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 Code, Codex, Grok Build and Kimi Code — 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 machine seat. 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.
See closing the tab.
What machine do I need?
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.
How much does it cost?
Individual is $20 per connected machine monthly, or $15/month billed annually.
Your first machine is free for seven days with no card — one machine, for
that week. 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 currently needs macOS, Debian or Ubuntu;
Windows cannot currently be the host.
There is no app of ours to install. Any modern browser opens the same
machine — phone, tablet or laptop — and they can all be open at once. Each
device 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 the Teams plan, and you decide who and at what level. See
who may open what.
Is it open source?
No — beafk is proprietary, the program on your machine as well as this service,
and it needs an account and a paid machine seat to run. 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: a self-hosted control
plane is an Enterprise conversation, 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 the first machine is free for seven days with no card —
connect one.