Tidebreak mark

Tidebreak

A local-first agentic coworker you can configure without limit. Choose your files and model. Walk away with a spreadsheet, deck, or working app.

Website · User documentation · Latest release · Contributing

Tidebreak is a local-first desktop agent for work that ends in a file, not just
a chat response. It can read attached documents, work in explicitly connected
folders, run code in a sandbox, search the web, delegate parallel jobs, and
publish anything it creates as a versioned output.

You choose the model route: Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, xAI, OpenRouter, a local
Ollama daemon, or another OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Conversations can switch
providers without starting over. Credentials stay in the operating system's
credential store, while chats and outputs remain in the local Tidebreak
profile.

The website is the product overview. The
user documentation covers installation,
configuration, permissions, connected folders, code execution, outputs, and
the headless CLI.

[!WARNING]
Tidebreak is pre-1.0 and changing quickly. Interfaces and local data formats
may change between releases, and profiles may be rebuilt rather than
migrated. Packaged releases are currently macOS-only; Windows and Linux can
be built from source.

Features

Area	What it does
Chat	Voice input, local or cloud. Queue a follow-up or steer the live turn. `@` attaches files and folders; `/` attaches a skill or saved prompt. Turns, approvals, and questions survive a restart. An inbox collects anything waiting on you.
Documents	Attach any file. Office, PDF, images, and text open in native viewers; other formats fall back to extracted text when they can be read. Source pills jump to the page, line, sheet, or cell. No vector index: the agent reads bounded ranges directly.
Outputs	Files written to `output/` are versioned by filename. Restore is append-only. Plotly charts stay interactive. The agent can write back into a connected folder; replacing an existing file always asks.
Models	ChatGPT Plus or Pro, an API key (Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, xAI, Fireworks, Together, OpenRouter), or a local OpenAI-compatible endpoint including Ollama. Switch mid-chat. Keys stay in the OS credential store.
Execution	Native macOS sandbox, local Docker, E2B, or Daytona. Per-chat network policy. Background agents one level deep. Built-in or configured web search (Exa, Tavily, Brave, SearXNG). Computer use: screen capture and consent-gated control of native apps.
Permissions	Plan, Ask, Auto, or Allow all, per chat. Folder access is per capability from a native picker. Standing grants are revocable. Overwrite of a connected file always asks.
Extensions	Built-in skills for Word, PDF, PowerPoint, spreadsheets, and charts; add your own. MCP servers over stdio or HTTP. REST APIs from an OpenAPI document, for local apps. Ask once for a mini-app and keep it in the sidebar.

Run from source

Install the pinned Rust toolchain, pnpm, the
Tauri 2 prerequisites, and CMake
(used by the local voice engine). Then, from the repository root:

scripts/dev.sh

That installs the desktop UI dependencies and opens the app. See
CONTRIBUTING.md for formatting, tests, and
platform notes, or
crates/tidebreak-desktop/README.md for
the native and browser-based UI workflows.

The headless server uses the same core runtime:

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-... cargo run -p tidebreak-cli -- serve

See the headless documentation for
one-shot mode, HTTP API, MCP server, configuration, and self-hosting.

Repository guide

Path	Purpose
`crates/`	Rust workspace: agent runtime, providers, server, CLI, sandboxing, MCP, and desktop host
`crates/tidebreak-desktop/ui/`	React frontend embedded by the Tauri desktop app
`docs-site/`	Source for the public user documentation
`docs/`	Maintainer architecture, contracts, operations, plans, and decision records
`skills/` and `plugins/`	Bundled artifact skills and plugin manifests
`deploy/self-host/`	Self-host deployment assets

Start with docs/how-tidebreak-works.md for an
end-to-end technical tour or docs/crates.md for the
workspace map. docs/README.md indexes the rest of the
maintainer documentation.

Contributing

Tidebreak is built in the open. Bug reports, focused fixes, and design
discussion are welcome. Read CONTRIBUTING.md before
opening a substantial change. Decisions that future work must preserve live in
docs/decisions/.

License

Apache-2.0. See LICENSE, NOTICE, and the
contributor license agreement.