Moving from the Claude desktop app to Coral

A practical guide for people who run Claude Code in the Claude desktop app and want a team of agents: what to save, what carries over, and how the same work looks in Coral.

Nothing is shutting down, and Coral does not replace Claude. Coral starts the claude command-line tool for you, so you keep your Claude subscription, your CLAUDE.md files and your skills. What changes is where you run and watch the agents. The Claude desktop app’s chat, Projects, Cowork and computer use stay in Claude; this guide is about its Code tab. Checked Nov 9, 2026: Anthropic’s Claude Code Desktop docs.

What you have in the Claude desktop app

The Code tab runs Claude Code sessions in a window. Each session has its own chat history and project folder, and the sidebar lets you run several in parallel, optionally each in its own Git worktree. It has a diff view with line comments, a code-review command, a preview pane that runs your dev server, pull-request monitoring with auto-fix and merge-when-ready, scheduled tasks, connectors, and local, cloud, SSH and WSL environments. Claude Code in the app needs a Pro, Max, Ultra, Team or Enterprise subscription.

Checked Nov 9, 2026: Claude Code Desktop, quickstart.

What it does well: a polished window around your own sessions, with a live preview and pull-request tools built in. If that is all you need, the app is a good fit. Coral is for when you want agents with roles that share a task queue, a message board and a review process, and that you can also run with Codex agents.

Step 1: Save your work in Git

We have not tested these steps on a Claude desktop install. They come from Anthropic’s documentation. If you find a difference, tell us.

• Commit and push what you want to keep. When you archive a worktree session, the app may warn that uncommitted changes will be lost; choosing Archive anyway discards them. For local sessions the app removes the worktree about 30 days after the session was archived or last opened.
• Worktrees live in your project. The default location is <project-root>/.claude/worktrees/, or the folder you set under Worktree location in Settings. Note the branch names; a branch prefix may have been added in Settings.
• Cloud sessions. They run on Anthropic’s infrastructure, so their work is not on your disk. Make sure each one has pushed its branch to your remote before you stop using it.
• Ignored files. Files such as .env are copied into worktrees only if listed in a .worktreeinclude file. Check that the files your project needs are present wherever the agents will work.

Checked Nov 9, 2026: Anthropic, Claude Code Desktop and worktrees.

Step 2: Keep your instructions, skills and connectors

Anthropic says the desktop app and the Claude Code command line share CLAUDE.md, hooks, skills and settings. Coral’s Claude agents read the same files the command line reads: CLAUDE.md in the agent’s folder and the folders above it up to the Git root, then your own file under ~/.claude. We have not tested every item, so start an agent and ask it what instructions and skills it sees.

• Connectors need one command. The app keeps its connectors in claude_desktop_config.json, which the command line does not read. On macOS and WSL, run claude mcp add-from-claude-desktop to copy them. Servers in ~/.claude.json or a project’s .mcp.json are read by both.
• Cloud sessions are different. Anthropic says cloud sessions use skills enabled for your claude.ai account, not your repository’s skills, so skills you only set up for cloud sessions will not be on your computer.
• Memory. Claude Code’s auto memory is kept per project under ~/.claude/projects/<project>/memory/ on your computer, and worktrees of the same repository share it. Whether Coral’s agents pick it up we have not tested.

Checked Nov 9, 2026: Anthropic, Claude Code Desktop (shared configuration, coming from the CLI) and memory. Coral: sessions.

Step 3: Install Coral and Claude Code

Coral is open source (Apache-2.0). Download it from GitHub Releases: Coral.dmg for macOS, Coral-x64.msi or the portable zip for Windows (not code-signed, so SmartScreen warns about an unknown publisher), or a tarball for Linux. On Linux, Coral is the command-line server and browser dashboard only; there is no desktop app, and you install tmux yourself.

Coral drives agent tools; it does not install or sign in to them. Install the claude command-line tool by Anthropic’s instructions and sign in with your subscription. You also need Git.

Coral: quickstart, checked Nov 9, 2026.

The screenshots in this guide are from Coral v2.0.59. If you use another release, some labels may differ.

Step 4: Start a team

Where the Code tab has sessions, Coral has teams. Open Coral, choose New team, name it and pick your repository folder. In the members step, start from the Default team (3 members) template (Orchestrator, Lead Developer and QA Engineer), describe the team you want, or launch an Orchestrator and tell it in chat which teammates you want. Coral starts each agent with the agent tool you pick, such as Claude Code or Codex.

To work as the app’s worktree sessions do, open Settings on the team page and set the working mode to Worktrees, so each agent works in its own Git worktree and branch.

Coral: teams and teams and tasks, checked Nov 9, 2026.

Step 5: Let the agents talk to each other

In the app, Claude can list and message your other local, SSH and WSL Code sessions, but it cannot see cloud sessions or sessions started in a terminal. Anthropic’s coordinated agent teams are an experimental feature of the command line, not available in the desktop app. In Coral, every agent on a team shares a message board and a task queue: the Orchestrator creates tasks with priorities and dependencies, agents claim them and hand back results with files attached.

Checked Nov 9, 2026: Anthropic, Claude Code Desktop (work across sessions, what is not available) and agent teams. Coral: task workflows, board.

Step 6: Recreate your scheduled tasks

The app’s local scheduled tasks offer Hourly, Daily, Weekdays and Weekly presets, run only while the app is open and your computer is awake, and the app runs one catch-up for a run missed in the last seven days. Cloud routines run when your computer is off. In Coral they are scheduled jobs on the computer that runs Coral: you give a name, a five-field cron expression, a time zone, the repository and base branch, and a prompt. A job can instead trigger a saved workflow. Jobs have a time limit (one hour by default), and Coral can remove the run’s worktree when it finishes. There is no import, so retype each prompt and translate each schedule. Coral’s docs describe no hosted equivalent of cloud routines.

Checked Nov 9, 2026: Anthropic, scheduled tasks; Coral scheduled jobs.

Step 7: Look at what the agents did

• The team’s Board tab shows agent messages and progress, and Needs you in the Inbox lists questions and reviews waiting on you.
• For code changes, use Coral’s built-in git diff viewer, and the review workflow for rounds of review by reviewer agents. The Artifacts tab holds files agents published, and previews images, audio and video, text, Markdown, HTML and JSON.
• The app’s preview pane (it runs your dev server and checks your changes), pull-request monitoring, auto-fix and merge-when-ready have no counterpart in the Coral docs we read. Ask an agent to run the server, open the pull request or merge, or do it by hand.

Coral: completion review, files and artifacts, checked Nov 9, 2026.

What happens to your old sessions

Anthropic’s documentation does not say where the desktop app stores Code tab sessions on disk. Sessions you ran in a terminal are kept as files under ~/.claude/projects/ and resume with claude --resume. Coral has a Continue this chat button for chats listed under All chats in the Inbox, but its docs do not say whether sessions that started in the desktop app appear there, and we have not tested it. Check All chats after you install. Copy any decision you still need into your repository.

Checked Nov 9, 2026: Anthropic, sessions. Coral: how do I.

The Claude desktop app and Coral, term by term

Claude side: Anthropic’s Claude Code Desktop docs, checked Nov 9, 2026. Coral side: the Coral docs linked above and remote access.

What is different

• Teams, not just sessions. Coral agents have roles and share a task queue, a message board and reviews.
• Licence. Coral is open source (Apache-2.0). Your Claude usage is still billed by Anthropic under your plan. LICENSE
• Platforms. The Claude desktop app runs on macOS and Windows, with a Linux beta. Coral’s desktop app runs on macOS and Windows; on Linux it is the server and browser dashboard.
• Teams you can put to sleep and wake. Coral teams keep their state when stopped. teams
• More to set up. The app is one window with one sign-in. Coral has more parts, and you install and sign in to the agent tool yourself.

Claude, Claude Code, Anthropic and other product names are trademarks of their owners. No endorsement is implied. We make Coral, so read the comparison with that in mind.

Sources

• Anthropic documentation, checked Nov 9, 2026: Claude Code Desktop, quickstart, worktrees, scheduled tasks, agent teams, memory, sessions.
• Coral: the agent docs, the published docs and the LICENSE.