Happy Desktop vs Buzz
Block launched Buzz (source, engineering deep-dive, HN discussion) the day before we first announced Happy Desktop.
We agree on more than we disagree on: open source, nothing hosted for you, agents as first-class participants, and the principle that an agent should never assume a human's credentials. The shapes are different. Buzz is a chat workspace with agents in it. Happy Desktop is a harness around the agents, with people and phones attached to the sessions.
| area | happy desktop | buzz |
|---|---|---|
| what runs the agent | a runtime on your machine (or a machine you choose), with each vendor's native prompts and tools; sessions survive the window and the restart | the relay stores agent profiles but runs nothing; the model runs wherever someone runs a harness |
| agent identity | a session with an unguessable ID; no directory, no personas; its context is its transcript, its workspace, and its permission mode | named keypair personas (fizz, honey, bumble) you drag between channels, times everyone on the team |
| models | Claude, Codex, and Grok, reusing the subscriptions you already pay for, plus Gemini and ACP agents on their own logins (beta), switchable mid-session; subagents each pick their own | one harness per person, whatever they run |
| permissions | four modes enforced by the OS sandbox; Auto reviews the exact action against what you actually asked for, and a refusal is final | agent carries the full CLI and a private key; allowed = discovered by attempting |
| secrets | attached to a session and injected only when a command names the bundle; never prompt text; the keychain is unreachable from the sandbox | BUZZ_PRIVATE_KEY straight in the agent's env; per-call approval bypassed by default |
| phone | first-class: same sessions, end-to-end encrypted, relay sees ciphertext only | none |
| sharing | one Happy Agent for a team: shared projects and sessions, each member signs in with Happy Social | channels on a shared relay |
| plugins | skills and MCP servers, written from inside by an agent | no installable surface; extend via MCP servers, workflows, or new event kinds baked into relay and clients |
| install | download and open; nothing to host unless you want a team server | docker compose: rust relay + postgres + redis + minio |
Where Buzz is ahead: the team surface. If you want Slack with agents as members, Buzz built that well, and the onboarding is nice. Happy Desktop's team setup is multi-step today.
Where Happy Desktop is ahead: the agent itself. Native prompts per vendor, sessions that outlive the window, a sandbox the agent cannot talk its way out of, and the same session on your phone, encrypted end to end.
By @Ex3NDR & @bra1n_dump