Download for Mac · test build
Try Octopus on your Mac. A test build, for invited offices.
While it's being tested, the Mac app goes to the offices I've invited, and each one gets its own code. You download one small file, double-click it, and it builds Octopus on your Mac. Here's everything it does, and what it doesn't do yet.
Downloads are switched off right now
If I sent you an invite, write to me and I'll switch them back on.
No invite yet? Ask for one, or paste a message into the Try box to see what it would pick out, in your browser.
On your Mac
What happens, step by step.
Before you start
- A Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or later), on macOS 14 Sonoma or later.
- An administrator account on it, and about 2 GB of free space.
- The office's OpenRouter key: one long line that starts with sk-or-v1-. I'll send it to you if you don't have one.
- Some time. I haven't timed it on a Mac yet: expect several minutes to build, plus up to half an hour more if your Mac first needs Apple's developer tools.
Open the zip.
Safari opens it for you. You get a folder called Install Octopus, with the installer in it.
Double-click Install Octopus.command.
Your Mac will stop it the first time, because this test build isn't signed by Apple yet. On macOS 15 or later: open System Settings, then Privacy & Security, scroll down and click Open Anyway, then enter your password. On macOS 14: Control-click the file, choose Open, then click Open. If your Mac then asks whether Terminal may use files in your Downloads folder, click Allow: the installer's files are there.
Install Apple's developer tools, if it asks.
If they're not on your Mac, a window from Apple asks to install the command line developer tools: click Install, then Agree. That's Apple's own installer, and only once. Octopus is built with them.
Paste the AI key.
When it asks, paste the office's OpenRouter key, twice. Nothing shows while you paste. It goes in your Mac's Keychain, never in a file.
Wait while it builds.
It downloads Node.js from nodejs.org, checked against the fingerprint Node.js publishes, builds Octopus, tests it and puts it in your Applications folder. There's nothing to click.
Turn on one switch.
Octopus opens and your Mac asks for your OK to let it read the text in your windows. Click Open System Settings, turn on the switch next to Octopus, then go back and click Check again. Its Desk opens.
This test build
What it does, and what it doesn’t do yet.
What it does
- It reads the text of the window you're working in, not pictures of your screen. It never reads password fields, or the apps and websites on its never-read list: password managers, Messages, Keychain Access, Terminal, personal messengers it finds installed, apps that call themselves finance, health or social, and banking, payment, health, password and messaging websites.
- It keeps what it reads on your Mac, in a hidden folder only you can open. Passwords, keys and codes it recognises are swapped for stand-ins before anything is kept.
- When a window names a day and a promise or a request, it sends that short piece of text, with passwords and codes removed, to an AI model online, through OpenRouter, on hosts that keep no copy. The Desk lists every piece it sent. Once a day's pieces have cost $1, it sends nothing more that day.
- It keeps one List: what you owe people and what's coming, each with the sentence it came from.
- Pause is in the menu bar. While it's paused, nothing is read.
What it doesn’t do yet
- Nothing goes on your calendar yet. The calendar part for the Mac isn't built, so Hold it on the List doesn't reach your calendar.
- There's no guided setup and there are no notifications yet. The installer does the setup.
- It doesn't do any work for you, send anything, or learn your tasks.
- It doesn't start by itself after a restart, unless you double-click Start Octopus when this Mac starts in the installer's folder.
- It isn't signed by Apple yet, which is why your Mac stops the installer the first time.
To stop it or take it off
- To pause, click in the menu bar, then Pause. Quit Octopus is in the same menu.
- To remove everything, double-click Stop and remove Octopus.command in the installer's folder. It quits Octopus, removes it from Applications, removes the AI key from your Keychain and the startup entry if you made one, and asks before deleting what it kept. Then open System Settings, Privacy & Security, Accessibility, select Octopus and click the minus button.