handful

A handful of bots that stay.

Handful is an open-source app for your Mac or Linux machine. Each bot keeps its own chat, memory and routines. Put a few in a team, and a lead decides what they do next. Handful runs Claude Code on your own subscription.

Download for macOS Read the code first

For Apple silicon and Intel. Needs Claude Code 2.1.319 or later, signed in.

Linux, or build from source 
git clone https://github.com/yarlson/handful.git
cd handful && mise install && make build
./bin/handful

Building needs mise. Then open 127.0.0.1:7777.

Built by its own bots. 100 pull requests merged, as of 11 November 2026.

A bot is a chat, a memory and a folder. It keeps all three from one conversation to the next.

Close the chat and come back next week. The bot still knows what you told it, still has its files, and ran its routines on schedule. Before it runs a command or changes a file, it asks.

Builder asks before it edits a file: Allow Builder to use Edit? with the change to todo.md, and the buttons Allow once, Always allow Edit and Deny

  • Memory

    Facts from you or the bot, kept across conversations.

  • Routines

    A prompt on a schedule, in your local time.

  • Skills

    Saved procedures that every bot can run.

  • Approvals

    A bot asks before it runs a command or changes a file.

Rooms put several bots in one chat. An @mention hands the work to the next bot.

Members answer one at a time, so each one sees the earlier replies. Here, four bots ship a change: one writes it, one reviews it, one fixes it and one merges it.

A room: Implementer, Reviewer, Fixer and Merger ship a change by mentioning each other

  • Mention to wake

    @Name wakes one member. @here wakes them all.

  • One at a time

    Members answer in order, so nobody talks over anybody.

  • No chatter

    A bot's message wakes only the bots it mentions.

  • Busy bots catch up

    A member that works elsewhere answers when it is free.

Bots can be a handful. So every team has a lead who decides.

Every task lands in the team's inbox, whether it comes from you, from another team or from a member. The lead takes it, asks the sender a question, puts it off, passes it to another team or pushes it back with a reason. Then the lead splits the task into steps, and the members do them.

The Web app team's inbox: a task from you to decide by 14:30, and a task from Mobile whose clock is paused while Web Lead waits for an answer
The Support team's Work tab: its task Write a guide for the CSV export is pushed back, with Web app's reason, this belongs to the Docs team
Across teams: Needs you asks to approve that Add a CSV export to reports is done, and the Web app team works on Save report filters per user

You see one list, Needs you: results to approve, decisions a lead missed, and budgets that ran out.

  • A lead

    Every task goes through the inbox. The lead has 30 minutes to decide. After that, the task comes to you.

  • Steps

    Each step has an owner and acceptance criteria. Steps that do not depend on each other run at the same time.

  • Review

    When the working agreement asks for a check, another member reviews each step before it is done.

  • A daily budget

    Set how many turns a team can use per day. At the limit, it pauses until midnight or until you raise it.

Runs Claude Code on your own subscription. Nothing to sell you.

You install Claude Code and sign in to it yourself, with your Claude subscription or an API key. Handful starts it on your machine for each turn and never touches your login. Handful sells no tokens and adds no fees, and there is no Handful account and no Handful cloud. The rest is a server and a folder on your disk.

What your plan includes is between you and Anthropic.

  • Your subscription

    Each turn runs the Claude Code CLI on your machine, signed in by you.

  • Your files

    The SQLite database and every bot's folder are in ~/.handful.

  • One call home

    By itself, Handful goes online once a day, to look for a new release on GitHub. You can turn that off.

  • One person

    Handful has no login. Use it on a computer that one person uses.

Don't like something? Change it. The code is MIT. 

$ gh repo fork yarlson/handful --clone$ cd handful && mise install && make build$ ./bin/handful

Building needs mise. Then open 127.0.0.1:7777.

  • Change the UI

    React and Tailwind, in ui/. Start the server, then run npm run dev there and edit.

  • Change how bots run

    One Go package, internal/agent, starts Claude Code and gives the bots their tools.

  • Ship your own build

    make app builds the Mac app. The license lets you share it.

Fork it Read the source

Handful builds Handful.

Teams of bots in its maker's own Handful write this app, review it and release it. One person approves what they do.

pull requests merged
100
pull requests merged
releases
18
releases
days, 7 to 11 November 2026
5
days, 7 to 11 November 2026

Reviewed by bots. Approved by a person. Counted on 11 November 2026.

Give your bots somewhere to stay.

Handful is free and open source. Install it, sign in to Claude Code, and tell Builder, the first bot, what you want help with.

Download for macOS Linux, or build from source

Latest release · MIT License