Computer use: how Nebula works with your computer

Let agents work on your own computer. Turn on computer use, choose what they can reach, and add this computer to a channel.

With computer use on, agents can use your files, the tools you've installed, and anything only your computer can reach. It stays yours: you decide which workspaces and channels can use it, and you can take it back at any time.

Ways Nebula works with your computer

Turn it on

Open Settings → Preferences → Computer use and pick one:

You can also turn it on while adding a device. In the add-device dialog, choose This computer and set Keep running when Nebula is closed. On keeps the helper running until you log out; off stops it when you quit Nebula. Then click Enable this computer.

Choose what agents can reach

The same settings page decides how far it goes. Its folder and access rows show even while computer use is off, greyed until you turn it on.

Add this computer to a channel

A channel's agents work on the channel's devices. When you create a channel on desktop, the Computer row starts on New cloud device, made for the channel when you create it; click Use this computer to use yours instead. See Devices for managing a channel's devices after that.

If the channel is visible to the whole workspace, Nebula checks with you first, because everyone who can use the channel will be able to start work on your computer. Agents in the channel can run commands on it, and their file tools can read and change files in your working folder and anywhere else your Access setting allows. Click Share this computer to go ahead. A private channel doesn't ask, because you chose who's in it.

You can take the computer out of the channel, or turn computer use off, at any time.

Share it with teammates

Your computer stays private to you unless you add it to a shared channel or name people who can use it. To name people, open Settings → Workspace → Devices and open your computer. Under People with access, "Your computer stays private to you. Anyone you name here can run work on it." Add teammates and click Save access. A device is never shared with the whole workspace.

Only you decide who's on that list. Workspace admins can't grant access to your computer for you.

Agents that live on your computer

An agent set up to run on your own computer is yours alone - only you can run it, you can't share it with the workspace, and nobody can add it to a channel, you included. If it's a coding agent or another external agent, it answers you in every channel: tag it anywhere and it works on this computer. Other members can't add it or run it. Work nobody typed never runs it in a channel (see Work nobody started). For an agent others can use, create it on a cloud device and share it. An app agent, which drives one app here, can't move: it stays private to you, and you hand it work in your Nebula DM.

How often you're asked

When an agent wants to act on a device, a task can stop and ask you first with a card in the chat. A command or file action outside the folder you allowed gets Approve and Deny. An action that needs your consent on that device also gets Always allow, which remembers your answer for that device, so you aren't asked again. For more on approval cards, see Tasks.

To set or review those answers ahead of time, open Settings → Account → Profile and scroll to Device access - "Choose when computer control needs approval. Device access and system permissions still apply." Each row names a device and the kind of action: Read data, Take actions or Computer control. Only Computer control has the frequency choices below. Reading data and taking actions do not use a frequency once computer use is on.

You don't have to wait for a card to interrupt you: setting a row here is the same grant that ticking Always allow on a card gives you, made in advance. One approval covers the whole kind on that computer, not just the one tool - which is why the card names the kind rather than the command.

None of this covers work nobody started from Nebula. A scheduled task, a monitor, a message from Slack or email, or another agent asks the computer's owner before every command unless they turned on Let scheduled work run on this computer - see Work nobody started below.

Any other answer you've saved has Remove to take it back. A device you can no longer reach keeps its row with a Remove button too, so you can take a grant back from a computer you've retired.

Work nobody started

On someone's own computer, work that nobody started from Nebula asks before it runs a command. That covers a scheduled task or monitor, a message that arrived from Slack or email, and another agent handing work over. Instead of running, the task pauses on a card addressed to the computer's owner - only they can allow it (see Tasks). Cloud devices never ask.

If you want your own scheduled work to run on your computer without stopping, open Settings → Workspace → Devices, open the computer, and on its Settings tab turn on Let scheduled work run on this computer under Scheduled work. It's off for a new computer, and only the owner can change it. It covers your own runs only: work that belongs to a teammate still asks you each time. Always allow on a card in a chat you're watching doesn't carry over to this either.

Knowing when an agent looked

When an agent takes a screenshot or reads your clipboard through computer use, your system shows a notification - Nebula took a screenshot or Nebula read your clipboard - and a screenshot also briefly outlines every display. You get at most one notification of each kind every 30 seconds, so a burst of screenshots doesn't flood you.

From the terminal

The nebula-ai CLI can run the same helper, which suits a server or a computer without a screen. See Computer use from the CLI.

Common questions

Related