Skip to content
Arugula

How Arugula works

Arugula has two kinds of computer in it. A machine runs your terminals and agents. A device is what you use to look at them and answer them. A small background service on each machine, the daemon, keeps everything running whether or not anyone is looking.

How Arugula fits together Your devices (a browser, the desktop app, a phone, the CLI) reach the daemon on each of your machines either through Arugula control, which relays end-to-end encrypted traffic, or directly over your tailnet. Each daemon runs that machine's sessions, tabs, panes and blocks. Your devices Browser Desktop app Phone CLI, agents (through MCP) Arugula control accounts, devices, and a relay that can't read what it carries Your tailnet a direct path, if you use Tailscale (optional) or Your machines arugulad (the daemon) sessions › tabs panes: terminals, agents and other blocks history, restart settings another machine its own daemon
Every connection between a device and a machine is end-to-end encrypted. Arugula control passes it along when there's no direct path; it never holds the keys.

The words these docs use

Section titled “The words these docs use”

Where things run

Section titled “Where things run”

These name the computers and services involved.

  • Machine: a computer that runs the Arugula daemon and your terminals: a laptop, a desktop, a server, a container.
  • Daemon (arugulad): the background service on each machine. It owns that machine’s terminals and agents, keeps their history, and brings them back after a restart or a reboot.
  • Device: something you use Arugula from: a browser, your phone, the desktop app’s window, the arugula CLI. On Arugula control, each device has its own key.
  • The machine’s page: the web interface the daemon serves on the machine itself, at http://127.0.0.1:7681 (open it with arugula web). It shows that one machine.
  • Arugula control: the hosted service at control.arugula.io where your account, devices and teams live. Control’s page is the web interface it serves: every machine on your account, reached directly or through its relay, end-to-end encrypted. Getting started calls it Cloud. See Arugula control.
  • Tailnet: your Tailscale network, if you use one. It’s an optional way to reach your machines directly.

What you see

Section titled “What you see”

These name what’s on the screen.

  • Session, tab, pane: a session is a set of tabs; a tab is split into panes; a pane holds one terminal or one other block. See Panes and sessions.
  • Block: anything that sits in a pane: a terminal, an agent, a web page, a dev server, VS Code, a diff, a file, a pull request or an issue. See Blocks.
  • Agent block: an agent (Claude Code, Codex or another ACP agent) shown as a chat-like UI instead of a terminal. An agent can also run in an ordinary terminal pane. See Agents.
  • Card: a request waiting on a person, with buttons to answer it: an agent’s question or permission prompt, a proposed edit, a failed command to rerun, a review asked of you.
  • Needs you: a pane that is waiting on someone (an agent asking, a command that failed, a bell) shows a badge and a reason. The phone’s list of them is called Needs you. See Attention and history.
  • The swarm and the rail: the swarm is one view of every pane on every machine you can see; the rail is the column of cards beside it.
  • Menus: the session menu is under the session’s name in the top bar; the host menu is under the machine’s name at the left of the top bar; the account menu is under your name (⚙ when you’re not signed in) at the right of the top bar. On a phone, the ☰ button opens the sheet, which holds the same things.
  • Getting started: the guide that opens the first time, with a step each for your phone, Arugula control and agents, then Things to try. It’s in the account menu afterwards, next to What’s new. See Getting started and What’s new.

Who may do what

Section titled “Who may do what”

These name the kinds of access people have.

  • Owner: the person whose machine it is. They reach everything on it.
  • Watches and drives: the two kinds of access you give other people to a session or a team. Someone who watches sees the panes; someone who drives may also type, answer agents and send them follow-ups. The CLI and the MCP tools call these viewer and editor. See Teams.
  • Private pane: a pane only its owner sees, whatever else is shared.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”
  • Install Arugula on your first machine.
  • Follow the Quickstart to answer an agent from your phone.