Background: At some point in early 2026 I switched from IDEs to using Claude Code sessions solely in the terminal (in my case, standard macOS Terminal). Sometimes I'd run 4+ session at once. For that many projects, a slim terminal window just seemed more lightweight to me than 4 full-blown IDEs. This created a new problem. With the regular terminal I was constantly cmd-tabbing into the wrong window and giving the wrong agent the wrong instructions, because literally every terminal window and every project looked EXACTLY THE SAME. Also, I couldn’t tell when an agent had finished and I was regularly missing those confirmation requests in some ofg. Getting lots of work done with Claude Code was exciting, but at one point I got severely stressed out by this workflow. Especially the context switching was really sould-draining. Hence, I built this nerdy tool Mantel, basically a wrapper for the regular macOS terminal: It looks like the normal terminal, but now every folder/projects gets its own color, icon, and name in the title bar - automatically assigned from the folder name. I can also customize each project with a simple CLI command, which then can be committed to version control (i.e. how your project/folder looks, lives inside the project itself). In the Dock, each terminal instance now shows its project icon, so when I have five sessions running I spot the right one immediately instead of fishing through identical terminal icons. It even creates a Dock icon PER session (I know, this is somewhat against how Mac apps are organized, but anyways, I liked the added clarity). One thing that helped me a lot with Claude Code specifically: when an agent pauses to ask for permission and you're in another window, the app pings you clearly. No more missing the prompt for ten minutes. It uses your default shell, so Claude Code runs exactly the same as before. I built this for myself but then decided to release it. This workflow improvement definitely eased the pain for me.

Mantel

Maker

📌

4mo ago

Paige

Cool product! Tbh, the colours look a bit too contrast for me, however, maybe that's exactly the idea :) Anyways, good luck with your journey, mate :)

@nikita_naumov thanks for your feedback! The colors can be customized to your liking, and indeed the auto-assigned default colors are typically a bit more toned down. I personally like to use the exact brand colors, together with the actual brand icon.

Mantel

Stop confusing your Claude Code sessions & terminal windows

Stop confusing your Claude Code sessions & terminal windows