OPEN ALAN
Cloud brain. Private Mac tools. Stock Hermes.
Your agents live on your VM, reach into your Mac while it's awake, and keep
working when the lid closes. One conversation on Telegram, a fleet that
never sleeps — built on the Hermes you already run.
OPENALAN IS A COMPANION, NOT A FORK.
A removable layer around a stock Hermes install: native plugins, hooks,
skills and MCP — no patches to the agent, no second cloud brain, nothing
you can't uninstall.
The VPS stays the authoritative mind — transcript, memory, cloud work. The Mac exposes only what you approve, over a private connection you already trust. Close the laptop and the work doesn't die; it routes home to the VM and keeps moving.
TELEGRAM, THE GATEWAY
Message it from any device — it never breaks. The most consistent front door for Hermes, with bot feedback and signals built in.
ONE HOME, MANY WORKPLACES
Bots live on your VM and borrow your Mac while it's awake. Close the lid — cloud work keeps going; Mac-scoped jobs wait visibly, never silently re-homed.
AGENT BROWSER
Real Chromium tabs each bot drives with a named, colored cursor — page tints while it works. Take over revokes its input instantly; give to agent hands it back.
WINDOW INTO THE MACHINE
A noVNC viewer floats over the workspace — watch the VPS desktop live, or take control with real mouse, scroll and keys. Paste only when you click it.
NATIVE PROACTIVITY
An optional plugin gives your existing primary initiative — reviews memory, tasks and watches, then picks one useful action or stays silent. Bounded: quiet hours, daily caps, pause/resume.
STOCK HERMES, NO FORK
Companion + gateway only. Your Hermes stays upstream — upgrade it freely, remove the layer freely.
THE BOUNDARY IS THE FEATURE
Each bot drives only its own tabs, under a named cursor you can see. Take a tab back and the bot can no longer read it. A handoff that lands on a login waits for you and never carries passwords. SSH with pinned host keys; a local-only API behind a token. You can always see, stop and take back what the agent is doing.
┌──────────────┐ ┌────────────────────┐ ┌───────────────────────┐
│ TELEGRAM │ │ VPS · HERMES │ │ MAC · BROWSER │
│ phone · mac │ ──────> │ brain + transcript │ ──────> │ bot tabs · your tabs │
│ one convo │ <────── │ cloud execution │ │ take over any time │
└──────▲───────┘ └─────────┬──────────┘ └──────────▲────────────┘
│ │ SSH · verified │
│ Web A: the same │ host keys │ browser-MCP:
│ chats inside the app │ │ bot drives
│ │ noVNC desktop stream │ local Mac tabs
│ │ (watch · take control) │
│ ▼ │
│ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────┘
└─────────────> │ MAC DESKTOP APP │
│ same chats · agent Chromium tabs · │
│ VPS desktop viewer │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Agent-run setup — your coding agent follows the guide and stops for the few clicks only you can make. Needs an Apple Silicon Mac with Node 20+, and a Linux VPS running Hermes 0.21+ with Node 22+.
PLATFORMS · LINUX VPS BRAIN × MACOS LOCAL — APPLE SILICON BUILD
SOON · INTEL MAC · WINDOWS · LINUX LOCAL
Hand your agent the setup guide. Point it at openalan.com/setup — it installs the Mac app, the VPS browser and the Hermes plugin, checking each stage.
Make three clicks. Sign in to Telegram in the app, turn on Remote Login, and join the Mac to Tailscale. The agent pins the VPS-to-Mac SSH key.
Message your bot. setup.sh --verify proves the VPS side; then ask the bot to open a page and watch its cursor appear in your app.
Set up Alan's Way for me by following https://openalan.com/setup
curl -fsSL https://openalan.com/install-mac | sh
| OPEN ALAN | GROKBOT | MUSE | HERMES (STOCK) |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open source, self-hosted | ◆ | — | — | ◆ |
| Runs on your own VM | ◆ | — | — | ◆ |
| Message it from any device | ◆ | ◐ | ◐ | ◐ |
| One brain, many workplaces | ◆ | ◆ | — | — |
| Drives real browser tabs on your Mac | ◆ | ◐ | — | ◐ |
| Watch & control the VPS desktop | ◆ | ◐ | — | ◐ |
| Cloud work survives a closed laptop | ◆ | — | — | ◐ |
| Bounded proactivity (quiet hours, caps) | ◆ | ◐ | ◐ | — |
| Least-privilege local tools | ◆ | — | — | ◐ |
| Skills · hooks · MCP extensibility | ◆ | ◐ | — | ◆ |
"Grokbot, Dot, Muse, or Instinct can never beat this."
— the launch