Questions people ask
The ones asked before signing up, answered straight.
Why not just use the CLIs in a terminal?
A terminal gives you sessions. beafk gives you a persistent control room: one
job can be split across several CLIs, the work continues after you disconnect,
and diffs, screenshots and questions remain usable from your phone.
The long version is what beafk is.
Are these the official CLIs or API wrappers?
The official CLIs. beafk installs the tools their makers ship and signs them
in with your accounts. We do not wrap them. Skills and tool servers you set
once reach every agent you run.
Claude, GPT, Grok and Kimi — and Codex Security, which does
not chat. See which agents beafk runs.
Do I need all four subscriptions?
No. One supported agent is enough to start. Add the others later, from your
phone. A crew can split a job on one of them; with
more than one signed in, pieces can go to different tools.
There is nothing to buy from us but the machines on your bill.
Every message goes on the subscription you already have with that agent's
maker.
Where does my code go?
Nowhere. Your code, chats, logs, environment variables and agent credentials
remain on your machine. Your browser connects directly to it over your private
network; beafk stores account, access and billing metadata.
Read the full security model →
What happens when I close the tab or lose connection?
The running job continues on your machine. Reopen the same chat later and the
panel reattaches. If an agent stops to ask something, the question is held for
up to twelve hours — and on a paid plan your phone is woken when it is asked
and again when the turn finishes, so you are not the one checking.
See closing the tab.
What machine do I need?
The Mac you are on, if you like — the free app makes it one, and that path
needs no terminal and no private network. Otherwise a Mac, Debian or Ubuntu
machine: a VPS, an office box or a spare laptop. 2 GB
of memory is enough for one or two agents; use 4 GB if you expect to run
several at once.
You own the machine and pay its provider directly. Nothing here can stop,
resize or delete it. See what you need.
Do I need to open a port?
No. The supported setup uses Tailscale, and the machine listens locally rather
than exposing an inbound port to the internet.
See how your phone reaches it.
Is any of it free?
Yes. Local is free on your own Mac: it builds your product, the
terminal and git are there, and a crew works across every CLI you have signed
in. There is a sign-in — one press, so the app knows whose the Mac is — and no
card.
Two things are not on it: writing the pages for your site and writing the
posts, which are afk whole rather than held back at the send; and reaching
that Mac from anywhere but itself, which is what afk means.
beafk on your Mac is the install.
How much does it cost?
afk is one person and their machines: $35 a machine a month billed yearly,
taken as $420 a machine once a year, or $70 a machine a month monthly — with
the first three months at half price, $35. There is no limit on how many
machines.
Business is a workspace with other people in it: $225 a month billed yearly,
taken as $2,700 once a year, or $300 a month monthly, half price for the
first three. That is the price of the workspace and it carries one machine; the
next machine costs afk's price rather than a second base. The people on it are
free — invite as many as you like and nobody is a line on the bill.
Your first machine somewhere else is free for seven days with no card — one
machine, for that week. Your own Mac is not on that clock at all: it is free for
as long as you keep it. Agent subscriptions and the server stay billed by their
providers.
See what it costs.
Does it work on desktop and Windows?
The panel works in a modern browser on phones, tablets and desktops, including
Windows. The connected machine needs macOS, Debian or Ubuntu today; a Windows
machine is being finished and the download page carries the door.
There is one app of ours, and it is for the Mac that is the machine —
beafk on your Mac. Everything else is a browser:
any modern one opens the same machine — phone, tablet or laptop — and they can
all be open at once. Each of those devices does need
Tailscale installed, signed in to the same network as
the machine, and switched on. A wide screen is not the
phone layout stretched — the chats stand in a column of their own beside
the one you are reading. See
your browsers.
What happens if I cancel?
Panel access stops, but the machine, code, chats and logs stay exactly where
they are — on hardware you own.
See when a subscription lapses.
What is cross-device access?
Your phone, your laptop and a colleague's new machine all open the same machine
without anybody walking up to it. Each device holds a key it cannot export, and
the workspace decides who may use it. There is no pairing.
Can several people use one machine?
Yes, on Business, and you decide who and at what level. Invite as many
people as you like — they cost nothing — and then say which machines each of
them may open, and whether they may write. See
who may open what. afk is a plan for one person, so
there is nobody there to share a machine with.
Is it open source?
No — beafk is proprietary, the program on your machine as well as this service,
and it needs an account to run. Free on your own Mac; a paid machine seat for
a machine reached from anywhere else. What stays yours either way is
everything it works on: the code, the chats and the logs are
files on hardware you own, and they are still there if you stop paying. See
legal.
Can I self-host the whole thing?
Your machine already is self-hosted — the agents, the code and the logs never
leave it. What is not is the account and the billing. There is no plan on the
list that self-hosts those, so it is a conversation rather than a button:
hi@beafk.app.
Still deciding: what beafk does not do is every
limit in one place. Ready: what you need is the shopping
list, and on your own Mac there is nothing to pay —
get beafk for Mac. For a machine somewhere else, the first one
is free for seven days with no card:
connect one.