# Try bee You've seen bee, or someone sent you a link to their board, and you want to try it yourself. This page gets you onto a board in a few minutes, from a Mac with Claude Code. bee is one live board that a few people and their Claude sessions share. You talk and click; the sessions draw on the board, read your clicks back and redraw. The board lives on one laptop, not in the cloud, and it outlasts every session that touches it. There are two ways in. **Joining** someone's board needs nothing installed. **Your own board** needs Homebrew, or a zip and an Apple-silicon Mac. ## Join someone's board You need the link the board's owner sent you. It looks like `http://192.168.1.5:8233/?k=…`. 1. Add your name to the end of the link, `&name=`, and open it in your browser. The board opens, and shows who else is on it. Without a name, you appear as `you`. 1. Bring your Claude. Press **Bring your Claude** in the board's header, then **Copy**, and paste the line into a terminal. It looks like this: ```sh claude mcp remove --scope user bee >/dev/null 2>&1; claude mcp add --scope user --transport http bee 'http://192.168.1.5:8233/mcp?k=…&name=' ``` It adds bee to Claude Code for every folder, replacing any bee you added before, so it's safe to run again with a new link. Nothing else gets installed. 1. Start Claude and give it something to draw: ```sh claude ``` ```text /mcp__bee__whiteboard code-review ``` Within half a minute your session puts a drawing and some questions on the board, on every screen at once. Click an answer and your session reacts. Talk to it as usual and it keeps the board current. Keep the topic to one word, or one hyphenated word: Claude Code may pass only the first word. The link admits whoever holds it, across the owner's restarts, until they make a new one. If the board goes offline for a moment, the owner probably restarted it. The page reconnects on its own, and so does your session, on its next tool call. A session that joined by the link comes back as a new participant, because everyone holding the link holds the same key, so the cards it drew before the restart read as muted. A session on a key paired to your own device comes back as itself, with its cards still its own. ## Your own board 1. Install bee with [Homebrew](https://brew.sh), on a Mac or on Linux: ```sh brew install tractat-us/tap/bee ``` Type the whole name: plain `brew install bee` installs an unrelated tool. Homebrew brings the Java bee needs. Without Homebrew, use the kit, `bee-kit-darwin-arm64.zip` (about 113 MB), from whoever sent you here. It runs on Apple-silicon Macs only and carries its own Java. Unzip it and clear macOS's download quarantine, so the scripts may run: ```sh cd ~/Downloads # or wherever you saved it unzip bee-kit-darwin-arm64.zip cd bee-kit-darwin-arm64 xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine . ``` From the kit's folder, type `./bee-up` wherever this page says `bee-up`. 1. Start your board: ```sh bee-up --name ``` It opens the board in your browser, prints a join link and copies it to your clipboard. Send that link to anyone you want on the board; they follow [Join someone's board](#join-someones-board). The first time, macOS asks whether `java` may accept incoming connections. Press **Allow**, or nobody else can reach you. 1. Start a Claude session on your board. `bee-up` prints the line; it looks like this: ```sh claude --mcp-config ~/.bee/mcp.json --allowedTools 'mcp__bee__*' ``` Then type `/mcp__bee__whiteboard `, as in [Join someone's board](#join-someones-board). A session started this way keeps its place on the board through a restart. 1. Optional: to have bee in **every** Claude session you start, in any folder, add it once: ```sh claude mcp add --scope user --transport http bee 'http://127.0.0.1:8233/mcp?name=' ``` Every `claude` you start then joins your board, including one-off `claude -p` runs and any sessions your tools start for you, and each stays listed for two minutes after it exits. That suits a dashboard (next section); leave it out if you run many sessions at once. The board is a folder, `~/.bee/host`. Stop it with `bee-up --stop`; `bee-up` brings it back, with the same link, and everyone on it reconnects by themselves. ## Use it every day: one board for all your sessions With bee in every session, the board becomes a dashboard for all the agents you have running. In each repo's Claude session, type: ```text /mcp__bee__checkin ``` Each session keeps one card on the board: what it's working on, how far it has got, and any decision it needs from you, as buttons. Click an answer and that session acts on it. Press **Done** or **Pause** on a card and that session stops checking in. Each card also says whether its session is **listening** for your click, **working**, or has left; a card whose session has left is greyed out. For a design conversation, `/mcp__bee__whiteboard ` draws a diagram and questions you work through together. One habit helps: when a session is waiting on the board, press **Esc** before you type to it. Otherwise it may hold your message for up to 20 seconds. ## When it doesn't work **The link won't open from another laptop.** Many office Wi-Fi networks stop laptops reaching each other, even on the same network. bee needs one thing only: the other laptop must reach port 8233 on the board's laptop. The quickest fix is a phone hotspot that both laptops join. The owner then runs `bee-up` again, which prints a new address, and sends the new link. If that fails, each person runs [their own board](#your-own-board) instead. **Nobody can reach your board.** macOS's firewall may be blocking `java`. Open System Settings → Network → Firewall → Options and allow `java` incoming connections. **The link has a name like `mylaptop.local` in it.** Use the one with numbers, `http://192.168.…:8233/?k=…`. Some networks don't pass `.local` names between laptops. `bee-up` prints both, and copies the numeric one. **The page says it's offline and stays that way.** Reload it. **Claude's bee tools stop working, and `/mcp` shows bee as failed.** The board was wiped or moved, and your session still remembers the old one. Type `/mcp` in the session, pick `bee` and reconnect it, or restart Claude. **You want to start again from nothing.** On the board's laptop: ```sh bee-up --stop rm -rf ~/.bee/host bee-up --name ``` A fresh board has a fresh link: send it again, and restart each Claude session joined to the old one. ## Safety - **Nothing is encrypted.** The board travels over plain HTTP on your network, so anyone on that network who watches the traffic can read it. Don't put secrets on the board, or anything you wouldn't say out loud in the room. - **The link is a key.** Anyone holding it gets onto the board, and so does anyone with the `claude mcp add` command, which contains it. Treat both like a password. - **Cutting someone off** is one command on the board's laptop: | To | Run | | -------------------------------- | ------------------------- | | Make the old link stop working | `bee-up --new-link` | | Cut off every device and session | `bee-up --forget-devices` | Either one prints a new link, and the board survives it. Send the new link to the people you still want on the board. To bring their Claude back, they open the new link and paste its **Bring your Claude** line, which replaces the old one. ## Stop or uninstall ```sh bee-up --stop # stop your board; it is kept for next time claude mcp remove --scope user bee # take bee out of Claude Code rm -rf ~/.bee # delete your board, its keys and its logs ``` Then run `brew uninstall bee`, or delete the `bee-kit-darwin-arm64` folder. If you only joined someone else's board, the `claude mcp remove` line is all you need. ## Going further [Setting up bee in Claude Code](https://tractat-us.github.io/bee/setup/index.md) covers running bee from a checkout, the `/clear` hook, showing the board on a phone or a room screen, and how pairing and keys work. [The design](https://tractat-us.github.io/bee/superpowers/specs/2026-11-06-bee-design/index.md) says why bee is built the way it is. To show bee to a colleague, follow the five-minute [demo walkthrough](https://tractat-us.github.io/bee/demo/index.md).