Installation

Requirements

On top of that:

• Claude Code, installed and signed in to your Claude account, the way you would for using it in a terminal (see the Claude Code documentation). Escouade starts the claude of your machine.
• Git: Escouade uses it for diffs, commits, branches and worktrees. If a project’s folder is not a repository, Escouade initializes one when you create the project.
• Optional on Windows: PowerShell 7 (without it, the built-in terminals use Windows PowerShell) and WSL.

Where Escouade looks for Claude Code

Escouade looks for claude in this order:

1. the path in Settings › Claude Code › “Executable path”, if it is not blank (it is then the only place tried);
2. the PATH;
3. the places where the Claude Code installers put it (table below);
4. on Windows, when there is none, a Claude Code installed in WSL (see below).

The path in the settings accepts ~ for your home folder, and on Windows it can leave out .exe or .cmd. Leave the field blank to detect it automatically. The line under the field says where Escouade found claude (“Found: …”) or, when it is not found, the path forms it accepts.

Without Claude Code, the welcome screen says so, so does an agent’s empty conversation, and the Kanban starts no tickets (“Claude Code not found — no tickets will start”). Install it or set its path in the settings: when you save another path, these messages update without restarting Escouade.

Installing Escouade

The installers are on the GitHub releases page.

Windows

1. Download the .exe installer of the latest release.
2. Run it. It installs Escouade for your user account, without asking for administrator rights, and it speaks the system language (French or English).
3. Open Escouade from the Start menu.

macOS

1. Download the .dmg of the latest release. It is universal: the same file works on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.
2. Open it and drag Escouade into the Applications folder.
3. Launch Escouade.

The app is signed with an Apple Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple: macOS opens it without asking for any authorization.

Linux

The AppImage runs on any distribution that meets the requirements:

chmod +x Escouade_*.AppImage
./Escouade_*.AppImage

It is the one the built-in update replaces. On Debian or Ubuntu you can also install the .deb package:

sudo apt install ./Escouade_*_amd64.deb

On Linux, the tokens of the integrations (Jira, Trello, GitHub, Linear) are kept in ~/.escouade/integrations.json, because no system keychain is supported.

Claude Code in WSL

On Windows, Escouade can run a Claude Code installed in WSL.

1. Install Claude Code in your WSL distribution and sign it in.
2. Open Settings › Claude Code. In “Executable path”, enter the path of claude in one of these forms:
   • ~/.local/bin/claude;
   • /home/<user>/.local/bin/claude;
   • \\wsl.localhost\<distribution>\home\<user>\.local\bin\claude.
3. Leave the field blank if Windows has no claude: Escouade then looks for its own in WSL, in the usual places (~/.local/bin/claude first).
4. Read the line under the field: “Found in WSL (Ubuntu): …” confirms that claude is found, and in which distribution.

The distribution used is the one the path names (\\wsl.localhost\<distribution>\…), otherwise the one in Settings › Terminals › “WSL distribution”, otherwise WSL’s default distribution.

Escouade starts claude through wsl.exe, in the agent’s folder (seen from WSL under /mnt/c/…). Its sessions, sign-in and quota are read from the Linux home folder. A project folder that WSL can’t reach (a network share, another distribution’s folder) is refused.

Claude Code is started in WSL without the shell profile: a variable set in ~/.profile or ~/.bashrc does not reach it.

The PATH on macOS

An app started from the Finder or the Dock does not receive your terminal’s PATH: without a precaution, a claude or a git installed with Homebrew would not be found. So at startup Escouade asks your login shell for its PATH ($SHELL -ilc, with 5 seconds to answer) and merges it with the one it received: the shell’s folders first, then those already there, without duplicates. It adds /opt/homebrew/bin, /usr/local/bin and ~/.local/bin if they are not there. This PATH is the one of every process it starts: Claude Code, git and the commands of the agents.

On Linux the same mechanism applies, which matters when Escouade is started from the desktop launcher rather than from a terminal.

If claude is still not found, set its path in Settings › Claude Code.

First launch

As long as no project exists, Escouade opens a welcome screen: its logo, the sentence “Add a project to run Claude Code agents, follow their questions, and open terminals.” and the “+ Add a project” button.

• If Claude Code is not found, a warning says so: “Claude Code couldn’t be found on this machine. Install it (irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex) or set its path in the settings.” Then open the settings with the ⚙ button of the status bar or Ctrl+,, Claude Code tab. On macOS, Ctrl becomes ⌘.
• Click “+ Add a project” to open the “New project” window. The quick start describes it field by field and goes all the way to the first commit.
• Escouade also asks, in a “Help improve Escouade?” dialog, whether it may send anonymous usage statistics: “Share statistics” or “No thanks”. Nothing is sent before you answer. The detail is on the Privacy page, and the choice can be changed in Settings › About (see the “About” settings).

The window opens at 1440 × 900 (1000 × 600 at the minimum); Escouade then remembers its size and position. Your projects, conversations and settings are written in ~/.escouade/: see local data.

Updates

Updates come from Escouade’s GitHub releases. The app downloads the new version in the background and installs it without an installer window. The status bar then shows “Update X ready · Restart”: you restart when you want, or Escouade restarts by itself when no agent is working and everything is saved. That setting, “Install updates automatically”, is on by default; it is in Settings › About, where “Check for updates” runs a check right away.

See updates and the “About” settings.