Buzz

by Block (Jack Dorsey)

An open-source, self-hostable Slack-and-GitHub-style workspace, built on the Nostr protocol, where
humans and AI agents are first-class participants in the same channels. Apache 2.0, free. The closest
thing in this category to Anthropic’s Claude Tag pattern (shared channels, scoped agent
identity) but multi-provider, multi-human, and self-hosted rather than a single-vendor enterprise
feature.

Overview

Buzz unifies chat, Git activity, and workflow events into a single signed event log on a self-hostable
Nostr relay (Rust). Messages, reactions, code patches, reviews, approvals, and workflow steps are all
the same kind of event, giving a complete audit trail across human and agent activity in one place.
Built by Block (Jack Dorsey’s company, also behind the Goose coding agent).

Identity and permissions — the core idea

Coverage consistently flags this as Buzz’s most distinctive contribution, ahead of the decentralization
angle:

• Keypair-based identity — created locally, stored in the system keychain; no email/password
  account model, no recovery flow
• Agents get their own cryptographic identity plus a second signature linking them back to the
  human who authorized them — Block calls this “chain of custody”
• Owner attestation for Git access — agents inherit push rights from the human who owns them, and
  lose access automatically if that owner is removed
• Portability — agent identities aren’t locked to a single vendor’s account system

Multi-player, multi-agent, multi-provider

• Multi-player: humans and agents share the same channels natively — demonstrated live with a
  4-human, 2-AI-agent voice huddle (agents responded in text to avoid interrupting the conversation)
• Multi-agent: unlimited agents per workspace, each with persistent memory, assignable to roles
  (code architect, reviewer, backend/frontend engineer, etc.); agents can debate or hand off work to
  each other directly in-channel without custom glue code or MCP wiring
• Multi-provider: “Buzz ACP” bridges to agent clients via the Agent Client Protocol, so different
  harnesses — Codex CLI, Claude Code, Goose, Grok — can share the same workspace; setup involves
  connecting to a relay, adding a harness, and choosing a default model/harness per agent

Setup

• Install the desktop app (or self-host a relay — one-click deployments demonstrated on Hostinger VPS
  with relay, Postgres, Redis, and media storage)
• Back up the local keypair/secret key — there is no account recovery
• Connect a harness (Codex CLI, Claude Code, Goose, etc.) and pick a default model
• Mobile client available, syncs with desktop

Known limitations (early-stage, as tested)

• Huddle/voice feature is buggy: participant lists misreport, huddles sometimes show as ended
  incorrectly
• Agent responses in voice contexts are text-only and add latency, breaking conversational rhythm
• Early product — coverage frames it as a first serious attempt at agent identity/authorization more
  than a polished daily-driver yet

Competitive position

Explicitly benchmarked against OpenClaw and Hermes Agent (several videos
titled “RIP OpenClaw, Hermes”) and against Grok Bot on ownership/control grounds — Buzz
trades Grok Bot’s zero-setup convenience for self-hosted data ownership, model choice, and native
multi-human collaboration.

See Also

• Multiplayer AI — the category this note’s “multi-player” section is an instance of
• Grok Bot
• Hermes Agent
• OpenClaw
• Claude Tag — Anthropic’s single-provider, enterprise-only take on the same
  shared-channel-with-agents pattern