Getting started
MeshBoard turns machines you already own into a working mesh: they do real work — code, research, long-running jobs — using the AI accounts you already pay for, and everything comes back with proof. Setup is one sign-in, one command, about ten minutes.
What you need
- One machine that's usually on — a Mac, a Linux box, a PC, a NAS. More can join later; one is enough to start.
- An AI account the machine can use: a Claude or ChatGPT subscription signed in on that machine, or an API key. MeshBoard adds no per-token cost on top — your accounts, your rates.
- A phone or browser for the other end.
1. Sign in
Go to app.meshboard.ai and create your account. You land on your mesh — empty for now. That page is the product: your machines will appear there as stations, and the work moves between them as light.
2. Add your first machine
Open Mesh → Add a machine. You'll see a one-line installer command, scoped to your account — copy it, run it in a terminal on the machine you're adding. It downloads the agent, pairs the machine to your mesh, and starts it as a background service. No configuration file, no ports to open.
Within a minute the machine appears on your floor with a live status. The
agent's log lives at ~/.meshboard/agent.log on the machine if you ever want
to watch it think.
3. Give it a way to work
The agent works through the AI tools on that machine. If Claude Code or Codex is already signed in there, the mesh can use it immediately — the credentials never leave the machine, and nothing routes through us. That's the design, not a promise: your AI accounts sign in on your devices, and MeshBoard orchestrates locally.
4. Ask for something
Press Ask (or / on a keyboard) and describe the work the way you'd
text a colleague — "fix the RSS feed on my site", "summarize what changed in
this repo this week". Your mesh picks it up, a light starts moving, and you
can watch or walk away. When it's done you don't get a "done ✓" — you get
the artifact, the receipts, and the trail.
Where to go next
- Set up local AI — put a GPU machine to work with local models.
- Your first ask, in depth — how routing decides which machine works.
- Troubleshooting — real failure modes and their fixes.