Superagent, explained.

What Superagent is

Superagent is a Mac app that gives a coding agent a place to work — and gives you a place to watch. Every project is a chat sitting next to the thing being built: a real browser on the sites you're already logged into, the files it's editing, and an iOS Simulator streamed straight into the window.

It is not an AI of its own. It runs Claude Code, on the Claude subscription you already pay for, entirely on your Mac. There is no Superagent server, no account and no API key.

Who it's for

Superagent is designed for the person who doesn't write code first, and the person who does second. That order is deliberate, and it's the opposite of how most tools in this category are built.

It doesn't get there by hiding the code — the files, the diffs and the branches are all right there when you want them. It gets there by putting the thing being built on screen next to the chat, so you can judge it the way you judge anything else: by looking at it.

You'll get on with it if…

• You'd rather see the page than read the diff.
• You want the agent on your accounts — your dashboard, your admin panel, your half-finished site — not a clean sandbox that's logged into nothing.
• You want it on your own machine, on the subscription you already have.
• You're building something on your phone and want to watch it run on a real device.

You might want something else if…

• You want a fleet. If the job is fanning one prompt across a dozen agents and racing them, a parallel-worktree tool like Orca is built for exactly that, and it runs on Windows and Linux too.
• You have no Mac and no repo. A hosted builder like Lovable or Bolt will get you a new app tonight without installing anything.
• You want errands, not software. Booking, forms, research round-ups — that's a different kind of agent.

The full comparison is on the home page →

Install it

What you need

The steps

1. Install Claude Code and sign in. Open it once and make sure it answers you. Superagent drives it, so if it isn't working there, it won't work here.
2. Download Superagent. the .dmg — signed and notarized by Apple, so it opens without arguing.
3. Drag it to Applications and open it. macOS will ask once whether you're sure.
4. Add a project. Point it at any folder on your disk — a git repo, a website, a pile of documents. It doesn't have to be code.
5. Say what you want. That's the whole interface.

Or run it from source

git clone https://github.com/pungme/superagent-desktop
cd superagent-desktop/app
npm install
npm run dev

Your first five minutes

The fastest way to understand the app is to give it something with a screen.

1. Add the project you're working on, or make an empty folder and add that.
2. Ask for something visible. "Build me a one-page site for a coffee shop and show it to me." It will write the files, start a dev server itself, and open the page in the browser pane beside the chat.
3. Ask for a change. "Make the header dark." Watch the page update in the same window — no alt-tabbing to find out whether it worked.
4. Press the two-views button in the browser toolbar to see the same page as a desktop card and an iPhone frame at once, both live.
5. Keep it or throw it away. On a git project, two buttons appear at the top of the chat when it has made changes. That's the whole review step.

The sidebar

Everything the app is doing lives in one rail down the left.

• The Computer sits at the top, with its own conversations under it.
• Plain browser tabs come next — browse first, summon the agent when you need it.
• Projects are grouped the way you think about them, each with its conversations nested underneath and the git branch shown where you'd expect it.

The dots tell you where things stand: a spinner while the agent works, a dot when it needs you, and a green dot when a background job is running.

Many chats per project

Chats name themselves after whatever the conversation turned out to be about. Starting a new one never loses the old one, and each keeps its own place: panes, open files and scroll position all survive a restart — even through an update.

Chats & branches

On a git project, every conversation automatically gets a private copy of the project on its own branch. Two chats on the same repo can edit, branch and commit side by side without touching each other — or your own checkout.

You don't have to know what any of that means to use it. It shows up as two buttons.

The details, if you want them

• Branches are named after the conversation. "Fix the flaky auth test" becomes fix-the-flaky-auth-test, and follows renames.
• No re-installs. Dependency folders (node_modules, .venv, vendor, target) are shared into each chat's copy rather than downloaded again.
• It's a real git worktree. You can cd into it and use plain git any time you like.

The browser

The chat sits next to a real browser, and Claude can drive it: open a page, click, type, read it back. Not a hidden browser it describes to you second-hand — the one on your screen, with your logged-in session. You watch it work, and you can take over at any moment.

• Your logins are your logins. Browser sessions live in a profile on your Mac, the same as any browser. That's what makes it useful on your real dashboard.
• Automation stays in here. The agent only ever drives Superagent's own browser pane, never your personal Chrome or Safari.
• Dev servers. Point it at localhost, or ask it to start the server itself — it stays one click away in the toolbar.
• One page, seen twice. One click shows the page as a desktop card and an iPhone frame at the same time, same session, both live.

The iPhone in the window

An iOS Simulator streamed inside the app from its own framebuffer — the real device, live at the rate it renders. Tap, swipe and type on it. So can the agent, which means it builds, launches and checks its own app without you playing courier.

• Nothing to install beyond Xcode: the input helper ships with Superagent.
• Apple's own Simulator window stays shut unless you ask for it, so you're never watching the wrong device.
• The pane reveals itself when the agent boots or launches something.

The simulator and the page you're on sit side by side on the same surface.

Files, @ and snips

• Click any file to read it — PDFs, images, markdown, source — right beside the tree. You can annotate PDFs in place, and drag files into the chat.
• @ reaches everything. Type @ for this project's files, the other projects in your sidebar by name, or any folder on the disk (@/, @~/), drilling in one level at a time.
• Snip to attach. The scissors on the browser or the simulator (or ⌘ ⇧ S): drag a box on the page or the phone screen and the crop lands in your message at full resolution.
• See every edit the moment it happens, with just the change highlighted.

What the agent is allowed to do

One picker in the composer decides how much rope it gets. It matches Claude Code's own modes, and you can change it mid-conversation.

Interject mid-turn

Type while the agent is working and it sees your message before it finishes — the same as the terminal. You don't have to wait for it to be wrong in peace.

The board, routines and the dashboard

A board the agent keeps

Each project has a list of work in four stages — todo, doing, testing, done — and Claude moves the cards as it goes. Watch them move while you talk to it. Add your own; it will pick them up.

Routines

"Check this site every hour," in plain language, on a timer. Routines run inside Superagent against this browser and your logged-in session, so they see what you'd see. They run while the app is open.

Dashboard

Turns per day, tasks done, a streak, and which projects actually got your time. Computed locally — the numbers never leave the machine.

Your phone

Pair the Superagent iOS app once from Settings → Phone and it follows your Mac from anywhere: live transcripts, send a prompt, start a chat, and approve what the agent asks — with a push notification when it's done or needs you.

How to pair

1. Open Settings → Phone on the Mac.
2. Scan the QR code with the iPhone app.
3. That's it. The key in that QR is the only key that exists.

How private it actually is

Everything between the phone and the Mac is end-to-end encrypted with a per-device key from the pairing QR. Both sides dial out to a tiny blind relay that forwards ciphertext and stores nothing, which is why it works behind any network with no setup. You can run your own relay with one command and change the URL in Settings.

Note: the iOS app is built from source for now — see its README.

Shortcuts & small things

• It never steals your focus. Agents finish quietly in the background; the window comes forward only when you ask.
• Notifications that say something — done, or has a question, with a summary of the agent's actual last reply.
• A context gauge on every conversation, showing how much of the context window it has used.
• Quiet by default. A burst of activity folds into one line you can open, instead of a wall of noise.
• Light on memory. Sessions start on your first message and wind down when idle; preview panes are released when a chat is in the background.
• Light and dark, following your system.

What leaves your Mac

The honest answer, in full. There is no Superagent server, so there is nowhere for your work to go but your own disk — and you don't have to take that on trust, because every line is public.

Nothing else. No account, no sign-up screen, no analytics, no telemetry SDK in the build. Your browser logins live in a profile on your Mac, the same as any browser.

Read it yourself

All three repositories are MIT, every line: the desktop app, the iPhone app and the relay. Builds are signed and notarized by Apple, so the one you download is the one that was published.

When something's wrong

Questions