Coding in byt Code
Code with your own Claude Code or Codex on your Mac, one session per branch, and review every change before it leaves your Mac.
- In byt Code, a session is your own Claude Code or Codex on your Mac, on its own branch and worktree.
- Say what you want done. Every step it takes shows as it happens.
- In Ask every time, each edit and command waits for you: Allow or Deny.
- Each turn ends with a checkpoint: see what changed, or go back with Restore to here.
- Changes shows the turn’s diff, or the whole branch so far.
- Commit checks for secrets first. Push sends your branch with your own git sign-in, only when you press it.
byt Code is Llamabyt’s coding place. Your own Claude Code or Codex does the work on your Mac, with your own subscription, and Llamabyt keeps it organized: a branch and worktree per session, every step as it happens, a checkpoint after every turn, and the changes to review before anything leaves your Mac. The harness isn’t a llama: it’s your tool, and only you drive it.
On your Mac, share the repository’s own folder (its top, with its
.git) read & write in Settings → Macs & folders.Open byt Code and press Add a repo.
Choose the folder and press Add. Your Mac checks it’s a git repository.
Your Mac needs the Llamabyt app 0.10.0 or later, connected, and Claude Code or Codex set up (Install and Sign in in Settings → Macs & folders).
Press New session on a repo, say what it’s for, and choose:
- Harness
- Claude Code or Codex, as set up on your Mac.
- Model
- leave it empty for your harness’s own default.
- How much it asks
- Ask every time, Ask for risky ones only or Auto (below).
Your Mac makes a branch for the session, like byt/blue-login-button-3f2a91, from the repo’s base branch, in a worktree of its own. Your own checkout and your other sessions are never touched.
Write what you want done and press Send (or ⌘ Enter). Your harness works in the session’s worktree, and you see its words and its steps as they happen. Write the next turn when it’s done: it carries on with what it knows, as in a terminal. Press Stop to end a turn.
- Ask every time
- every edit and every command waits for your Allow or Deny.
- Ask for risky ones only
- edits inside the worktree go ahead (a checkpoint can undo them); commands ask.
- Auto
- edits and commands inside the worktree go ahead. A command goes without asking only when your Mac’s sandbox keeps it inside the worktree; when it can’t, the command asks. Auto comes with paid plans.
Some steps always ask, in every mode: pushing, publishing or deploying, anything outside the worktree, and every command and edit after the session read the web. byt Code: what it can touch says why.
A question waits four and a half minutes for your answer. If nobody answers by then, that step doesn’t run: its card says nobody answered in time, and Claude Code goes on without it and says in its answer what it wanted to do, so you can allow it in your next turn.
Each turn ends with a checkpoint: the worktree as the turn left it, kept on your Mac. Under it, View changes opens Changes with that turn’s diff; the list at its top shows Whole branch so far too. Restore to here puts the worktree back as that checkpoint had it, and Restore to the start as the session began. Commits stay, and so do files your repo ignores.
The diffs are read from your Mac when you open them: Llamabyt keeps only the names of the files and how many lines changed.
In Changes, Commit commits everything in the worktree to the session’s branch with your own git name. Before it does, your Mac checks for secrets (a .env file, a key, a token): if it finds one, nothing is committed, and you choose whether to commit it anyway.
Push sends the branch to origin with your own git sign-in on your Mac, only when you press it. Open a pull request from there as you always do.
Start a loop in a session runs turns toward a goal without you sending each one, and stops at a fixed point.
More about working loops
- Build → Review → Fix: your harness builds, another reviews the changes reading only, and yours fixes what it found, until the review is clean.
- Test until green: your Mac runs the repo’s Check command, and your harness fixes what fails, until it passes.
- Dex conducts: Dex-llama plans in your DM with him, and once you approve, starts the turns himself.
Each loop’s limits. Build → Review → Fix runs at most 3 rounds and Test until green 5. Your plan also limits the turns and the time one loop may take: Solo 12 turns in 2 hours, Studio 30 in 6, Team 20 in 4 and Business 30 in 6. Free shows loops with the plan that has them.
The check command. Press the flask on a repo in byt Code and type the command that tests it, like pnpm test. Your Mac runs it, never your harness, in every mode (it’s your own command), in the worktree, in a sandbox: it changes files only there, reads only the system’s and your toolchains’ folders besides, reaches nothing beyond your Mac (localhost works, for a test’s own database), and can’t read your home folder, your keys or other repos. Whatever it leaves running is stopped when it ends.
While it runs. Every question still comes to you as the session’s mode says, and pushing always waits for your click. If nobody answers a question, the loop waits: press Continue to go on. Stop the loop stops it and its turn. You can’t write your own turn while a loop is open.
After the web. A loop never starts in a session that read the web, and stops if its session reads one: after a page, every step must ask you.
Dex. Choose Dex conducts and say what you want: Dex plans in your DM with him first, and nothing starts until you approve. He can start turns, a review or the check, and read what came of them, only in this session and only while the loop is open; he never answers a question for you. It’s your own Dex, or one that works in the cloud, never someone else’s Mac Dex. Your Mac needs the Llamabyt app 0.11.0 or later for loops.
- Ask a llama
- your question goes as your own message in your DM with that llama, with the session’s last answer (and its changes, if you choose) quoted. The llama answers there.
- Work on this in byt Code
- , in a task’s menu, starts a session for it; Make a task turns an answer into a task.
- Share
- the members you choose read the session. Only you work in it, and guests never see it.
More about llamas, tasks and sharing
Ask a llama about a session
Press Ask a llama in a session, choose the llama, write your question (like “Review these changes, please”), and press Ask. With Include the session’s changes on, your Mac reads the session’s changes as you ask, with secrets taken out, and they go with your question.
It goes as your own message in your DM with that llama, which answers there as it does anything you ask it. The session’s last answer and its changes are quoted in your message, so the llama reads them as the session’s words, never yours. You can ask your own llamas, and other people’s llamas that work in the cloud and take work from you; never someone else’s Mac llama, which would carry the session to their Mac. Their owner can see what their llama works on, so the dialog says when what you send goes beyond the people the session is shared with. The session lists the ones you asked under Llamas you asked from here, each with what became of it as it happens and Chat here, which opens your DM with that llama beside the session.
Sessions and tasks
- On a task, choose Work on this in byt Code from its menu: a new session starts with the task’s title, and the session shows the task’s key. The task stays yours to move on, as always.
- Under a turn’s answer, Make a task makes a task from it in a project you choose. The answer goes in its description, quoted, and you can change it before you create the task.
Share a session
Press Share and choose the members who can read the session. They find it under Shared with you in byt Code, and read its turns, steps and changes. Only you work in it: they can’t send a turn, answer Allow, restore, commit or push. Turn someone off in Share to stop sharing.
Guests never see a session. Sharing stops when the session is archived, and when you or they leave the workspace or become a guest.
On a phone, open a session to follow it, answer Allow and Deny, send the next turn, and read Changes. The work still happens on your Mac, which must be on and connected.
More about byt Code
- Archive a session to remove its worktree from your Mac; its branch stays in your repo. Removing a repo from byt Code archives its sessions.
- A turn stops after 2 hours.
- A session that read the web keeps asking before every command and edit: start a new session for a clean start.
- byt Code’s design learned from T3 Code (MIT, T3 Tools Inc.); Llamabyt isn’t affiliated with or endorsed by T3 Tools.
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