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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, and Projects) 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 Kombai desktop app’s interface is organized into three main parts:
  • Left sidebar: An icon rail for switching sections, plus a panel beside it for your chats, canvases, Design Systems, or Settings. See Left sidebar.
  • Center: Where you do your actual work. It features your home screen, active chat panel, and each chat’s header.
  • Right panel: Where you access a project’s Canvas Gallery, Inspirations, Browse Files, Changes, and Project settings. Open it from a chat’s header.
The left sidebar has an icon rail on the outer edge, a panel beside it that shows one section at a time, and a Share Kombai referral card pinned below the panel — click it for your referral link and to earn credits for each paid referral.

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Icon rail

Click an icon to switch what the panel beside it shows:
  • : Your chats. The default panel. See Home panel.
  • : Your canvases across every project. See Canvas gallery panel.
  • : Your Design Systems library, with My design systems and Public design systems tabs and a Create new button.
  • : App-wide Settings, shown in the center panel. A project’s Tech Stack, Context Graphs, and Memory are in its Project settings instead; see Chat header.
Your avatar sits at the bottom of the rail. Click it to open the account menu.

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Home panel

The Home panel lists your chats, top to bottom:
  • A list-filter button, next to a search button. Its Group by menu groups chats by Project (the default), Status, or None. Its Sort by menu orders them by Last modified (the default) or Date created, newest first.
  • New chat: Start a fresh conversation.
  • Pinned chats: Chats you’ve pinned, always listed here regardless of grouping. Hover a chat and click its pin icon to pin or unpin it.
  • Your other chats, grouped the way you chose:
    • Project: Projects, each with its own chats, then All chats.
    • Status: Running for chats that are generating a response (shown only while one is), then Idle for the rest. A chat moves to Idle when its response finishes.
    • None: A single All chats list.

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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). Right-click a chat to Rename or Delete it. You can’t delete a chat while it’s generating. Each project row gives you two quick options:
  • Plus (+) icon: Set this project as active for your next chat.
  • More options (⋮) menu: Open a dropdown to take these actions:
    • Open project settings: Jump straight into this project’s Settings without opening a chat in it first.
    • Open with: Launch the project folder in an installed IDE, your file manager, or the terminal.
    • Remove from recents: Remove the row from the sidebar without deleting files. (Disabled for the active project.)
A project with worktree chats lists them nested under it, above its own threads. Click on the icon rail to open the Canvas gallery panel, which lists canvases from every project. From top to bottom:
  • Create a new canvas: Open the Create a new canvas dialog in the right panel’s Canvas Gallery. The canvas goes into the current chat’s project, or the project you picked on the home screen. With no project selected, the panel asks you to open a chat in a project or pick one first.
  • Recent canvases: Your 5 most recently modified canvases, across all projects.
  • Projects: Each project with its canvases inside. Click a project’s name to collapse or expand it.
  • All canvases: Every canvas from every project.
Each list shows the most recently modified canvas first. Click a canvas to open it. To find one by name, click the search button beside the panel’s title.
This panel lists canvases from every project. To work with just the current project’s canvases, use the Canvas Gallery below the chat input instead.

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Account menu

Click your avatar at the bottom of the icon rail to open the menu. It opens with your signed-in email at the top, then:
  • Usage remaining: Expand to check your credit balance and next refill date without opening the billing page. Your balance automatically updates every time you open this menu.
  • Your plan: View your current subscription details and plan credits.
  • Credit Logs: Review the full history of how your credits have been used.
  • Generated assets: Access all images and videos Kombai has created for you.
  • Get Started: Revisit any of the homepage onboarding cards.
  • Documentation: Read the official product documentation and what’s new in Kombai.
  • Support: Contact our 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 window-wide top bar above everything and each chat’s own header above its messages.

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Top bar

A bar runs across the top of the window, above the left sidebar and the center. It holds:
  • : Hide the panel beside the icon rail, for more room. The icon rail stays visible. Click to bring the panel back, or press ⌘B (Ctrl + B on Windows and Linux) for either.
  • The page’s name, on the Design Systems page only.
The top bar doesn’t show a chat’s name or controls. Those are in the chat’s own header, at the top of the chat.

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Chat header

Each chat has a header with its name and project on the left, and these controls on the right:
Open with in the more actions menu opens your project in a separate app on your computer. If you want to view and edit files inside Kombai, use Browse Files in your right panel instead.

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Home screen

The chat input is located near the bottom of the center screen, with a row of controls built directly inside it:
  • Plus (+) icon: Open a menu to switch modes, attach context, or select skills. (You can also type @ in the input to add context, or / to insert skills.)
  • Model: Choose a Model or Model Router.
  • Mode: Click to toggle between your selected mode (such as Design, Plan, Ask, or Debug) and the default Agent.
  • Design System () icon: Attach a Design System to guide UI generation.
  • Variations () icon: Set how many design variations to generate. See Design Variations.
  • Send: Submit your prompt.
Below the chat input, you can switch your active project folder and access key tools:
  • Project switcher (folder menu): Switch your active project folder.
  • Designs: Open your Canvas Gallery.
  • Inspirations: Open the Inspirations library.
  • Globe icon: Launch the Kombai Browser.
Open the …(more actions) menu in a chat’s header and click Project settings to open Settings for that chat’s project.

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Switching projects

Use the project switcher (the folder menu below the chat input) to change your active folder or start a chat without a project:
  • Your recent projects: Switch to any recently opened folder. Temporary no-project chats also appear here, marked with a icon.
  • Don’t work in a project: Start a standalone chat without choosing a project folder.
  • Open folder…: Select any folder from your computer to set it as your active project.

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When a project’s folder is missing

If a project’s folder has been moved or deleted, the project is dimmed in the sidebar and its past chats open read-only: you can read the conversation, but can’t send new messages, open files, use Restore, or answer questions in it. A notice at the top of the chat says This project has likely been moved or deleted. Click Copy handoff to copy a prompt you can paste into a new chat, in the project’s new location or another project, to continue the work.

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Chats without a project

Choose Don’t work in a project when you want to experiment or try something out without opening an actual repository. Kombai automatically creates a folder for that chat under ~/Kombai/projects/. Every new chat created this way gets its own fresh folder, so your previous work is never overwritten. Afterward, these folders act like regular projects. They show up in your recents, sidebar, and project switcher so you can reopen them anytime. Kombai marks them with a icon and never auto-selects them for future chats.
No-project chats take up slots in your recents list. If a temporary chat pushes a real project off your list, simply use Open folder… to re-open it from your disk.

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Right panel

To open the right panel, click at the right end of a chat’s header. To close it, click at the right end of the panel’s tab strip. The panel 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 +.

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Outputs

Once a chat has changed files, an Outputs button appears in its header. Click it to open a dropdown listing every file the chat has changed, with each file’s added and removed line counts. Click a file to open its diff, which also opens the right panel.

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Browse files

Browse Files provides a dedicated workspace view featuring a file tree on the left and the active file on the right. The top header displays the file’s breadcrumb path alongside controls to refresh or collapse the sidebar for full-width viewing and open the project in your IDEs.

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File actions

Right-clicking a file in the explorer or within a chat message exposes several quick actions:
  • Open in: Opens the file in your operating system’s default application (e.g., Open in Preview).
  • Open with: Opens the file or folder using an installed IDE, file manager, or terminal.
  • Copy path / Copy relative path: Copies absolute or relative file paths directly to your clipboard.
  • Add to chat: Attaches the file to the chat as context.
If a file no longer exists, only the path copying options remain available.
Right-clicking an open file’s tab offers Copy Path, Copy Relative Path, and Add to Chat. Any tab in the right panel also offers Close All Tabs, plus Close Other Tabs when more than one tab is open and Close Tabs to the Right when tabs follow it. The Open with button in the Files header shows your default app’s icon. Click it and pick an installed IDE, file manager, or terminal to open the file you have open, or the project root when nothing is open. The app you pick becomes the default, marked with a check. Kombai adds an icon to the macOS menu bar and the Windows notification area. Click it to check on Kombai without opening a window:
  • Working and Awaiting reply: Chats that are generating or waiting for your input. Select a chat to open it.
  • Recent: Your recent chats.
  • Credits remaining: Your credit balance.
  • New chat: Start a chat in the Kombai window.
  • Open Kombai: Bring the Kombai window to the front.
  • Quit Kombai: Quit the app.
When you’re signed out, the menu shows Not signed in, Open Kombai, and Quit Kombai.

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Command palette

The command palette is the keyboard-first way to move around the app: jump straight to an open chat or run a common action without reaching for the sidebar or the menu bar. Press ⌘K (Ctrl + K on Windows and Linux) to open it, then start typing to filter both sections at once:
  • Open chats: The chats you currently have open, each labelled with its project. Select one to switch to it.
  • Actions: App-level actions, each showing its own shortcut:

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Keyboard shortcuts

Press ⌘ / (Ctrl + / on Windows and Linux) to check the full list of shortcuts, or navigate to View > Keyboard Shortcuts.

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Chats and tabs

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Chat

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Application

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Design canvas