- Install. Download the installer for macOS (Apple silicon) or Windows (x64) from the releases page. The installers are not notarized yet: on macOS right-click the app and choose Open the first time — on macOS 15 and later, open it once, then allow it under System Settings → Privacy & Security; on Windows choose More info → Run anyway.
- Add one model key. Open Settings → API and paste a key for OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, DeepSeek or OpenRouter, or point it at a local OpenAI-compatible server (Ollama, vLLM, LM Studio). Nothing else is required. There is no account to create.
- Pick a folder. New sessions get a workspace under
~/.chatmol-lab/workspace. To work inside your own project folder, use the folder picker at the top of the chat. - Ask something. Try: Fetch 1UBQ, tell me its secondary structure composition, and show it in the viewer. Tool calls fold into one activity line you can expand; the structure opens in the Mol* panel on the right.
- Click residues. Select residues in the viewer and they attach to your next message, so "these residues" means exactly those.
| What you want | What to add in Settings |
|---|---|
| Structure prediction, docking, protein design without a GPU | An NVIDIA NIM key (free tier at build.nvidia.com) |
| Antibody humanization, ADMET, MD and other industrial modules | Your WeMol account |
| Live PyMOL or ChimeraX window driven from chat | Settings → General → Molecular viewers (one-click mcp install) |
| Extra tools from any stdio MCP server | Settings → MCP servers |
| More skills or subagents | Settings → Plugins & Skills, from a folder or a git URL |
Everything stays on your machine unless a tool you configured sends it somewhere.
| Path | Contents |
|---|---|
~/.chatmol-lab/workspace/ |
Session workspaces (uploads, generated files) |
~/.chatmol-lab/sessions/ |
Chat history |
~/.chatmol-lab/plugins/, skills/, agents/ |
Installed plugins, your skills and subagents |
~/.chatmol-lab/runtime/ |
The bundled Python runtime the agent uses |
Node.js 20 or newer.
git clone https://github.com/ChatMol/chatmol-lab.git
cd chatmol-lab
cp .env.example web/.env.local # put one provider key here, or use Settings
npm install
cd web && npx prisma generate && npx prisma db push && cd ..
npm run dev # http://localhost:3000
npm run electron:dev # the desktop shell against the local app
npm run electron:build # build an installernpx prisma generate must run before npm run dev, npm test or npm run build. See Desktop app and Architecture for more.