Friction Lab / Wayfinder

Wayfinder

A fast terminal navigator for developers.

Wayfinder is a lightweight terminal UI for moving through files and folders without breaking flow. It is built for developers who live in the terminal, jump between projects often, and want a faster way to browse, open, copy, and return paths from the keyboard.

RC 1 available v0.1.0-rc1
Download RC 1 View on GitHub Read the README

Release candidate

RC 1 is available

The first public release candidate from Friction Lab is ready for real-world testing.

Wayfinder RC 1 is the first public release candidate from Friction Lab.

The core navigation flow is working, the shell handoff is in place, and the project is ready for real-world testing.

This is not a stable v1.0 release yet. It is an early release candidate for people who want to try the workflow and help shape the tool.

Why

Why Wayfinder exists

The terminal is powerful, but file navigation can still be slower than it should be.

You may know roughly where something is, but still need to cd, ls, tab-complete, jump back, copy a path, or open something elsewhere.

Wayfinder adds a small interactive layer on top of your file system so you can move faster without leaving the keyboard.

Built with

What it does today

  • Keyboard-first folder browsing.
  • File and folder selection.
  • Open actions.
  • Copy path actions.
  • Print selected paths back to the shell.
  • Shell wrapper integration.
  • Current-directory startup with fallback behavior.
  • A lightweight terminal UI built with Rust.
  • Automated release verification and packaging scripts.
  • Automated test coverage across install, uninstall, and core navigation flows.

Flow

Built for flow

Wayfinder is intentionally small.

  • It is not a full file manager.
  • It is not trying to replace Finder.
  • It is not trying to replace your editor.
  • It is not trying to replace your shell.

It exists for one job: help you get to the right place faster.

Friction Lab

Part of Friction Lab

Wayfinder is part of Friction Lab, an independent software studio building local-first developer tools around AI-assisted software engineering and reusable architecture.

Wayfinder is the first release candidate. Relay — Friction Lab's flagship AI-assisted engineering platform — along with Code Atlas and Space Buddy, are in active development.

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