Antigravity App vs Antigravity IDE: what's the difference

The Antigravity App is Google's desktop command centre (v2.5+) for running several local agents in parallel across Projects, workspaces and scheduled messages. The Antigravity IDE is a fully featured agentic IDE with an Agent side panel, inline diffs and implementation plans. Both run on macOS, Windows, Linux and Googlebook. Orbtile tracks Antigravity desktop app conversations on a keypad or phone.

Antigravity App and Antigravity IDE side by side

Google Antigravity comes as the Antigravity App, the Antigravity CLI (agy), IDE integrations and the Python Antigravity SDK. The IDE integrations are the standalone Antigravity IDE and editor extensions. The App and the standalone IDE are both desktop applications, built around different workflows.

Alongside these desktop apps, the Antigravity CLI (agy, v1.2+) is a terminal client. With it you run autonomous coding agents, execute shell commands and manage background subagents. The Antigravity SDK (google-antigravity on Python 3.10+) lets developers prototype custom agents on the Antigravity agent harness. It supports declarative tool execution policies and evaluations.

How the Antigravity App works: Projects, worktrees and parallel agents

The Antigravity App is a command centre for managing several local agents in parallel. You group conversations into Projects, work across several workspaces and automate routine tasks with scheduled messages.

Each Project defines repository boundaries, file scopes and security permissions. To create a Project and start an agent:

• Click the New Project icon in the left sidebar.
• Click Add Folder to select one or more local Git repositories or working directories, then click Create.
• Enter your instruction, such as Add unit tests for the authentication handlers, and press Enter.
• Select an execution mode in the setup modal:
  • Local mode: the agent works directly in your active folders.
  • New worktree mode: the agent works in an isolated Git worktree.

The App includes slash commands for autonomous runs, requirements interviews, scheduling, browser actions and plugins:

How the Antigravity IDE works: editor workspace, Agent side panel and extensions

The standalone Antigravity IDE is a fully featured agentic IDE. It comes with the agent manager, artifacts and a deep understanding of your codebase. You open a workspace folder, repository or solution, and the agent runs in the Agent side panel on the right:

• Click Toggle Agent in the title bar to show or hide the Agent side panel.
• Press Cmd+L (macOS) or Ctrl+L (Windows and Linux) to focus the panel and add the selected or current lines as context.
• Press Cmd+Shift+L (macOS) or Ctrl+Shift+L (Windows and Linux) to start a new conversation.

An IDE agent session shares context and customisations with the rest of the Antigravity ecosystem. You can inspect interactive implementation plans, review granular inline diffs and run multi-step engineering tasks inside your editor.

Standalone Antigravity IDE vs IDE extensions

Under Google's For IDEs surface, you can install the standalone Antigravity IDE or add Google Antigravity extensions to editors you already use:

System requirements, installation and updates

Both desktop surfaces download from antigravity.google/download. Google lists these requirements for the Antigravity App:

• macOS: macOS 12 (Monterey) or later, on Apple Silicon or 64-bit Intel.
• Windows: Windows 10 (64-bit) or Windows 11, with x64 and ARM64 installers.
• Linux: glibc >= 2.28 and glibcxx >= 3.4.25 on x64 or ARM64.
• Linux distributions: Ubuntu 20+, Debian 10+, Fedora 36+ and RHEL 8+ meet these requirements.
• Googlebook: the app comes pre-installed, and Google Play handles updates and reinstalls.

For the standalone Antigravity IDE, Google lists macOS 12 (Monterey) or later and Windows 10 (64-bit) or later. On Linux or Googlebook, it needs glibc >= 2.28 and glibcxx >= 3.4.25.

Installing the Antigravity App

• macOS: open Antigravity.dmg and drag Antigravity to Applications.
• macOS upgrades: select Replace instead of Keep Both when prompted.
• Windows: run the .exe installer and follow the setup wizard.
• Linux: extract the archive and run the app:

tar -xzf Antigravity.tar.gz
./Antigravity

• Googlebook: launch the pre-installed app, or update or reinstall it through Google Play.

Installing and updating the standalone Antigravity IDE

Download the standalone IDE installer from antigravity.google/download. Updates depend on your operating system:

• macOS and Windows: updates download in the background, then the IDE prompts you to click Restart to Update.
• System-wide Windows installs: the prompt shows Install Update instead.
• Linux: an Update Available button appears in the title bar, and a badge appears on your account icon.
• Linux package installs: if you installed with a package manager such as apt, update through it.
• Linux tarball installs: download the new tarball yourself.

Keyboard shortcuts and sign-in on both surfaces

Both surfaces use Cmd+L (Ctrl+L), with different behaviour:

The Antigravity App also has these navigation shortcuts:

• Cmd+K (Ctrl+K) searches past conversations by title or full text and switches to one.
• Option+Up and Option+Down (Alt+Up and Alt+Down) move to the previous or next conversation.
• Cmd+P (Ctrl+P) searches files.
• Cmd+Shift+P (Ctrl+Shift+P) opens the command palette.
• Cmd+F (Ctrl+F) finds text.

You sign in with a personal Google Account or Gemini Enterprise credentials. In the IDE extensions, Enterprise support is generally available in VS Code and Visual Studio. It is in Preview for JetBrains, Zed, Xcode and Eclipse.

Google's Get started page lists four auth.type values:

• "oauth-personal": this value is for individual Google Accounts.
• "oauth-business": this value is for Gemini Enterprise (Preview) and needs gcp.project and gcp.location.
• "gemini-api-key": this value signs in with a Gemini API key.
• "agent-platform": this value is for Agent Platform (Preview), using an API key or Application Default Credentials.

Watch Antigravity App conversations on a keypad or phone with Orbtile

Orbtile tracks conversations in the Antigravity desktop app. Antigravity IDE and Antigravity CLI sessions do not appear automatically.

Orbtile runs on a computer with macOS 14.0 Sonoma or later on Apple silicon (M1 or later), or on Windows 11 (x64). It drives the nine LCD keys and two page buttons of the Logitech MX Creative Keypad over USB, without Logi Options+. It can also turn an iPhone (App Store, iOS 17+) or an Android phone (Android 8.0+) running Orbtile Mobile into a status pad.

• Each Antigravity desktop app conversation gets its own key, with its title and state.
• Antigravity uses an azure blue working palette, and from Orbtile 0.3.4 its waiting states use the shared terracotta alarm colour.
• From Orbtile 0.2.10, replies also appear as live typewriter text.
• Waiting conversations move to the front.
• A tap on key 9 focuses the first waiting session, including sessions on other pages.
• A short press under 0.6 seconds on a session key opens that conversation on your computer.
• From Orbtile 0.2.6, keys for questions with numbered options show the numbers, such as 1 2 3 hold.
• To answer, hold its key to open the question, then pick options on keys 1, 2, 3 and 7.
• Then hold Send on key 9 for 0.6 seconds, and Sent means Antigravity acknowledged the reply.
• This works for up to four questions with two to four choices each.
• Written answers, permission requests, remote sessions and unsupported questions stay on your computer.

Orbtile isn't tied to particular Antigravity versions. If an Antigravity update changes how the app talks to Orbtile, live text and keypad answers stop until Orbtile catches up. The conversations and their states keep showing, and you answer in Antigravity.

The same pad also shows Claude Code, Codex, ZCode and Kimi Code sessions, and your own tools through Orbtile's local Adapter API. See Antigravity notifications: CLI alerts and waiting agents and Google Antigravity IDE: editor, agents and permissions.