Welcome to Needlecast
When you first launch Needlecast, you’ll see an empty project tree. Let’s set up your first projects.
Adding Your First Project
- Right-click anywhere in the project tree (left sidebar)
- Select “New Folder” to create an organizational group
- Right-click the folder and select “Add Project”
- Browse to your project directory and select it
Needlecast will automatically scan the directory for build tools and populate the commands panel.
Project Groups
Organize projects into color-coded groups:
- Work (Blue) — client projects, internal tools
- Personal (Green) — side projects, learning experiments
- Open Source (Orange) — contributions, dependencies
To change a folder’s color:
- Right-click the folder
- Select “Change Color”
- Choose from the palette
Auto-Detected Commands
Once you add a project, Needlecast scans for build files and shows available commands:
- Maven projects show
clean,compile,test,package, etc. - npm projects show scripts from
package.json - Gradle projects show tasks from
build.gradle
Commands are organized by type (build, test, run) for easy discovery.