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The Kombai desktop app is a standalone workspace for design, code generation, visual editing, and testing.
The concepts on this page (the sidebar, right panel, Projects, and Playgrounds) are specific to the desktop app. In the IDE extension, Kombai runs inside your IDE, so it uses the IDE’s own file explorer, editor tabs, and workspace folder instead.

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Layout

The app has three regions:
  • Left sidebar: Start a new chat, open your Design Systems, search, and browse your Projects and chats. Your referral link and account are placed at the bottom.
  • Center: The home screen and your active chat panel, with the top bar above the chat.
  • Right panel: Tabbed contextual pages (Canvas Gallery, Inspirations, Browse Files, Changes, and Settings). Toggle it from the top bar.
The sidebar holds your navigation, from top to bottom:
  • New chat (): Start a fresh conversation.
  • Design Systems: Open your Design Systems library. The page has Public design systems and My design systems tabs, and a Create button.
  • Search: Search across your chats.
  • Active chats: Chats you currently have open.
  • Projects: Your opened folders, each grouping its own chats. See Projects.
  • Share Kombai: Your referral link. You earn credits for each paid referral.
  • Account: Your avatar, email, and plan. Opens the account menu.

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Projects

A Project is a folder you’ve opened in Kombai. Each project keeps its own chats grouped together, so work on different codebases stays separate. Chats are listed under their project with a relative timestamp (e.g. 1d, 2d). Each project row has two controls:
  • + sets that project as the active project for your next chat.
  • ⋮ opens Remove from recents option.

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Account menu

Clicking your account details at the bottom of the sidebar reveals:
  • Your plan: Your subscription and remaining plan credits.
  • Credit Logs: A history of how your credits have been used.
  • Generated assets: Images and videos Kombai has generated for you.
  • Documentation: Links to Get Started, the Product Docs, and What’s new.
  • Support: Reach the support team.
  • Log out: Sign out of your account.

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Center

The center is where you work. It holds the home screen and your active chat panel, with a top bar above the chat.

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Top bar

The top bar sits above the chat panel. On the left, it shows a button to toggle the sidebar, the current chat’s name, and a badge for the active project. On the right, a set of quick-access controls let you switch surfaces:
Code (</>) opens your project in a separate editor app. To browse and edit files inside Kombai, use Browse Files in the right panel.

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Home screen

The chat input sits at the center, with a row of controls beneath it:
  • +: Opens the unified menu of modes, context and attachments, and skills. Typing @ in the input opens the same menu for context, and typing / opens it for skills.
  • Model: Pick a model or router, for example Claude Opus 5.
  • Mode: The mode chip shows the active mode. Pick one from the menu: Design, Plan, Ask, or Debug.
  • Design System: In Design mode, the palette icon lets you attach a Design System to guide generation.
  • Variations and passes: In Design mode, the “1 | 3” control sets how many variations to generate per design and how many refinement passes each new design gets.
  • Send: Submit your prompt.
Below the input, a row lets you switch context and jump to key surfaces:

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Switching projects and playgrounds

Use the project switcher (the folder dropdown below the chat input) to change which folder Kombai is working in, or to spin up a scratch space. The dropdown includes:
  • Your recent projects: Switch the active folder to any project you’ve recently opened.
  • Playgrounds: Lightweight scratch spaces for experimenting without opening a real project or repo. Hover Playgrounds to see your existing ones.
  • New playground: Create a fresh playground.
  • Open folder…: Open a folder from your disk as the active project.

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Right panel

Toggle the right panel from the top bar. It opens a launcher for five pages, and each one opens as a tab, so you can keep several open at once and add more with +.