Alpha Open source · MIT · macOS 13+

Every window,
in its column.

Kolom tiles your real Mac windows into a strip that scrolls sideways — one strip per display. Swipe through your work. Nothing piles up. Nothing gets lost.

Install with your agent Star on GitHub
  • Native Swift & AppKit
  • Public Accessibility APIs only
  • No telemetry
  • Ask Kolom, on device
  • CLI + MCP for agents

01 The demo

Six moves.
That’s Kolom.

One Mac, six moves. Do them yourself, or sit back and watch.

Click an icon. Kolom glides there.

Click Music in the rail.

Understood by Apple’s on-device model. Nothing leaves your Mac, and there’s no subscription. Needs macOS 26 with Apple Intelligence.

⌥←⌥→ column ⌥1–⌥9 window ⌥D desktop ⌥K Ask Kolom ⌥M commands ⌃⌥K move palette

A browser simulation of Kolom. Click the screen and the shortcuts work here too. Performance figures are made up.

02 Multiple displays

And every display gets its own strip.

While Kolom manages, it sets your displays corner to corner — a display staircase, an idea from Defi (MIT) — so columns slide cleanly off every edge. Your pointer still crosses monitors exactly as your desk is laid out.

Unplug a monitor and its windows join the main display. Plug it back in and they go home.

03 Agents

Your agent can drive it, too.

kolomctl and a local MCP server let your coding agent read the layout and build Terminal grids for you.

$ claude mcp add --scope user kolom -- ~/.local/bin/kolomctl mcp
  • Local. The MCP server runs on your Mac, beside Kolom.
  • Your call. Moving windows stays off until you opt in.
  • Same grids. “3×2 terminals” works from your agent, too.

04 Safe by design

Pause or quit, and
everything comes back.

Every window, restored.

Pause or quit and each window goes back where you had it.

A watchdog, just in case.

If Kolom ever crashes, a watchdog restores your windows and your wallpaper.

Nothing leaves your Mac.

Public Accessibility APIs only. No screen capture. No telemetry. Ask Kolom runs fully on device.

05 Install

Hand this to your agent.

Paste one line into the coding agent on your Mac. It reads the guide, builds Kolom from source, and walks you through the permission.

Read https://github.com/ckluis/kolom/blob/main/INSTALL-WITH-AN-AGENT.md and follow it.

Or do it yourself

$ git clone https://github.com/ckluis/kolom && cd kolom && ./scripts/install.sh
  • Alpha. Usable day to day, still being hardened.
  • macOS 13 or later. Tested on Apple silicon.
  • Ask Kolom needs macOS 26 with Apple Intelligence.
  • Builds from source. No notarized download yet.
  • Needs Accessibility permission to move your windows.
  • A guide is built in. Click the ? in the rail.
Star Kolom on GitHub

06 Inspired by

Standing on the shoulders of scrolling tilers.

Kolom exists because these projects proved the idea. Defi’s display staircase and pointer mapping are adapted under MIT; everything else is inspiration, not code.