Feature

Real directories, not a mount

~/Code is an ordinary folder on local disk. Your editor, shell, Git, and package managers treat it like any other directory, because it is one.

~/Code is an ordinary folder on local disk. Your editor, shell, Git, and package managers treat it like any other directory, because it is one. There is no FUSE mount, no symlink trick, and no remote filesystem to babysit. bowline reads the folder you already have and syncs the working state underneath it, rather than putting a layer in front of it.

This is what separates bowline from a cloud devbox or a network share. Your laptop stays first-class; you never move into a remote VM you have to live inside. Git stays your tool for commits, branches, and remotes. The folder you already work in is the product, and every tool you point at it behaves exactly as it did before.

It understands code, so the folder stays clean. node_modules and caches do not cross machines; they regenerate locally from your lockfiles. Lockfiles are respected instead of merged byte-for-byte, and generated folders follow policy rather than syncing blindly the way a generic file-sync tool would.

Because these are real files, there is no lock-in. If bowline disappeared tomorrow, your code is still just files on disk, with no mount to unwind and nothing to export. Uninstall bowline and your code is still right there.

~/Code

acme/
  web/          next.js   · synced
  api/          fastapi   · synced
experiments/
  bowline/          rust      · synced

Questions about real directories

The questions developers ask about this before they turn it on.

Is this a FUSE mount or a network filesystem?

No. ~/Code is ordinary local directories on disk. There is no FUSE mount, no symlink trick, and no remote filesystem. bowline syncs the working state underneath a real folder instead of putting a layer in front of it.

What happens to my code if I stop using bowline?

Nothing is trapped. The files are real local directories, so if you uninstall bowline your code is still right there on disk. There is no mount to unwind and nothing to export.

Does node_modules sync between machines?

No. node_modules, caches, and generated folders do not cross machines; they regenerate locally from your lockfiles. bowline understands code, so it carries source and working state rather than syncing build artifacts byte-for-byte.

ready when you are

Your ~/Code, on every machine and every agent.

Install bowline and your projects follow you. It just works.

Get started

$curl -fsSL https://install.bowline.sh | sh

macOS app · Linux CLI. Then run bowline login.