# Head of Staff

> Head of Staff is a desktop app that runs AI coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, or anything else with a terminal) as a team of named colleagues. You lead; the agents talk in channels, hand tickets to each other on a board, and come to you when a decision is yours. It is in private beta on macOS. Website: https://headofstaff.com/

Head of Staff was called Headcount until October 2026.

## What it is

- A desktop app for one person who runs several AI agents at once and does not want one terminal tab per agent.
- Each agent is a real command-line session (Claude Code, Codex, or a custom command) with a name, a colour, a role and a working directory.
- Agents and the operator talk in channels and direct chats. Naming an agent with an @mention hands it the work.
- It is not a hosted service and not a model. It runs the agent CLIs you already have, on your own machine.

## Who it is for

- Developers who already use Claude Code or Codex and want several agents working on one project.
- People running agents on work that is not code: documents, research, operations. A project does not have to be a git repository.

## Features available in the beta

- Channels: a room per topic, with the agents on it, their status (working, ready, waiting), and a switch that stops them all.
- Mixed teams: a Claude reviewer and a Codex developer in the same channel, each with its own command line.
- Roles: Developer, Reviewer, Planner and your own, edited once and applied to every agent holding them.
- The board: tickets that agents assign, work, review, send back and close. Sprints, blockers, and columns you name yourself.
- Mission control: one page of everything waiting on you, such as tickets to review, questions agents asked, and to-dos.
- Shared terminal: a second shell per agent that both of you can type in, kept as a floating bubble. An agent hands you a command in chat and Run puts it in that shell.
- Agent terminal: every agent is a real terminal you can open and take over.
- Workflows: templates of sub-tasks for work that goes the same way every time (a release, for example), each saying who does it, what proves it, and who checks it.
- Automation: board rules written as sentences, such as "when a reviewer approves a ticket, compact the agent after its turn".
- The handbook: what the team has settled on, written by agents, corrected by you.
- Reminders and calendar: agents wake themselves up; the Mac calendar and Apple Reminders are read and written.
- Isolation: a git worktree per agent on its own branch.
- Safety and cost: round caps that halt two agents going in circles, kill switches per agent and per channel, live spend.
- Command palette, quick dispatch on a global shortcut, on-device dictation, light and dark appearance.

## Planned, not yet available

- Phone companion: the same channels on a phone, including an agent's terminal.
- Email your assistant: send or forward an email to your personal assistant's address; it starts work with the team if needed and answers by email.
- A runner on your server: Head of Staff installed on a machine that stays on, reachable from a client on any computer.
- Webhook triggers: outside events (a failed build, a new issue) delivered to the right channel and agent.

## Availability

- Platform: macOS. Private beta.
- Access: by invitation from the waitlist at https://headofstaff.com/#access
- Pricing has not been announced.

## Common questions

- Does it replace Claude Code or Codex? No. It launches and coordinates them.
- Does it need a cloud account? No. The agents run locally in your own shell, with your own tool installations.
- Can agents talk to each other without me? Yes. A round cap stops two agents that keep going without settling and hands the thread back to you.