Quickstart · about 5 minutes

From zero to a team of agents.

Install MootDeck, drop a terminal on the canvas, rope two agents together, and let them coordinate over the mootdeck CLI. No account, no API key — your agents run on the tools and subscriptions you already have.

  1. 01

    Join the waitlist

    Builds are not publicly downloadable yet. Join the launch waitlist and we’ll send the installers as soon as we publish first public builds.

    Get notifiedBuild access at launch

    Current availability is soft-launch / waitlist only. We will open public downloads when we publish the first release.

  2. 02

    Launch & create your first terminal

    MootDeck opens on an infinite canvas — pan by dragging the background, zoom with the scroll wheel. On first run a welcome panel lets you open a terminal or start from a team template. Any time after, hit Add terminal in the left toolbar and a live terminal node drops onto the canvas.

  3. 03

    Start a CLI agent inside it

    A terminal node is a real shell — run whatever you'd run in your own terminal. Start a coding agent, for example Claude Code:

    $ claude

    Any CLI tool works — full-screen TUIs render correctly. Your agent authenticates with its own account: MootDeck itself needs no API key and adds no billing.

  4. 04

    Add a second terminal & rope them together

    Add another terminal, then click the Route tool in the toolbar and click each of the two nodes — a rope is drawn between them. That rope is the permission model: only nodes joined by a rope can see or reach each other.

    Visibility is one hop and non-transitive — if A is roped to B and B to C, A still can't reach C. You get exactly the topology you draw, and the bundled CLI does not cross a connection you did not make.

  5. 05

    Talk across the rope

    Inside any terminal, the bundled mootdeck CLI reaches the neighbours you've roped to. List them, peek at a screen, or send a prompt and wait for the reply:

    $ mootdeck list Backend · roped · working $ mootdeck check "Backend" # peek at its live screen $ mootdeck ask "Backend" "are the tests green?"

    Every call is topology-gated — list, check and ask only ever see your direct neighbours. ask returns once the target's screen has settled, and warns you when it's waiting on input. Fan one prompt out to several agents at once with ask --batch.

  6. 06

    Share notes & recruit a team

    Sticky notes are shared Markdown files that every roped agent can read and write — the team's scratchpad, always in sync on the canvas. And you can spawn a new agent that's already connected to you:

    $ mootdeck note write "spec" "## Plan - wire the rope - ship it" $ mootdeck recruit "Scout" --command claude ↳ spawned Scout, roped to you

    Give a recruit a persona with --role, or pick a launch preset with --preset. A recruit with no command is a fresh copy of your own shell. That's the whole loop — recruit, rope, coordinate.

FAQCommon questions

Good to know.

01What are the system requirements?

macOS 10.15+, Windows 10+, or Linux with WebKitGTK 4.1. MootDeck is a native desktop app — no separate runtime to install.

02Do I need an API key?

No. Your CLI agents sign in with your own accounts, so MootDeck never sees a key and never bills you for model usage.

The optional built-in assistant, Mooty, is the only part that talks to a model — and it can run fully local via Ollama (zero egress) or point at your own hosted key. It's opt-in; the canvas works without it.

03Does my data leave my machine?

MootDeck itself does not send your terminal contents, notes, canvas layout, or API keys to us. Some egress can still happen: the signed update check, the waitlist, optional crash reports, hosted Mooty calls you configure, and whatever network access your CLI agents already use. Details in the Security model and Privacy Policy.

04Which CLI agents work?

Any CLI program. MootDeck isn't tied to one vendor — Claude Code, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, aider, or a plain shell all run as terminal nodes and can drive the mootdeck CLI.

05How much does it cost?

Free during beta. Early users keep a permanent advantage when paid pricing arrives — get in now and it stays with you.

06How do updates work?

A built-in, signed auto-updater. MootDeck checks for new releases, verifies the signature, and lets you install with a click — no reinstalling by hand.

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