buddi
Before anything that matters
They check with you first.
Each helper only gets the tools its job needs. Sending an email, moving a meeting, paying for anything: it stops and asks, on your Mac or on your phone, and nothing happens until you say so.
What it looks like
7:30, Sunday.
You didn’t ask. Your morning helper works on its own schedule, on the computer that runs buddi.
- 1Read the sources you picked. Including the ones closest to home: Washington and Paris this morning, and nothing from the sites you muted.
- 2Boiled it down. Five stories, a sentence each, grouped by topic. Two minutes to read, or a minute to listen to on the way out.
- 3Remembered what you already know. Sunday’s story picks up where Saturday’s left off; nothing repeats.
It works while your Mac is awake; the morning edition is ready when you are. A closed laptop catches up when it opens.
Around the house
Talk to them, or just look.
Chat, the Canvas where they work, rooms for a job, and the pages your helpers bring.
Who does what
Everyone has a job. You’re the boss.
Start with buddi: ask it anything, it answers or hands the job to the right helper. Add helpers for the parts of life you’d like help with. One approval each, and you can let any of them go.
Your mornings and your week
Chief of Staff“Your 10:00 moved to 10:30; I told Ana. Friday’s review is still unconfirmed, want me to chase it?”
The news that matters to you
Anchor“Morning edition: five stories, two from Paris.”
Dinner and the shopping list
Chef“Leeks and eggs left. Quiche tonight? Shopping list for the weekend is in your files.”
Letters, replies and first drafts
Writer“Here’s a shorter version of your email to the landlord, same points, half the words.”
More on the team page: CFO, Coach, Tutor, Travel Planner, Home Manager, Researcher… Or describe a job in your own words and buddi writes a new helper for you to approve.
Explore the teamAlso in the box
They can use a browser.
Their own, or yours with permission, and your Mac when a task needs it. Every click that matters comes to you first.
They find a way.
A tool missing, an API down: they try the browser, ask a colleague, check your connections, and come to you only when they are stuck.
Here or anywhere.
On your Mac at home, on your phone from the train. Trusted access keeps it private, no port forwarding.
They remember and learn.
What you told them, what you decided, the skills they picked up along the way.
They work together
Ask once. The right teammates pitch in.
You don’t need to know who does what. Tell buddi what’s on your mind and it brings in whoever can help, like a good front desk would.
They remember.
Your preferences, your people, where you left off. You don’t repeat yourself.
They work on a schedule.
The morning edition at 7:30, a recap on Sundays. They show up without being asked.
They follow through.
Connected to your mail, calendar and files, so a plan turns into a draft, a reminder, a list.
Where things are
Your data lives on your Mac.
Conversations, memory, files, passwords: in a private database on your computer. No buddi servers hold your stuff, and there is no tracking. Here’s exactly where things go.
Stays on your Mac
- Every conversation, your helpers’ memory and files, your backups, your passwords (in the Mac’s own keychain).
- No buddi account, no usage tracking.
Shared, when you use them
- The AI you chose (ChatGPT, Claude or Google) sees the context it needs for each request, that request only.
- Telegram, if you connect your phone.
- The services you connect: your mail, your calendar.
- A daily check asks npm which version is newest, and sends nothing else.
- withbuddi.com, for the list of helpers and plugins when you browse them.
Want nothing to leave the Mac? Pick a local model (Ollama) and your requests stay home too.
Get buddi.
Download, open, and buddi walks you through five short steps: your name, which AI, what to take on, your phone, your assistant. About five minutes.
Say hello.
Your name and your time zone.
Pick an AI.
Sign in with ChatGPT or Claude, paste a key, or start free with a cloud model.
Choose what it takes on.
Mornings, mail, money, voice. Each one adds a helper.
Connect your phone.
Scan a code; the morning edition lands there.
On Windows.
Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit, and Windows 11 on ARM. One setup file: it installs for you alone, needs no administrator, and brings the app with its window and tray icon.
It is not signed yet, so Windows warns you once. Edge may say the file is not commonly downloaded: keep it. Then “Windows protected your PC”: choose More info, then Run anyway.
Download for WindowsOn Linux.
Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and most others, Intel or ARM. One line in a terminal: it brings its own Node and database, needs no sudo, starts with the computer and opens the dashboard.
wget -qO- https://withbuddi.com/install.sh | shcurl -fsSL https://withbuddi.com/install.sh | shThen, for a window and a tray icon, the desktop app. It opens the buddi that line installed. The .deb is for Ubuntu 22.04 or newer and Debian-likes; the AppImage for the rest.
The install guideAsk a friend to set it up.
Someone comfortable with computers can install it for you in ten minutes; after that you never touch the terminal.
Email them the stepsEarly access: expect rough edges, and tell us about them.
Questions people ask
Short answers. The docs have the long ones.
Is it really free?
Yes. buddi is open source and asks nothing. The AI you choose bills you as usual; with the free cloud model or a local model, nothing at all.
Do I need to be good with computers?
No. Download, open, follow five steps. If you’d rather not, ask a friend: the page above has the steps to send them.
What happens when my Mac is asleep?
Nothing runs. The morning edition is made when the Mac is awake; a closed laptop catches up when you open it. A spare Mac mini or a small Linux box makes it always-on.
Does my data leave my machine?
Conversations, files, memory and passwords stay in a private database and vault on your computer. When a teammate uses a remote AI, the context it needs for that request goes to the provider and model you chose; pick Ollama and even that stays home.
Which AI does it use?
The one you pick, teammate by teammate: Anthropic, OpenAI, Ollama on this computer, or any OpenAI-compatible service. Bring an API key, or sign in with a Claude or ChatGPT subscription you already have.
Does it run on Linux, Windows or my phone?
It runs on a Mac, on Linux and on Windows 10 or 11, each with a desktop app. It reaches you on your phone through Telegram, so the phone needs nothing installed.
What can my helpers do without asking?
Read: your news, your mail, your calendar, the web. Anything that sends, changes or spends stops for your approval, every time or once, as you decide.
Is it finished?
No. It’s early access and changes every few days. Updates arrive inside the app and ask you first.
I installed buddi with npm. Can I switch to the Mac app?
Yes, and nothing moves: the app uses the same data folder and the same keychain entries. Open buddi.app; it notices the npm copy running in the background and asks “Run your buddi from the app?”. Take Over stops that background service and runs the same buddi, with your agents, chats, settings and passwords where they were. Afterwards remove the npm copy whenever you like: npm rm -g @withbuddi/buddi.
And the other way, from the app back to npm?
Quit buddi.app and move it to the Trash. Then install the package and start its service: npm install -g @withbuddi/buddi, then buddi service install. It finds the same data folder and carries on. The same path moves a buddi to a Linux box: buddi backup create here, restore there.
How does buddi update?
When a new buddi is out, the app’s menu and Settings → System show “Update to …” with the notes; one click installs it, verified against the signed release, and restarts buddi between tasks. The app itself updates through Sparkle. From npm it is the same button in Settings → System. If you installed the app with Homebrew (brew install withbuddi/tap/buddi), brew upgrade buddi works too.
Is the Mac app safe to open?
It is signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so macOS opens it without a warning. Everything inside is the same open source buddi published on npm, with its provenance recorded on GitHub.
Can it write code?
It can, but that is not what it is for. buddi runs your days the way a good team runs an office: mail, money, calendar, errands, the web. For a codebase, use a coding tool. buddi will happily talk to one.
