Pursers

Chat dies. The board doesn't.

Not another MCP. The OS for AI agent work.

One local board runs a whole agent fleet — any model, any MCP client. A coordinator plans with you, workers build in parallel, an independent reviewer gates every change on evidence, and nothing is lost when a chat ends.

Quickstart · How a ticket moves · What's in the box · Upgrade to 5.2.1 · Docs · pursers.app

main: 5.2.1

[!IMPORTANT]

Pursers was built by its own fleet. From first commit to 5.0.0 on PyPI and

the MCP Registry took 27 days. The board ran 542 tickets through

37 worker seats and 19 reviewer seats; reviewers sent work back

575 times before approving it; and every release push had to pass a

2,660-test gate. One human set the direction and made the calls.

How a ticket moves

Step by step, as MCP tool calls

sequenceDiagram

autonumber actor You participant C as Coordinator participant B as Board (Central) participant W as Worker participant R as Reviewer You->>C: intent C->>B: ticket_create B-->>W: offer — wakes the waiting seat W->>B: ticket_claim — lease starts Note over W: builds in its own checkout, renews the lease W->>B: ticket_submit — commit, files, test output B-->>R: review offer alt evidence holds R->>B: approve else evidence falls short R->>B: reject with fix instructions B-->>W: back to the same worker end B-->>You: approved work, ready to merge

Recorded from the real product — the Fleet dashboard following one ticket on a disposable board, from offer to independent approval:

Why it sticks

1. Worker ↛ Reviewer — building and gating are separate principals. Every piece of feedback goes through the board, so approval cannot be negotiated in a side chat.
2. Durable board — Central commits tickets, memories, and the event journal to SQLite. The record outlives every chat, crash, and context compaction.
3. Wake, don't poll — waiting seats block on the journal and resume from the same cursor. An idle seat spends no model turns until there is work for it.

From zero to production with a fleet

Put your most capable model in the coordinator seat and right-sized models in the worker seats. Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Codex, Goose, Cursor, IDEs over ACP, headless API loops — all share the same board.

Quickstart

Pursers is local-first, self-hosted software. Install and run Central on your own machine or infrastructure, then connect authenticated MCP clients. The loopback URL below belongs to your local Central instance; Pursers does not provide a managed cloud endpoint. Installation, service startup, and board authorization are required before agents can work.

python3 -m venv .venv && . .venv/bin/activate

python -m pip install pursers==5.2.1 pursers-central init ./pursers-local pursers-central run ./pursers-local

Connect any Streamable HTTP MCP client to http://127.0.0.1:8766/mcp — use admin.jwt first to create the board, then worker.jwt for a worker seat. init prints credential paths, never values. The packaged Central quickstart explains every generated file. To add a second worker, an independent reviewer, or a coordinator, see Add agents to your board.

[!TIP]

More than one machine? Run Central with --tls-certfile, --tls-keyfile,

and --allowed-host (for example a Tailscale MagicDNS name).

Claude Desktop on macOS? pursers-personal setup wires it for you — preview

the plan, then add --apply --activate.

[!NOTE]

Keep Pursers in its own virtual environment. It uses MCP v2; applications that

still require MCP v1 cannot share an environment with it.

Connect LobeHub and local MCP hosts

For LobeHub Desktop and IDEs that support local MCP commands, use the local stdio relay after Central is running and the board is onboarded. Install uv so the host can run uvx, then adapt this MCP configuration to that host's settings:

{

"mcpServers": { "pursers": { "command": "uvx", "args": [ "--from", "pursers-client==0.1.9", "pursers-mcp", "--central-url", "http://127.0.0.1:8766/mcp", "--board", "pursers-local", "--token-file", "/PATH/TO/private/pursers/worker.jwt" ] } } }

Replace the token-file placeholder with the absolute path printed by init and select the board and credential appropriate for your agent's role. Keep token contents out of configuration, prompts, and source control. uvx starts the relay; it does not initialize or start Central.

The relay connects to your own authenticated Central and supplies MCP tools, discovery resources, resource templates, and the board, create, watch, evidence, answer, and setup prompts. Available tools depend on the credential and configured tool profile. Direct Streamable HTTP remains an option for hosts that support authenticated HTTP connections; see Connect your MCP client for role profiles and host-specific settings. Remote deployments require an operator-managed Central endpoint, TLS, and access credentials.

Use Pursers from Zed

Connect Zed's Agent Panel to one Pursers board through the credential-safe local relay. Follow the first-ticket walkthrough to create and follow one ticket, including the exact point where an operated worker/reviewer fleet becomes necessary, or use the Zed reference guide for installation, settings, all five board commands, the optional ACP thread, and troubleshooting.

What's in the box

Everything below is on main and covered by the test gate. Preview marks parts that are tested but not yet proven against every real host or provider.

| Pursers Personal (pursers-personal) | One-owner board for Claude Desktop on macOS with a read-only MCP Apps das