Desktop
What is on the computer's screen: the top bar, where windows go, the job observer, the Activity window and a terminal of your own.
A guide to Hotline Computer · Reviewed 2026-11-02 · Markdown
The desktop is laid out so you can see what the agent is doing at a glance: its app on the left, its jobs on the right, and the state of the machine in the top bar.
Top bar
The 40px bar starts with the Hotline mark, the agent's name and its current
job. HOTLINE_COMPUTER_AGENT names the agent; otherwise the latest named MCP
client does. Window pills show each app's icon and title: click to focus,
right-click to close.
The right side shows the stored-secret count when there is one, the jobs
(no jobs · 0 done, 2 running · 5 done, 1 failed · 2 running), and
agent at work, agent idle or amber you're driving. The jobs chip opens
the job list. A tray appears when an app uses one, then the clock in TZ
(UTC otherwise).
The mark opens a menu:
| Key | Opens |
|---|---|
| B | The browser |
| T | A terminal of your own |
| O | The agent's job observer |
| V | Recent activity |
| A | About |
Layout
Apps fill the work area inside 16px gutters, with a painted ring and a
subtle shadow; HOTLINE_COMPUTER_GUTTER=0 makes them edge to edge. The
observer and Activity take the right third, split 60/40 when both are open,
and windows tile keeps the same gap. Window operations verify the focus,
geometry or disappearance they asked for, and a refused one reports the
windows that remain.
Observer
The observer is a terminal window in the bar's colours that shows the agent's jobs without anyone typing into it. Each job is a block headed by its label, or its command line when it has none, with its id, start time and directory underneath, and a ✓ or ✗ line naming it again when it ends. Closing or reopening the observer never stops a job.
Jobs keep 4 MiB of output each and report truncation; the newest 64 are
kept and 16 run at once. Cancelling or a deadline kills the job's process
group. After a restart, unfinished jobs are marked interrupted and are not
resumed.
Activity
V opens the newest 500 completed tool calls from
~/.hotline/activity.jsonl, each with a short redacted target and a ✓ or ✗.
It leaves out typed text, scripts, file contents and command lines. The file
lives in the agent's home and the agent can edit it, so it is a display, not
an audit log.
Your terminal
T opens an interactive bash in the bottom third of the right column, so it never covers the agent's app: for signing in to something or unblocking a stuck step. It starts in the workspace with the environment the agent prepared there. What you type is not a job: it is not kept, and the agent sees only what is on the screen.
It is the system's bash with Hotline's own rc file, rewritten to
~/.hotline/bashrc each time it opens. Your own ~/.bashrc runs after it.
From there, hotline-computer prepare --packages go gopls prepares the
workspace by hand, and hotline-computer packages lists common Nixpkgs
names. ~/.local/bin, ~/go/bin and ~/.cargo/bin lead the PATH, so what
you install for yourself runs by name.
There is no file manager: a folder, from the browser's Show in folder,
xdg-open or hotline-computer open DIR, opens as a fresh terminal in it.