Isolated git worktrees for Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, and Cursor. A kanban of the whole fleet. An orchestrator that can drive it. A phone app, CLI, and MCP so you can reach this machine — without a cloud workspace.
Apple Silicon · auto-updating · CLI and MCP run without the app
Pair from Settings → Remote, then pick a desktop. The phone reaches the agents already running there: the thread, the diff, and the question when one needs you.
Works with the agents you already pay for
Worktrees are the shared primitive. Sideboard is the layer above them: a board you can see, an orchestrator an agent can drive, and remotes so you are not trapped in one window.
Status, live output, and fan-out across every thread. More than one agent can share a workspace, and every workspace sits on one board. Columns follow the work: New, Draft, Review, Approved, Merged.
The orchestrator is an agent too. It can list threads, wait on turns, read diffs, fork worktrees, schedule jobs, and open panes in the desktop. Mechanical control stays on the CLI and costs zero tokens. MCP is for judgment across the fleet.
Pair the Sideboard phone app from Settings → Remote. It lists every Mac you have paired and you choose which desktop to open. Quit the window and leave sideboard serve running if you still want the phone and automations. Agents, repos, and VPN-only APIs stay on that machine. A chat that is waiting on you shows Needs you.
The desktop is one surface. Register the MCP with Claude, Codex, OpenCode, or Cursor and that agent can see the fleet from outside Sideboard. attach drops you into the same session in the native CLI. adopt brings existing worktrees in.
sideboard detect sideboard new --from branch:main --agent claude sideboard send <thread> "add a README note" sideboard diff <thread> sideboard attach <thread> sideboard land <thread>
A worktree chat is repo, agent, and structured data in one view. Artifacts, a JSON Schema rendered as table or form, and the git repo on the far right — without bolting on a CMS.
When Conductor moved the interesting part of a worktree board into a paid cloud, Sideboard began as an open port of the local loop. Then came the pieces that still belong on this Mac: an orchestration tier, a kanban of the fleet, a phone app so you can reach it from somewhere else, and CLI / MCP so other systems can drive it — without moving the repo off the network you already sit on.
Conductor is the polished Mac board (and a $50/mo cloud). Orca is the agent IDE — terminals, browser, mobile. Sideboard is the local orchestration layer both of those leave on the table.
| Job | Typical tools | Sideboard |
|---|---|---|
| Run N agents in isolated worktrees | Conductor, Orca, IDE agents | Yes — on this Mac |
| Orchestrate the fleet, agent-visible | Human board, or a cloud API | MCP + global board, local |
| Stay on the corporate VPN | Cloud sandboxes leave it | Agents run as you, here |
| Reach it from other systems | Product app, or cloud MCP | CLI, MCP, phone to this Mac |
| Reach it from your phone | Cloud app or shared workspace | Pair the phone, pick the Mac |
| Keep going when you step away | Always-on sandbox | Phone + opt-in caffeinate |
| Drop into the native CLI | Weak, or one-way | attach keeps the session |
| Bring existing worktrees in | Stuck, or start over | adopt + Conductor import |
The Mac is the runtime. Everything else is a remote. Register MCP once and any of your agents can see the fleet. The phone app is how you get in when you are away from the desk. The CLI is how you script it.
List, send, diff, land — zero tokens. sideboard detect reports the harnesses on your PATH.
claude mcp add --scope user sideboard -- sideboard mcp — then that agent can orchestrate from outside the app.
Pair from Settings → Remote, then pick Work or Personal. Agents never leave that Mac.
Pair it from Settings → Remote. Name each Mac. The phone lists those desktops and you pick which one to open. What stays here: agents, worktrees, repos, and secrets — including anything only reachable on the VPN. What leaves: a routing token and ciphertext. The relay cannot read the prompt.
The machine has to stay awake — Settings → Advanced → Caffeinate while the phone remote is connected. Pair a phone →
Conductor’s free Mac app is a polished human board around local worktrees. Their paid product is cloud sandboxes, multiplayer, a cloud API, and a mobile app. Sideboard keeps orchestration on this machine: MCP, a kanban, a phone app to the Mac, CLI. Use Conductor if you want their finished workspace UI or always-on Vercel sandboxes. Use Sideboard if the fleet should stay on the VPN you already sit on.
Orca is an agent development environment — terminals, embedded browser, design mode, many CLI agents, mobile companion, Windows and Linux. Sideboard is not trying to be an IDE. It is the orchestration tier: a board, an agent that can drive other threads, and remotes (phone, CLI, MCP) so you can reach this Mac.
No. Bring the Claude, Codex, OpenCode, or Cursor subscriptions you already have. Sideboard is Apache-2.0. The desktop and CLI are free. You are not renting a sandbox from us.
No — that is the cloud-sandbox trade. The phone and automations reach this Mac only while it is awake. Opt in to caffeinate from Settings → Advanced (or from an orchestration chat) when you step away. If you need always-on off-VPN compute, Conductor Cloud and similar sandboxes are the fit.
Yes. npm i -g @sideboard-ai/cli ships the CLI and the stdio MCP server. The desktop is the board. The phone app talks to that desktop.
You already run several local CLI agents on a Mac — especially one on a corporate VPN — and you want an orchestrator you can see, an agent can drive, and a phone app, MCP, or the CLI can reach. Extra fit when the agent produces structured content or HTML that should sit next to the diff.