Hosted agents

Surfaces: web app (Agents) · desktop app (chat tabs) · CLI (kcap daemon, kcap agent) · your agent (start another agent)

The web app is at https://<your-workspace>.kcap.ai for a cloud workspace; on the local edition the same pages are served from your machine. The desktop app opens it from Help and support → Open dashboard, and kcap local open opens the local one from a terminal

A hosted agent is a coding agent you work with through kcap instead of in a terminal of your own. It runs on a machine you connect: your laptop, a workstation, a shared box. From the browser or the desktop app you give it work, follow its conversation, answer its permission requests, and let teammates do the same. The daemon is the background process on that machine that makes it reachable and launches the agent CLIs installed there

What you can do

Make a machine available. On the machine, with kcap set up and the vendors you want installed and signed in:

kcap daemon start                     # foreground, for a look
kcap daemon service install           # a background service that survives logout and crashes
kcap daemon service status

The desktop app’s setup offers the service for you. Agents in the web app then lists the daemon and the vendors it can launch: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Copilot, Gemini CLI, Kiro, OpenCode, Antigravity, Pi, Muse Code and Grok Build, whichever it found. If a vendor you expect is not in that list, it is not installed, not signed in, or not on the PATH of the machine running the daemon

Launch from the browser. Agents → New agent: choose the daemon, the vendor, a repository the daemon knows (or type a path), a model and effort where the vendor supports them, the prompt, any files, Sharing, and the permission controls. The agent runs in a fresh git worktree on that machine. kcap repos add <path> registers a repository for the picker; a successful launch remembers its path

Launch from the terminal and walk away. On the daemon’s own machine, kcap agent start takes any vendor the daemon lists:

kcap agent start gemini               # in this checkout, attached to your terminal
kcap agent start cursor --worktree -d # in a throwaway worktree, detached
kcap agent ls
kcap agent attach <id>
kcap agent stop <id>

Detach from an attached agent with Ctrl-Q then d. --private runs it without registering it in the web app; recording still happens

Talk to it. Open the agent’s card to read the live conversation, send another message, or type / to pick one of the vendor’s slash commands and skills. Claude and Codex can also show a terminal. Leave and come back; the agent keeps running on its machine

Answer a permission request. A pending request shows in the agent’s card, in the desktop app, and as a notification, including after a reload. For Claude the answers are Yes, Yes, always and No. For Codex, Sandbox & approvals at launch chooses between workspace-write/on-request and the other postures; never means no requests reach the web app. A prompt answered in the terminal is retired from the web app too

Work on one agent together. Set Sharing at launch or change it from the agent view. Anyone with access can send messages and answer requests; each input is attributed to its sender. For a handover, ask the agent to summarise what it changed, tested and left, then let your teammate continue in the same agent. Agree who is directing it so you do not send conflicting instructions

Fork a session from a turn. A fork is a hosted agent started from a point in a stored session; it is done from the session’s transcript, so it lives on the Sessions page

Let an agent start another agent. Ask your working agent to hand a task to a separate hosted agent on your daemon. The started agent is an ordinary hosted agent under Agents, and your agent does not wait for it

Restart the daemon without losing work.

kcap daemon restart --when-idle       # after running agents finish
kcap daemon restart --force           # now; running agents are terminated
kcap daemon status

After a CLI update, macOS and Linux daemons notice the new binary and restart when idle; the desktop app does the same and resumes agents that were running

Launch approvals

Every launch that comes through the server, whether a dashboard agent, a PR review or a flow participant, is checked against the daemon’s own policy before anything runs. The daemon’s owner is always allowed; for anyone else the first matching rule wins, and otherwise the default applies: allow, deny, or prompt, which asks the owner in the desktop app and denies if nobody answers

kcap daemon consent show
kcap daemon consent set-default prompt
kcap daemon consent allow --requester alice --kind review-flow
kcap daemon consent deny --repo '/work/private/*'
kcap daemon consent log

A service installed by kcap daemon service ensure starts with prompt; a daemon started by hand defaults to allow. Every decision is written to a log you can read while the daemon is stopped. Launches you make yourself with kcap agent start bypass the policy

Help me get unstuck

A vendor is missing from the launch dialog. The daemon could not find its binary, or it is not signed in. Install and sign in on the daemon’s machine; set KCAP_<VENDOR>_PATH (for example KCAP_CURSOR_PATH) if the binary is outside the daemon’s PATH; restart the daemon. A service captured its PATH at install, so reinstall it after changing your shell’s PATH

The dialog says the daemon needs an update. The CLI on that machine is older than the feature you are using. Update it there

My launch was refused. The daemon’s launch policy did not allow you. Its owner can add a rule or answer the prompt

The agent is waiting and I did not see a request. Open the card; the request is there. Turn on in-app notifications if you want the bell

The daemon keeps disconnecting. Usually the service’s environment: a sign-in that expired, a PATH that changed, or a consent prompt timing out. kcap daemon logs says what the daemon last saw and kcap daemon doctor checks its environment. If neither points at the cause, The daemon keeps disconnecting in Troubleshooting walks through the checks in order

kcap agent says Unix only. The local kcap agent commands are not available on Windows. Launch from the browser instead