Your own AI agent

The recurring
work, handled.
Every time.

Herald is a personal agent that runs dependable, scheduled Jobs and chats from your phone. It's the reliable, agent-style automation everyone wants from Claude — built on the Claude subscription you already have, running quietly on a Mac you own.

Leave a Mac running — even an old one. No big specs, nothing in the cloud.
Herald
Lisbon trip, 3 days
Plan a 3-day Lisbon trip in October — good food, some history, not too touristy.
Here's a draft. Day 1 — Alfama walking loop, lunch at a tasca, sunset at Miradouro da Graça. Day 2 — Sintra (book Pena early). Day 3 — LX Factory + Time Out Market. Want me to add these to your calendar?
Checking October weather…
+
Message
Jobs
☀️
Morning Briefing
Weekdays at 7:00 AM
Active
𝕏
X Highlights
Every day at 7:00 PM
Active
🎧
Podcast Digest
Sundays at 8:00 AM
Active
📈
Portfolio Watch
Weekdays at 4:30 PM
Active
📥
Inbox Triage
Every 2 hours
Paused
Standup Notes
Tap to configure
Setup
+
New job — “summarise my unread Slack each morning”
What it does

One agent. Two ways to use it.

Chat with it like a colleague, or hand it a schedule and let it run on its own. Everything happens on your machine, with full access to your tools.

Jobs that actually run

“Summarise my inbox every weekday at 7am.” Herald runs it on schedule, does the work in the background, and logs the result — reliably, the way recurring agent tasks are supposed to work.

💬

Chat from anywhere

A native iOS and Mac app with streaming replies, attachments, and pinned threads. Start something on your phone, finish it on your desktop — same conversation, same context.

🧩

The Claude you already know

One model you know and love — and every skill, plugin, MCP server and customization you've set up works here, unchanged. It reads files, runs scripts, searches the web and calls APIs, just like Claude Code on your desk.

🔔

Notified when it matters

A push the moment a reply lands — tap straight into the conversation. Background Jobs stay quiet and tuck their results under Jobs, so there's no notification noise.

✉️

Its own email inbox

Give Herald an email address of its own and it sends, receives and replies by itself — full two-way email, something Claude alone can't do. Fire it an instruction from any mail app and it writes back.

🔒

Entirely yours

Runs on hardware you own, reached privately over your own network. No third-party service sits between you and your agent, your chats, or your files.

Jobs

Set it once. It just keeps happening.

Describe a job in plain English and Herald works out the schedule, the prompt, and the tools. A few people run every day:

☀️
Morning Briefing
WEEKDAYS · 7:00 AM

Pulls overnight email, today's calendar, and unread Slack DMs into one tight digest, waiting on your phone before coffee.

📈
Portfolio Watch
WEEKDAYS · 4:30 PM

Checks your watchlist at close, flags anything that moved more than 5%, and notes the likely catalyst with a source.

🎧
Podcast Digest
SUNDAYS · 8:00 AM

Grabs the week's new episodes from your favourite shows, transcribes them, and writes operator-grade takeaways.

📥
Inbox Triage
EVERY 2 HOURS

Labels what's new, drafts replies for anything that needs one, and leaves them in your inbox ready to send.

𝕏
X Highlights
DAILY · 7:00 PM

Reviews your day on X — best posts, notable replies, who to follow up with — and suggests three threads to write.

🧑‍💻
Standup Notes
WEEKDAYS · 9:00 AM

Reads yesterday's git commits and closed issues and turns them into clean, ready-to-paste standup bullets.

How it works

A small server on your Mac. Your phone talks to it.

The backend drives the Claude you already use. Your phone reaches it privately over Tailscale — no ports opened, nothing exposed to the public internet.

1

Your Mac runs Herald

A lightweight server sits in the background and runs Claude for each chat and Job. An old Mac mini is plenty.

2

Tailscale links your devices

A private mesh between your phone and your Mac. Encrypted, peer-to-peer, no public endpoint to attack.

3

Apps on iPhone & Mac

Native apps stream replies, schedule Jobs, and deliver push notifications through Apple's network.

4

Uses your Claude

It signs in as you, so it works with the Claude subscription you already have — nothing new to set up.

What you'll need

Set up once in an afternoon.

Herald is self-hosted, so there are a few one-time pieces. None are exotic — and once it's running, it stays out of your way.

🖥
Required

A Mac left running

Any Apple-silicon Mac that stays on. A second-hand Mac mini is ideal — low power, silent, set-and-forget.

Required

A Claude subscription

Pro or Max. You run claude login once and Herald works with that — the subscription you already pay for.

🔗
Required · Free

Tailscale

Free for personal use. Install it on your Mac and your phone, sign in once, and your devices find each other privately from anywhere.

🔔
Only for push

An Apple Developer account

$99/yr — needed only if you want push notifications. The apps run without it; this is simply what lets Herald ping your phone when a Job finishes or a reply lands.

# 1 · point it at the Claude you already use
$ claude login
✓ Signed in — using your Claude subscription
# 2 · start Herald (runs on boot, stays out of the way)
$ herald start
✓ Server on :4123 · Tailscale: your-mac.tailnet.ts.net
# 3 · open the app, scan the pairing code, done
✓ iPhone paired · 6 Jobs scheduled
Straight answers

The honest fine print.

How is this different from Claude's own scheduled tasks?

Same goal, far more dependable. Built-in routines tend to skip or stall; Herald runs your Jobs on a real scheduler on your own machine, with full tool access and a record of every run — so they actually happen, on time.

Do I need a separate API key?

No. Herald works with the Claude subscription you already log into — you run claude login once and it uses that. Nothing new to sign up for.

Who can see my data?

Only you. The server runs on your Mac, your phone reaches it over your private Tailscale network, and your chats and files never touch a third-party box. Anthropic sees prompts exactly as it does when you use Claude normally — nothing more.

How powerful a machine do I need?

Barely any. The heavy lifting is Claude itself; Herald is a thin wrapper around it. An idle M-series Mac mini sips a few watts and handles a full slate of Jobs comfortably.

Is this like Hermes or OpenClaw?

Same idea, and they're self-hosted too. The difference is Herald is just Claude — the one model you already know and love — so every skill, plugin and customization you've set up works unchanged. No new framework to learn, no second model's quirks. Plus dependable Jobs and full email built in.

Herald

Give yourself an agent.

Leave a Mac running tonight. Wake up to a briefing tomorrow.

Read the install guide →