into the profile’s folder; update Grok from Quick settings instead.

Guide: When something looks wrong › An agent broken by its own update

Open Quick settings at the foot of the rail and press + Add profile; an empty rail shows the same button. New profile then asks in three steps: Agent (a name and the agent), Account (for Claude Code, a fresh isolated account or your existing login, and a label to recognize the account) and Project (the project folder and, for Claude Code, Codex CLI and Gemini CLI, the Capability: Trusted or Restricted). Create & open makes the profile and opens its pane, where the agent runs its own one-time setup. A color, an icon and the other settings are in the full editor: Advanced (all fields) in the steps, or the pencil on the profile’s rail entry later.

Guide: Make your first profile

Both agents guard their hooks themselves, so each needs a one-time step inside the agent before its pane lights up. In the profile’s editor, check that it reads Attention glow: on, or press Enable attention glow, then close and reopen the pane, because the agent reads its hooks when it starts. In a Codex pane, type /hooks and trust MaeVae’s two hooks; Codex asks again whenever the hook text changes, for example after a MaeVae update. Gemini CLI lists them under /hooks panel, enabled by default, and loads them once you have trusted the project folder it opened in. Until then the pane neither lights up nor chimes for that profile.

Grok CLI and Qwen Code need no trust step: close and reopen the pane once the glow is on. aider’s glow is on from the start and only ever green, when a reply is done.

Guide: When an agent needs you › Trust MaeVae’s hooks in Codex, once; Let Gemini load the hooks

MaeVae itself is updated by the Microsoft Store. The agents are yours, and MaeVae can update them for you: in Quick settings, Update agents has one button per agent, and Update all installed runs them one after another. Each button runs that agent’s own updater, then checks that the agent still reports its version; an agent that is missing shows Install instead. One update runs at a time, Stop ends it, and an updater that runs for more than five minutes is stopped for you. A notice at the lower right says how it went, tagged Done, Warning or Error, with the command’s own output behind Details.

Guide: Update an agent from inside MaeVae › Update one agent

Yes. Make one profile for each account: every profile has its own isolated configuration folder, so you sign in once in each profile’s pane and the two logins never mix.

For Claude Code there is also the account switcher, which keeps more than one saved login on one profile. In the profile’s editor, Save this login keeps the current account, Add another account saves it and signs out so you can sign in as another, and Switch brings a saved one back without signing in again. Adding or switching closes that profile’s panes, swaps the stored login and reopens a pane; the project, the quota warning and the restrictions stay the same.

Limit. The switcher is opt-in, works for Claude Code profiles that sign in with a login rather than an API key, and keeps a copy of each saved login token. An agent you started from that profile’s Windows Terminal tab or launcher keeps the old login and can write it back, so close it before you switch.

Guide: A second account of one agent › Add a second account to a Claude profile

In that profile’s own configuration folder, which MaeVae makes with the profile inside MaeVae’s data folder in your Windows user folder. The agent writes its login there when you sign in inside the pane, as it would in its usual folder, and no other profile reads it. Config dir in the profile’s editor opens that folder. Sign out, beside the account, clears the stored login so the next start signs in fresh. It is refused while the profile has open panes, because a running agent would write its login straight back; an agent you started from that profile’s Windows Terminal tab or launcher can do the same, so close it first. A Claude Code profile made with Use my existing Claude login is the exception: it shares your usual Claude Code folder. A profile you pinned to the agent’s shared login folder keeps its login there instead.

Guide: Sign in inside the pane

Yes. In the profile’s editor, set Authentication to API key and paste the key into the API key box. MaeVae keeps it in the Windows Credential Manager, not in a file, and passes it only to that profile’s pane. aider has no login at all, so its editor asks only for the key, which is the account. A launcher or Windows Terminal tab carries no key: aider’s starts through MaeVae, which reads the saved key at run time, and the others fall back to whatever login the profile’s folder holds, so use the pane for an API-key profile.

Limit. The account switcher is not offered for a profile in API-key mode, and a backup holds the key only when you tick Include API keys.

Guide: Sign in inside the pane › Use an API key instead of a login

Make one for each project you want kept apart. A profile is one agent, one account and one project folder: its pane starts in that folder, Restricted mode keeps the agent inside it (within its limit), and the Isolation check treats the profile’s configuration folder and project folder as its own. A second profile on the same account signs in once in its own pane, since each profile keeps its own login. An agent profile with no project folder starts its pane in a scratch folder of its own inside MaeVae’s data folder, never in your Windows home folder (a plain shell profile opens in your home folder); a Restricted profile needs a real one.

Guide: Make your first profile › Set the project folder

Yes. Open the profile’s editor with the pencil on its rail entry, change Name or Project folder, and press Save changes. A new name keeps the profile’s configuration folder and its login, and an existing launcher and Windows Terminal tab follow the new name. A rename saves even while the pane is open, but a name that another profile of the same agent already uses is refused. Changing a Restricted profile’s project folder, or switching between Trusted and Restricted, is refused while the profile has open panes, because the running agent’s rules would change under it; close them first.

Guide: Make your first profile

Close the profile’s panes, press the delete button on its rail entry and type DELETE to confirm; the confirmation lists exactly what goes and what stays. MaeVae keeps the profile’s configuration folder on disk, with the login that is current there, but permanently deletes the profile’s saved account logins and its stored API key. It also strips its own status line, hook and restriction entries from the kept folder, unless the profile shares your usual Claude Code login, whose folder it leaves alone. Leftover launchers and tabs can be cleared later with Removed profiles' launchers… in Quick settings.

Guide: Before you uninstall › Uninstall, and know what stays

For a Claude Code, Codex CLI or Gemini CLI profile, Restricted mode keeps the agent to its project folder and keeps push and deploy commands such as git push from running on their own. MaeVae writes the rules into that profile’s own settings, without touching your hooks or theme, and each agent holds to them in its own way:

• Claude Code is denied reading or editing the folders beside the project and other profiles’ configuration, and denied push and deploy commands; the flag that would skip its permission checks is switched off too.
• Gemini CLI asks for your approval before every tool call, is denied push and deploy commands, and keeps its file tools to the project folder.
• Codex CLI has its writes confined to the project folder and its network access turned off, so a push or a deploy stops and asks for your approval instead of running.

A refusal or a question comes from the agent in its own words, not from MaeVae. Restricted mode needs a real project folder, an existing folder that is not your Windows home folder; set Restricted in the profile’s Capability field, and the rail marks the profile “· restricted”. It is a strong guardrail, not a security boundary: the next answer says what it does not stop.

Guide: Restricted mode, step by step › Mark a profile Restricted

Restricted mode works by a per-profile folder box and a deny list of command names, not by a sandbox. A deny list is a speed bump: a determined shell can reach the same binaries by another path. Every pane runs as the same Windows user, so the credential stores on the machine, such as git credential helpers, SSH keys and the tokens of hosting tools, are shared across panes. Treat it as a strong guardrail for cooperative agents, not as a security boundary against hostile code. Codex CLI can still read outside its project folder, and so can a shell that Gemini CLI runs. Broadcast, which sends one line to every open pane, reaches Restricted panes too, so use it with care. Qwen Code, aider and Grok CLI have no Restricted mode at all.

Guide: Restricted mode, step by step › Know where it stops

No. Each agent runs in a terminal pane under your own Windows account, as it would in any terminal. A hard wall, such as running a pane as a separate low-privilege Windows user, is not built. What MaeVae adds is separation and checks: each profile has its own configuration folder, Restricted mode writes limits into the agent’s own settings, and the Isolation badge reports when a profile stops being its own. None of them is a security boundary against hostile code.

Guide: Restricted mode, step by step › Know where it stops

Every agent pane’s header carries a button marked Isolation; a plain shell pane runs no agent, so it has none. The button’s dot gives the result of the last check:

• IsolationIsolated, green: every rule passed and what the profile holds matches what you approved.
• IsolationDrift, amber: something you never approved appeared, or a rule warned.
• IsolationBreach, red: a Boundary, Reference or Inbound rule failed.
• IsolationUnchecked, gray: never checked, or no approved set yet.

Click the badge and the report opens in the pane’s place; the Isolation section of the profile’s editor shows the same report. The word on the button is always Isolation, and on Drift or Breach it takes the dot’s color.

Features: The Isolation badge. Guide: Isolation, step by step › Read the Isolation badge on a pane

The report has one row per rule, in four faces, and it reads only that profile’s own files:

• Boundary: the profile’s configuration folder and project folder are its own, and its launch pins hold.
• Reference leaks: nothing inside the profile points outside it, such as a plugin’s path, a server’s command or a hook.
• Inbound channels: nothing arrives through the vendor’s account channel without your click.
• Drift: nothing is present that you never approved.

Each row reads PASS, WARN, FAIL or INFO, with the reason in plain words and the fix on offer. Copy puts the whole report on the clipboard as text.

Limit. The check knows the channels of the vendor versions it was measured against; a vendor can add a new channel between releases.

Limit. Every Grok CLI pane, launcher and tab runs with Grok’s Claude, Cursor and Codex compatibility switched off, but Grok still finds the plugins installed for your everyday Claude Code and has no setting to stop that, so a Grok pane can run their hooks and MCP servers. The check does not see them; grok inspect in the pane lists what Grok picked up.

Guide: Isolation, step by step › Read the four faces of the report

Seal profile applies every safe fix the report offers, then checks again. It writes the vendor’s channel keys, switches synced entries off, points a plugin’s path at the profile’s own copy when an identical copy already exists inside the profile, and rewrites the isolation contract. The contract is a short block in the agent’s own instructions file that names the profile’s two folders and says all work stays inside them; MaeVae rewrites only that block, so your own instructions around it are untouched. Every write stays inside the profile’s own configuration folder, and the first change to a file leaves a backup copy beside it.

Seal does not approve anything. A plugin or skill that appeared without your approval stays a Drift row until you press Approve current set.

Guide: Isolation, step by step › Seal a profile

A new profile starts with an empty approved set, so its badge reads Unchecked even when every rule passes. Install the plugins, skills and servers you want in that profile first. Then open the report from the badge and press Approve current set: what is present now becomes the approved set, and the badge turns green if no rule warns or fails. Anything that appears after that turns the badge amber at the next full check, such as Check isolation or Check all profiles, until you approve it too.

The report, with its Approve current set button, is rendered on the home page: the Isolation report, rendered.

Guide: Isolation, step by step › Approve the current set after you install something

Check all profiles, in the Isolation part of Quick settings, runs every profile’s own check and then asks the one question that involves two profiles: does a plugin’s path, a marketplace location, a hook or a server command in one profile point into another profile’s configuration folder? A hit is a Breach on the profile that points out, and Seal in that profile fixes it. A table under the button lists every profile with its state.

Beside it are the two preferences every profile follows unless its editor sets its own. Quick isolation check when a pane opens runs the Boundary and Inbound rules each time a pane starts. On a breach chooses Badge only, which opens the pane with a red badge, or Refuse the launch, which keeps the pane from starting and opens the report in its place.

Guide: Isolation, step by step › Check every profile at once

Some vendors can push plugins, skills or connectors into an agent through your account with them: Claude’s claude.ai sync and Codex’s ChatGPT plugin catalog. Blocked, the default, keeps that channel closed for the profile: MaeVae writes the channel keys when the profile is made, writes them again at every MaeVae start, and Seal restores them. Allowed leaves the channel to the vendor, and the report’s Inbound rows then read “allowed by you”; switching back to Blocked seals the profile at once. The switch is in the Isolation section of the profile’s editor, for an agent that has such a channel; for Gemini CLI, Qwen Code and Grok CLI no channel is known today, and their Inbound rows say so rather than pass. Grok CLI still picks up the plugins installed for your everyday Claude Code, outside any account channel: the check’s limit says what that means.

Guide: Isolation, step by step › Keep Account sync blocked, or allow it

The pane’s header shows the model, the cost, the tokens, the 5-hour and weekly quota and a context gauge, as far as the agent reports them, and leaves out what it does not. The strip under the terminal shows the same figures with their labels, such as Model:, Cost:, Up:, Total:, Weekly: and Context:; it is Chrome HUD in Quick settings, off until you turn it on, and Customize chrome strip… then changes what it holds. For a Claude Code profile, click hud on its rail entry to switch the HUD on; the other agents fill theirs from the files they already write. The context gauge turns amber above 65 percent and red above 85.

Guide: The HUD and the usage dashboard › Read the figures in a pane

Each agent writes different figures, and MaeVae shows only what the agent itself reports. For the agents other than Claude Code it reads the files the agent already writes, without changing them, starting with the first turn.

Claude Code reports every figure; Codex, Gemini CLI, Qwen Code, Grok and aider each leave out some of the cost, the quota and the context gauge, and a plain shell reports none. What each agent reports, side by side, on MaeVae and the AI vendors.

Guide: The HUD and the usage dashboard › Find out why a figure is missing

A missing figure is grayed out in the app, and its tooltip says which of three reasons applies. “This agent reports no figure for this chip” is the vendor’s own gap, not a MaeVae fault. “No fresh telemetry from this pane yet” means the agent has written nothing in the last three minutes, for example before its first prompt, and the figures fill in after its next one. “No data source for this vendor yet” is a shell pane, or another pane MaeVae reads no figures for. Grok CLI writes its figures only after its first completed turn, and aider only after a completed reply. Which figures each agent reports at all is in the answer above. The renderings on this site write n/a where the app grays a figure out.

Guide: The HUD and the usage dashboard › Find out why a figure is missing

The usage button in the top bar, or Usage & cost in Quick settings, opens a table with one row per profile for its current or most recent session: the model, the cost, the tokens, the context, and the weekly and 5-hour use, each with a countdown to its reset. A figure the agent does not report shows a dash in its cell.

It is not a bill. The cost, the tokens and the context are measured from the agents’ own files on disk, and Claude Code’s cost is the agent’s own estimate of the session. For Claude Code, the weekly and 5-hour use are read from the vendor’s usage endpoint with that profile’s own login; a Codex CLI row takes its rate limits from Codex’s own session log, and a Gemini CLI row carries only tokens and context. The dashboard does not track trends over time.

Guide: The HUD and the usage dashboard › Open the usage dashboard

At launch, yes. In Quick settings, Quota warnings sets the line for every profile: Warn at %, 85 percent by default, and Tell me when a spent quota renews, which adds a notice when it does. In a profile’s editor, Quota warning at % sets that profile’s own line, for any quota window the agent reports; Hard stop, beside it, works on the weekly window only.

It points a Qwen Code or aider profile at another OpenAI-compatible server: a local model server on your PC, a cloud provider such as Groq or OpenRouter, or any custom address. In the profile’s editor, pick a preset or type the address under Endpoint (local model, cloud provider or custom), set the profile to API-key mode with that provider’s key, and fill in Model; for a local server the editor offers a throwaway key. A Codex profile has its own box, Model endpoint (Codex), with the same presets: Codex ignores the usual address setting, so MaeVae writes the server into that profile’s own Codex settings, never your usual ones. A Grok CLI profile has an Endpoint field as well, with presets of its own, but no Model field and no List models. MaeVae still runs the agent’s own tool; the endpoint and the model decide where its requests go.

At launch, the Endpoint section also takes a paste: paste a key or an address into its Paste a key or a URL box and MaeVae fills in the profile; for an address, it also lists the models the server offers. A Codex profile gets a paste box of its own.

Limit. Qwen Code uses an endpoint only when the key, the endpoint and the model are all set; with the Model field empty it asks with its own picker instead.

Guide: Other models › Point a profile at another model server

List models, under the Model field, asks the endpoint itself which models it serves and shows the list, which you can search; a pick fills the Model field, for aider in its openai/ form. It asks only when you click it, never when the editor opens, and it uses the profile’s saved key or the key you just typed. At launch, pasting an address into the Endpoint section’s paste box asks too. A refused key, an address with no model list or a server that cannot be reached shows as a note under the button. The same button sits under a Codex profile’s model endpoint, for the server named there.

Guide: Other models › List the models a server offers

MaeVae sets no fixed number. Each pane is a real terminal running its own agent, and the three layout buttons in the top bar, columns, rows and grid, fit every open pane into the window; the grid fills the space for any number of panes. Drag the gutters between columns or rows, or the grid’s dividers, to resize, and the panes refit as you drag. At launch, one pane can take the whole window: click the fill button in its header, press Alt+0 or pick Maximise pane in the command palette; the other panes are hidden, not closed, and Show all in the top bar brings them back. At launch, the layout, the order of the panes and their sizes are also kept across a restart.

Guide: Work side by side › Switch the layout: columns, rows or grid; Let one pane fill the window, then bring the others back

• Alt+1 to Alt+9 move the keyboard focus to pane 1 to 9.
• At launch, Alt+0 makes the focused pane fill the window, or shows every pane again.
• Ctrl+K opens the command palette, a searchable list of actions: open a profile, jump to a pane, change the layout, open the usage dashboard or pick a theme.
• Ctrl+B cycles the rail between pinned, collapsed and auto-hide.
• In a pane, Ctrl+Shift+F searches the scrollback, and Ctrl+V pastes once for each press.

Only the digits of the top row count with Alt: Alt with the number pad still types a Windows Alt code, and in a text box Alt and a digit stay with the box.

Guide: Work side by side › Move between panes from the keyboard; Run an action from the command palette

With two or more panes running, a Broadcast to all panes box sits in the top bar. Type a line and press Enter, and MaeVae sends it to every open pane at once, followed by Enter, as if you had typed it in each. It reaches Restricted panes too, and each agent acts on the line in its own way, so use it with care. At launch, a waiting place after a restart has no session, so it gets nothing.

Guide: Work side by side › Send one line to every pane

When an agent asks for an approval, its pane lights up in amber, its light in the rail turns amber, and the tray icon gets an amber dot; when a turn finishes, the pane turns green. While an agent waits, approve and deny sit in the pane’s header: approve sends the agent Enter and deny sends Esc. A profile with Notification chime ticked in its editor sounds once for each event.

While MaeVae’s window is not focused, it also raises a Windows notification, such as “Research needs approval”. Windows decides whether that is delivered: in Windows Settings, under System › Notifications, the Notifications switch must be on, Do not disturb off, and MaeVae on in the list of apps. Customize pane notifications… in Quick settings changes how a pane signals, from a steady ring to a corner dot, and can add a Windows notification for each state.

Limit. Codex CLI and Gemini CLI need their one-time trust step before the pane lights up, and an agent started from a Windows Terminal tab does not chime.

Guide: When an agent needs you › Turn the glow on and watch a pane light up; Get a Windows notification

It is almost certainly the agent’s own one-time setup, which runs in the pane the first time you open a new profile. For Claude Code that is a theme picker, then a question whether to trust the folder, then a sign-in in your browser. Complete the steps in the pane; after that, opening the profile starts the agent straight away. aider has no sign-in step, because its API key, set in the profile, is its login.

Guide: Make your first profile › Finish the agent’s own first-run steps

Click the Redraw button in the pane’s header, the circular arrow: it nudges the program running in the pane to repaint the terminal. On a Gemini CLI pane that draws on the normal screen, it also sends Gemini’s own clear-screen key, Ctrl+L. Gemini keeps its old frames in the pane’s history, so ghost copies can appear after a resize; MaeVae puts every new Gemini profile on Gemini’s alternate screen, and the editor offers Draw on the alternate screen for older ones, after which you reopen the pane. A pane that reconnects to its session after MaeVae restarts or reloads repaints itself once; if it does not, Redraw or any resize repaints it.

Guide: Work side by side › Redraw a pane that shows leftover characters

Closing the window hides MaeVae to the tray, and every session keeps running. While an agent waits for you, the tray icon carries an amber dot; a double-click on the icon, or Show MaeVae in its menu, brings the window back, and so does starting MaeVae again, since it runs only once. Quit in the tray menu ends every session. Panic stop in the tray menu, or panic in the top bar after a second click, stops every agent running in MaeVae’s panes at once and clears the panes, and Close all does the same after asking. None of them reaches an agent you started from a Windows Terminal tab or a launcher.

The notification Windows shows at the same moment is rendered on the home page: MaeVae’s notification, rendered.

Guide: Close to the tray, Quit, Panic stop › Close the window to the tray

At launch, after Quit and a new start, every pane comes back in its place and in the same layout as a waiting place with a Start button, and nothing runs until you click. Start starts one place, Start all in the top bar starts every waiting place whose profile is not held back by its Hard stop on the weekly quota, and Remove takes a place off the stage; clicking a profile in the rail starts its first waiting place instead of opening another pane. The top bar counts both, for example “1 open · 2 waiting”. Close all and Panic stop forget the saved places, so a restart after either begins with an empty stage.

Guide: Close to the tray, Quit, Panic stop › Start the waiting places after a restart

In Quick settings, Backup & restore… opens MaeVae Backup. On the Back up tab, choose a Backup folder, keep Save as a single .zip ticked or untick it for a plain folder, and press Back up now. Every backup holds the profile list, the app’s settings, the HUD layouts, the pane layout, the agent definitions and the Windows Terminal tab icons. Account logins, usage history and API keys go in only when you tick Include account logins, Include usage history or Include API keys; the logins are the profiles’ configuration folders and every account the switcher saved.

Limit. There is no cancel once a backup starts, so a large one runs to the end; a file that vanishes during the run is skipped and listed in the report.

Guide: Backups › Make a backup

Open Backup & restore…, switch to the Restore tab, pick the backup and press Restore selected. Tick Restore account logins and Restore API keys to bring those back when the backup holds them; with Overwrite existing files off, what is already on this PC is kept. A profile’s login files are restored as one unit, so with Overwrite off an existing sign-in stays whole rather than half replaced. Restore refreshes the launchers and Windows Terminal tabs that already exist but never makes new ones, and it puts API keys back into the Windows Credential Manager only for profiles that exist on this PC.

Guide: Backups › Restore a backup

Make a backup on the old computer with Include account logins and Include API keys ticked, and copy it across. On the new one, install MaeVae from the Microsoft Store and the agents’ own command-line tools, then restore the backup with Restore account logins and Restore API keys ticked. Restore moves every profile onto the new computer’s data folder, so a backup made under another Windows user restores cleanly too, and the keys go back onto the profiles it has just restored. Launchers and Windows Terminal tabs are not made by a restore: make them again with Create / update CLI launcher in each profile’s editor.

Guide: Backups › Move MaeVae to another computer

Remove MaeVae’s own entries from the agents first. With the HUD or Restricted mode on, MaeVae writes its status line, its hooks and Restricted mode’s rules into each profile’s configuration folder, and a folder that still names MaeVae would try to run it on every prompt once it is gone.

1. Close every open pane, and any agent you started from a Windows Terminal tab or a launcher: a profile with an open pane is skipped.
2. Open Quick settings and, under Before uninstalling, press Remove MaeVae from all config dirs, then press it again to confirm. It removes MaeVae’s status line, attention hooks and local-endpoint entries from every profile’s configuration folder, so the agents keep working without MaeVae, and it turns Restricted profiles back to Trusted.
3. Uninstall MaeVae in Windows Settings, from the list of installed apps, as you would any Store app.

Your logins and profiles stay in MaeVae’s data folder in your Windows user folder, where the remover leaves them; delete that folder by hand if you want MaeVae’s data gone too. A Windows Terminal tab you made for a profile is kept in Windows Terminal’s own settings, which the remover does not touch, so remove it there.

Guide: Before you uninstall › Remove MaeVae from every profile at once

MaeVae is in early access. The plans and prices are on the pricing page. Early-access users hear first when selling starts.

Indie costs $0 a month, and nothing in the app is held back from it.

More: the plans and prices

MaeVae earns from its plans for the app and, later, from the MaeVae compute plans. It never resells Claude, GPT or Gemini usage. Each AI vendor’s rules are respected.

More: MaeVae and the AI vendors

Profiles and settings live in MaeVae’s data folder in your Windows user folder, and each profile’s agent login and configuration sit in that profile’s own folder inside it; Data folder in Quick settings opens it. A profile you pinned to the agent’s shared login folder keeps its login there instead, as a Claude Code profile made with Use my existing Claude login does. An API key you enter is kept in the Windows Credential Manager, not in a file; only a backup with Include API keys ticked writes the keys out, into that backup. Nothing about your accounts is kept in the program’s own folder. A backup is written only when you make one, to a folder you choose.

Guide: Before you uninstall › Uninstall, and know what stays

The agents themselves talk to their vendors, under each vendor’s terms, as they do in any terminal, or to the endpoint set in a Codex, aider, Qwen Code or Grok CLI profile. For a Claude Code profile with the HUD on, the quota reader asks the vendor’s usage endpoint with that profile’s own login. List models asks the endpoint you typed, only when you click it, or at launch when you paste an address into the Endpoint section. The Install and Update buttons run the agent’s own published install or update command on your computer. At launch, in the Store release, the Grok install button shows you the command to run instead of running it. At launch, MaeVae also contacts its own activation server, run by Virtual Consonance LLC in the United States, to activate your copy; apart from activation, the app sends nothing of its own to Virtual Consonance LLC. MaeVae opens no network ports: its window talks to its core through local calls, not a network server. The privacy page has the full text.

No. This website sets no cookie and runs no tracking script. It loads no file from any other site: its pages, styles, renderings and the small scripts that play them all come from this site.

Write to support@maevae.com. Most answers are on this page or in the guide, and the support page lists the checks worth making first.

Support: Check these first. Guide: When something looks wrong

Your version of Windows and of MaeVae, the agent and the part of MaeVae involved, then what you did and what happened, with any message on the screen copied word for word. For a question about a profile, its Isolation report helps most. Never send a login, a token or an API key.

Support: What to put in a message; The Isolation report

Write to security@maevae.com, the address for security reports. As in any message, leave out logins, tokens and API keys.

Support: For a security problem