I built Outerloop – manage your Macs as a Claude Code fleet from one dashboard

Developer Phyo Lim launched Outerloop, an open-source tool that turns Macs into a fleet of Claude Code workers managed from a single web dashboard. The system lets users file coding tickets from any device, which are then executed by agents on remote machines, with automated code review and manual merge approval. Outerloop addresses the problem of not having the right development machine at hand by enabling asynchronous, agent-driven coding workflows.

Outerloop turns the Macs you already own into a small fleet of Claude Code workers, managed from one web dashboard. One always-on Mac is the hub : it holds the ticket queue, the scheduler, and the dashboard. Any other Mac joins as a worker . A single Mac is a complete fleet — the hub does its own work too. The problem it solves: the machine that can do the work is usually not the machine in front of you. The desk Mac has Claude Code logged in, the repos cloned, git/gh configured. When you think of a fix from your phone or another laptop, the options were remoting in — screen sharing or SSH into an interactive session, slow and awkward from a phone — or writing it down to copy-paste later. With outerloop you file a ticket from wherever you are and a capable machine at home picks it up. You come back to a PR. The unit of work is a ticket, and the ticket is also the record: an agent writes code on a branch using the ticket as context, a second agent reviews it author and reviewer are separate; the reviewer cannot merge , and the PR references the ticket. Merges require manual approval in the dashboard, and failing CI blocks a merge even after approval. Machines find each other on your LAN by Bonjour, or through an outbound SSH tunnel to a cheap VPS when you're away. No VPN, no OAuth, no cloud service. Everything happens in the web dashboard at http://<hub .local:8765 : Inbox — your home. Whatever is waiting on you approvals, questions, failures sits at the top; what the fleet is doing right now is below it. Board — every ticket, Jira-style. Create tickets here press c , filter by status, drill into any ticket's thread. Fleet — your machines: online/offline, what each is running, pause/resume, pairing, budget. Activity — the full log; every action is recorded with a why. A coding ticket walks this path on its own: you file it → triaged & prioritized → agent writes code on a branch → a second agent reviews it ≤3 rounds → PR opens once it's stable → you approve the merge → merged, done Along the way the agent may pause to ask you a question — answer in the ticket thread and work resumes with your answer. At the merge gate you see the PR link, diff stat, and CI status; Approve & merge , Request changes your note goes straight to the agent for another pass , or Reject to stop. You can also add a note to any ticket at any time to steer its next run. You approve every merge. Agents only propose; the decision queue is the sole path to anything irreversible. Failing CI blocks a merge even after you click approve. The author never reviews its own work , and the reviewer has no way to merge. Nothing runs away. Per-ticket and fleet-wide token budgets, per-run timeouts, a hard cap on review rounds, and a one-click kill switch that stops all new work. Get pinged, not surprised. Set a notify URL outerloop config notify url https://ntfy.sh/<topic and your phone buzzes for every decision, failure, and junk-parked ticket.- A LAN-exposed hub always locks itself: worker auth on, and a dashboard password self-generated and shown once if you don't set one — outerloop status recalls it . Install the menu-bar app — it's the smoothest way in. It's signed + notarized, and it does the whole setup for you dashboard password, service start, pairing : brew tap phyolim/tap brew trust phyolim/tap one-time, required for the cask brew install outerloop CLI + service brew install --cask outerloop-app the menu-bar app Open Outerloop from the menu bar and pick what this Mac is: Hub + Worker — the usual choice on your first or only Mac: it holds the queue and dashboard and does coding work itself. Worker — every other Mac. Its popover lists hubs on your network — click Join , it shows a 6-character code, type that code on the hub's Fleet page. Paired. Hub — rare: a hub that only coordinates and never codes. That's it. The dashboard opens from the menu bar, or at http://<hub .local:8765 . One hub, any number of workers. Any Mac doing coding work also needs claude Claude Code CLI, logged in , gh authed , and git commit identity set — the app checks all of it on first launch. Python ≥ 3.9 the built-in /usr/bin/python3 is enough; zero pip installs. Prefer the terminal? headless hubs, no GUI Skip the cask; after brew install outerloop , tell the Mac its role yourself: first / only Mac — hub that also codes: outerloop setup-both && brew services start outerloop setup-hub = coordinate-only every other Mac — a worker: outerloop local role worker outerloop local hub url http://<hub .local:8765 brew services start outerloop outerloop status prints the dashboard password; outerloop doctor checks the claude / gh / git toolchain. Pair a CLI worker from the hub: outerloop token <worker-name <secret , then on the worker outerloop local worker <worker-name and outerloop local token <secret , and restart it. Install the app on it, pick Worker , and use its Join button above — that's the whole pairing. What each worker is allowed to work on is set by its capabilities , edited live on the hub's Fleet page. The hub can dial out to a cheap VPS over SSH so you can reach the dashboard from anywhere HTTPS + password — no port opened at home. That walkthrough, plus the zero-touch .pkg installers for a managed fleet, lives in deploy/README.md . - Models: cheap models do the trivial work, capable ones the deep work triage → Haiku, review → Sonnet, author → Opus . Override with --models "author=opus" or OUTERLOOP MODEL <ROLE . - Personas: give agents identities and specialties — like staffing a team. Drop a markdown file in the hub's agents/ data dir "a fintech-savvy author for banking- projects", "a food-delivery UX reviewer for food- " and tickets route to the matching specialist by project. See prompts/agents/README.md . - State lives in ~/Library/Application Support/outerloop — one store shared by the CLI, the daemon, and the app. Run one hub per machine , and don't mix a brew-services hub with a .pkg hub on the same box. - Upgrade: the menu-bar app updates itself; for the CLI/service, brew upgrade outerloop && brew services restart outerloop . - Uninstall: brew services stop outerloop brew uninstall outerloop brew uninstall --zap --cask outerloop-app rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/outerloop state — only if you want it gone FAKE mode — the default from a clone — simulates the agents and GitHub, so the whole loop runs end to end with nothing installed but a Mac's own Python: git clone https://github.com/phyolim/outerloop && cd outerloop python3 -m outerloop init python3 -m outerloop serve dashboard at http://127.0.0.1:8765 python3 -m outerloop tick advance the loop second shell; run repeatedly File a ticket, tick a few times, watch it reach the merge gate, approve it, tick again — merged. That's the whole product in miniature.