What happens when I first open codus?
You sign in with GitHub, and then you land on a mostly empty grid with a panel open on the right. That emptiness is correct, not a fault. There is no tour and no setup wizard, so the next move is yours: pin a project folder to one of the panes and start an agent on it.
The sign-in screen
codus opens to a full-window screen reading The code editor for AGI., with faint panes visible behind it and one button: Sign in with GitHub.
There is no guest mode and no way to look around first. Clicking the button opens your normal web browser at GitHub, and the button changes to Opening browser… while it waits. Approve it there and return to codus.
If sign-in fails with a message about a port already being in use, another program on your Mac is holding the port codus needs. Close it and try again. Restarting your Mac clears it if you cannot tell what has it.
What you see once you are in
Three things, and none of them will have your work in yet.
The grid. Four empty panes, called quadrants. Each one can hold a different project, with its own AI agent working on it. An empty quadrant has exactly one control in its header: 📁 pin a worktree, which is the invitation to choose a folder.
The Brain drawer, open on the right. This is an assistant that works across all your projects rather than inside one. It opens by default every time.
Side panels with empty states. Tasks, notes and a record of completed work, each explaining what will eventually be there.
If the Brain says Claude Code is not installed
This is the most common thing a new user sees, and it is worth understanding rather than clicking past.
The drawer will read Claude Code isn't installed on this machine with a Get Claude Code button. codus does not have an AI of its own: it runs Claude Code, which you install and pay for separately.
Two different situations produce that message:
- You genuinely have not installed Claude Code yet. Install it, sign in to it, and reopen codus.
- You have installed it, but your Mac cannot find it by name. This is common and it fails silently. See codus says Claude Code is not installed.
What is not there
Worth saying plainly, so you do not go looking:
- There is no onboarding tour or setup checklist inside the app.
- Several areas you may have read about will not appear. Parts of codus are separate paid packs, and an area your plan does not include is absent rather than greyed out.