Snap a terminal to the right edge and Windows paints straight over it the moment you maximize a browser. Docked Console takes the strip and keeps it, because the shell is told the desktop is smaller now.
Always on top keeps the pixels visible while everything else still maximizes underneath, so you get a terminal hovering over a window whose top-right corner is now unreachable. That is not a docked terminal. That is a floating obstruction.
Docked Console registers a Windows AppBar, which tells the shell to subtract that strip from the desktop work area outright. Maximized windows stop at its edge because as far as Windows is concerned, the desktop ends there.
Then it deals with the thing an AppBar does nothing about. Fullscreen apps size themselves to the whole monitor and paint over everything regardless of what the shell reserved, so a window event hook notices when a window covers the display and moves it into what is left.
exit, use the tray icon, or run --stop. All three unregister the AppBar and give the desktop back. --reclaim recovers after a hard kill.dockedconsole.exe # dock, or add a column if already docked dockedconsole.exe --stop # undock and exit dockedconsole.exe --reclaim # recover after a hard kill dockedconsole.exe --explain-elevation # would it elevate, and why dockedconsole.exe --width 900 # try a width without saving it dockedconsole.exe --edge left # try the other side dockedconsole.exe --pane-dir C:\src\thing --pane-run "claude --effort max"
It docks to the right edge at 735 physical pixels by default. Width is in physical pixels because the AppBar API is: at 125% scaling, 735 physical is 588 logical.
A fourth column is refused, and so is one that would leave less than 320 physical pixels of desktop. The running dock says so from the notification area and the copy you launched exits with code 5. Nothing pops up, because a dialog for "you already have three" is worse than the problem.
dockedconsole.json lives in %LOCALAPPDATA%\DockedConsole\, or
beside the executable if you drop one there, since portable mode wins. Reload config
from the tray applies geometry changes live.
It sets the edge, the column width, which monitor, the Windows Terminal arguments and profile, what happens when the shell exits, whether the dock stays topmost, whether fullscreen windows get pushed, and which processes the fullscreen block leaves alone.
The parser accepts comments and trailing commas, because you are going to hand-edit this file. A config it cannot parse is reported and left alone: it is the only copy of something you typed, and a stray comma should not cost you your settings.
Windows 11 and Windows Terminal, which ships with it. That is the whole requirement list. The installer is signed by Specter Point Intelligence, LLC, which is the parent organization, so that publisher name is correct and not a mis-signing.