A Mac mini as your AI agent server

A Mac mini at home is a quiet, cheap machine that can run your coding agents all day while you are out. A few settings decide whether it is still reachable tomorrow.

Power and sleep

sudo pmset -a sleep 0 disksleep 0

Then in System Settings enable "Start up automatically after a power failure" (Energy). Without it, one outage while you are away and the Mac stays off until you are back.

Stay logged in

The ShiftStage agent runs in your user session, and its device key is only available while that session is unlocked. The agent keeps the display from sleeping by default, so the screen does not lock on its own — but after a restart the Mac waits at the login window, and until someone logs in, nothing can connect. On a Mac with FileVault that means typing the password after every reboot; plan reboots for when you are home, or decide consciously whether automatic login is acceptable for that machine.

Keep agents apart

One git worktree per task, so parallel sessions do not edit the same files. Name branches after tasks: on the phone, the session list is easier to read when every name means something.

Back up before you automate

Agents working unattended occasionally "clean up" something you wanted. Time Machine plus an off-site copy, and commits pushed often, make that an inconvenience instead of a loss.

Reach it from your phone

From the phone you start sessions, answer agents' questions, read diffs, restart a dead dev server and watch CI — on the same Wi-Fi directly, and from anywhere peer to peer or through an end-to-end encrypted relay. No ports to open on your router, no VPN.

Set it up once

Install the agent on the Mac. A signed, notarised app from our open Homebrew tap. It shares only the folders you name.
```
brew install --cask shiftstage/shiftstage/shiftstage-agent
```
Install the app on the iPhone from the App Store.
Pair them. Scan the code on the Mac's screen and confirm the same words on both devices. No account. The first pairing needs both on the same network.

That is the whole setup: no VPN, no port forwarding, no SSH keys. On the same Wi-Fi the phone talks to the Mac directly; away from home the connection goes peer to peer, or through a relay that forwards only end-to-end encrypted bytes.

Get it

The Mac agent: download page — one Homebrew command or a notarised disk image. The iPhone app: App Store. Free forever for one Mac on your own network, no account; $7.99 a month or $69.99 a year to reach it from anywhere.

More guides: all guides.