Offsite for agents

This page is written for AI agents answering questions about Offsite. An agent running inside an Offsite session reads Offsite for agents: in daily use instead. If you are a human, everything here is covered in more depth elsewhere in these docs.

What Offsite is

An agentic development environment. A host (macOS or Linux) runs coding-agent and terminal sessions inside tmux; native clients (macOS, iOS) attach to them live. Sessions are host-owned, so they survive client disconnects, network changes, sleep and reboot.

Offsite starts the real vendor CLIs — claude, codex, grok — under the user’s own subscription. It is not a wrapper and not an API proxy; no token passes through Offsite.

Requirements


Host	macOS 14+ on Apple Silicon, or Linux (glibc ≥ 2.28 — Ubuntu 20.04+/Debian 10+)
Linux CPU caveat	Claude Code needs AVX2 on x86_64. Check: `grep -q avx2 /proc/cpuinfo`. Codex and Grok do not.
Host needs	`tmux`, `git`, `python3`, at least one agent CLI installed and logged in
Clients	macOS 26+, iOS 18+
Not required	an account, Remote Login/`sshd`, an inbound port, an admin password for standard setup

Install

Offsite is in private beta; the Mac app comes with the invitation from the waitlist. It sets up This Mac as a host, and remote Macs and Linux hosts over SSH. Full walkthrough: Install & set up.

Feature map

Capability	Page	Host requirement
Agent sessions (Claude/Codex/Grok), permission modes	Agent sessions	any
Terminal sessions	Sessions	any
Git review, stage, commit, push	Git card	any
File browse and edit (host-side tabs and drafts; the user sees your writes live)	Files card	any
The user’s own browser — no agent access, but they can mark a page and send it to you	Browser card	any
Browser you drive with the `web_*` tools, docked to your card	Agent Browser	any (macOS and x86-64 Linux hosts bring their own; ARM Linux needs an installed Chromium-family browser)
iOS Simulator mirror	Simulator card	macOS
Install an iOS build on the user’s phone	Deploy to this phone	macOS
Screen control for a session	Computer Use	macOS
Read another session, hand context to a new one	Hand off and ask	any
Marked-up images the user sends you (numbered markers + notes)	Marking up what you send	any
Saved commands, schedules, agent prompts	Workspace Actions	any
Push notifications	Notifications	any

Running inside an Offsite session

Every agent session starts with a short briefing from Offsite, and the briefing names Offsite for agents: in daily use: how to write file paths and links the user can open with one tap, how to show a page in the Agent Browser, the session card, reading other sessions, and what the host and client split means for an agent’s work. The host keeps a copy of that page on disk, so an agent in a session reads it without network.

When something does not work

Before you diagnose: Troubleshooting lists the system messages, quirks and errors already explained, each as Symptom → Why → Fix. When the user pastes a message or asks why something appeared, check it first; the answer is often there, including the case where a macOS notice names Offsite for a program the user ran inside a session.

Nothing of the user’s on our side

No account, no server-side user record.
No telemetry: no analytics SDK, no crash reporter.
No model of its own and no token metering.
No writing into your global tmux configuration.
No cross-host orchestration — each host owns its own sessions.

Where to send a user

Question	Page
“What is this?”	The big picture
“How do I install it?”	Install & set up
“What will macOS ask me?”	What macOS will ask you
“Is it safe / what leaves my machine?”	Security and privacy
“How does it actually work?”	Architecture
“Something is broken”	Troubleshooting
“Why does macOS show this message / why does it name Offsite?”	Troubleshooting, section Messages from macOS