A persistent terminal workspace for people, agents, and the tools they build together.
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Bee turns a terminal into a durable desktop. Shells, managed coding agents, standalone applications, approvals, and threads share one workspace while remaining separate processes with explicit authority. The executable embeds the desktop and its default apps, so an existing installation can start offline; Hub access is optional. Run one Bee on its own, or join multiple Bees into a Hive to coordinate work across workstations, servers, and compute nodes.
Important
Bee is an alpha. The planned first public release is 0.1.0a, using the
semantic version v0.1.0-alpha.1. Expect sharp edges and evolving contracts.
Published alpha releases ship for Linux and macOS on amd64 and arm64.
curl -fsSLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wippyai/bee/v0.1.0-alpha.1/install.sh
sh install.sh --version 0.1.0-alpha.1
rm install.shThe installer selects the platform archive, verifies its SHA-256 checksum, and
atomically places bee in ~/.local/bin. You can instead download a checksummed
archive from GitHub Releases.
Open a project directory and start Bee:
cd my-project
beePress F1 for Start, Alt+Tab to switch apps, F11 to maximize, and Ctrl+Q to detach. F12 replaces the presenter while admitted applications continue running.
| Surface | What it provides | |
|---|---|---|
| ⌁ | Desktop | Retained layouts, themes, multiple displays, controller and read-only observer attachments |
> |
Terminal | Native interactive programs with the operating-system user's authority |
| ✦ | Agents | Claude, Codex, Agy, Grok, and Muse profiles with scoped MCP, hooks, durable threads, and recovery contracts |
| ◫ | Apps | Independent terminal applications with typed messages, owned state, services, migrations, and optional UI |
| ◆ | Overlays | Durable staged edits that move through review, approval, apply, and restart recovery |
| ⇄ | Coordination | Threads, Timeline, subscriptions, Inbox, Approvals, and scoped agent-to-agent launch |
| ⬡ | Hub | Read-only package inspection plus host-authorized planning, installation, migration, and receipts |
Launch a managed agent directly, or choose a saved profile from the Agent app:
bee claude
bee codex
bee agy
bee grok
bee museA profile selects a harness, isolation mode, options, persistent instructions, and an MCP ceiling. Each turn supplies its own prompt and dynamic context. The host resolves executables and credentials, then admits the exact launch under its current policy.
Multiple Bee nodes form a Hive. Each Bee keeps authority over its own workspaces and databases while the Hive carries authenticated presence, typed messages, approved projections, application coordination, and desktop attachments between nodes. A client can connect to the Hive, see its Bees, and work with an admitted remote workspace without turning local SQLite files into one shared database.
flowchart LR
C[Desktop client] <--> H[Hive]
H <--> A[Bee · workstation]
H <--> B[Bee · server]
H <--> D[Bee · GPU node]
Joining the transport does not grant application, workspace, or package authority. Each destination still applies its own admission, approval, and resource policy.
An admitted agent can search Bee's offline platform corpus, inspect installed components, author a declarative application in a durable overlay, request review, and deliver the frozen result. Governance owns the persistent edit, approval, activation, and recovery state; the agent never needs direct registry publication authority.
Applications can expose functions, services, traits, database migrations, threads, and terminal views. That makes workflows such as a test runner with a live metrics UI possible without adding feature-specific machinery to Bee's core.
flowchart LR
C[Desktop client] --> W[Workspace host]
W --> T[Terminal]
W --> A[Managed agents]
W --> P[Standalone apps]
A <--> R[Threads and approvals]
P <--> R
H[Hub packages] --> G[Governed overlays]
G --> P
Registry metadata describes capabilities; it does not authorize them. Packages declare what they provide, the host selects what may run, and each owner keeps its own state and migration ledger.
A workspace can outlive the terminal presenting it. From another terminal:
bee desktops
bee observe
bee attach WORKSPACE DISPLAY
bee observe WORKSPACE DISPLAYOne display controls input and resize; observers are read-only. Detaching a client leaves admitted applications running. Supported applications may restore from their checkpoints after restart. A native Terminal process is deliberately not treated as a portable checkpoint.
Local workspaces, retained desktops, attachments, configured multi-node Hives, managed agents, Hub inspection and installation, governed overlays, approvals, and durable threads are the implemented foundation. Public Hive enrollment and discovery UX, destination-to-destination Hub transfer, managed Docker launch, and automatic cross-node reconnect are still being completed.
See the desktop guide, agent MCP guide, Hub guide, and overlay guide for the exact callable contracts and current limits.
Building requires Git, Go 1.27.0, a C compiler, and the platform development tools documented in native distribution.
make setup
make check
make standalone BEE_VERSION=0.1.0-alpha.1
./dist/beeDevelopment loads the root and selected components' src/ trees. make native-pack
creates one checksummed WAPP for bee/bee and every physical dependency, plus a
source-free local deployment. The standalone executable embeds that same exact
pack set and the two small native boundaries Bee needs for host launch facts and
operating-system I/O events.
| Source | Owner |
|---|---|
src/core |
Workspace, application, desktop, client, and storage lifecycle |
src/apps |
Bundled standalone application processes |
modules/application/src |
Public application SDK and shared presentation values |
modules/gateway/src |
Managed-agent gateway bindings, hooks, and MCP adapters |
modules/gov |
Overlay authoring, review, activation, and recovery |
modules/hub |
Package inspection, planning, apply, migration, and receipts |
modules/threads/src |
Durable records, subscriptions, and delivery |
modules/docs/src |
Offline documentation protocol and read-only corpus facade |
modules/placement-native/src |
Native launch attempts, receipts, materialization, supervision, and cleanup |
modules/sync/src |
Owner-local synchronized projections and immutable replica storage |
modules/node/src |
Authorized native-node descriptions and appearance defaults |
native |
Generic application launch facts and OS I/O events |
Start with the agent guide and development conventions. The application contracts, package boundaries, and ownership map describe the implemented model.
Bee-owned code and artwork are MIT. Wippy retains MPL-2.0; dependencies retain their own licenses.