Installation guide

Catenary ships as a normal desktop installer for Windows, macOS and Linux. This page covers the download, the operating-system warnings you will see, and why they exist.

Download

Builds are published on GitHub Releases. The in-app updater checks the same source, so once installed you do not download anything by hand again.

On Windows, install through Windows Package Manager:

winget install catenary

On macOS the quickest route is Homebrew, with one command that also avoids the Gatekeeper warning below:

brew install --cask gionicolas/catenary/catenary

It adds the Catenary tap, trusts only this cask (Homebrew requires that since version 6), checks the checksum of the download and installs the app into /Applications.

Windows: the SmartScreen warning

On the first run, Windows may show a blue "Windows protected your PC" panel.

This is the standard notice for a new executable with no accumulated reputation — not a detection of anything. Click More info, then Run anyway.

Without a code-signing certificate, SmartScreen counts reputation per file, and every version is a new file. So the warning may come back with each release until the installer is signed.

macOS: Gatekeeper

If you installed with Homebrew, skip this section. If you downloaded the .dmg, macOS may say the app "cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified", or report that the app "is damaged and should be moved to the Trash".

macOS 15 Sequoia and later: try to open Catenary once and close the warning. Then open System Settings → Privacy & Security, click Open Anyway next to the message about Catenary, and confirm with your password.

macOS 14 Sonoma and earlier: right-click (or Control-click) Catenary in Finder, choose Open, and confirm in the dialog.

Either way you do this once — macOS remembers the decision for that copy.

If macOS still refuses to open or claims the file is damaged, open your Terminal and run:

xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Catenary.app

(If you didn't move the app to the Applications folder, replace /Applications/Catenary.app with the path to the extracted .app file).

Why the installers are unsigned

Honestly: a Windows code-signing certificate costs around US$ 200 a year, and it has not been bought yet. The plan is to pay for it with Pro licence sales. Until then the installer is unsigned — which is exactly why the two warnings above exist, and why this page exists.

First launch

After a one-screen welcome, Catenary asks how you want to start: TerminalMap, with keyboard-driven splits and a session switcher, or Canvas, the infinite spatial board. Either way you get a terminal in your Home folder — no project needed. You can switch between the two lenses anytime, and no process restarts.

A short tour then points out the lens switcher, the sidebar, and splits and tasks.

When you open a project folder, it becomes a workspace, and its state is written to .cate/ inside that project.

No account, no key and no internet connection are required to reach this point.

Updates

Updates arrive through electron-updater from GitHub Releases. Everything in the 1.x line is included in a Pro licence.