Questions and answers

Is Atlas free?

Yes. Atlas is open source under the MIT license, with no paid tier and no account. Atlas’s own agent runs on an API key you bring, and you pay that provider for what you use, or nothing with a local model. Your coding agents run on the plans you already have. See What Atlas is.

What is the difference between Atlas’s agent and my coding agents?

Atlas’s own agent is the assistant you talk to in a conversation, on the model and key you choose: it keeps a memory, runs routines, uses the browser and hands work out. Your coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, the Gemini CLI, DeepSeek’s harness) are the programs you installed, which Atlas runs as executors, each on its own plan and login. You can work with either directly, or ask Atlas to hand a task to one of them.

Does Atlas replace Claude Code, Codex or the Gemini CLI?

No. Atlas runs the copy you installed and speaks the protocol its makers use for their own apps: Claude Code’s control protocol, codex app-server, and the Agent Client Protocol for the Gemini CLI and DeepSeek. Your settings, permission rules and project instructions stay as they are, and the sessions you start in a terminal show up in Atlas too. See Coding agents and accounts.

Can I use several Claude Code accounts at the same time?

Yes. Each account is its own executor, such as Claude Code · personal and Claude Code · company, with its own folder, login, settings, MCP servers, plugins and history. They run side by side. Add one with Add an account in the Executors tab, and sign in through Claude Code’s own login in your browser. The same holds for Codex, the Gemini CLI and DeepSeek.

What happens when a coding agent hits its usage limit?

With a route, the session goes on by itself, on the model and the effort it ran on unless a stop names others: within one coding agent it continues in a copy on the next account, compacted first where the agent has /compact; across coding agents a new session starts with a handoff of the task, your latest instruction, the steps not done and the files changed. Without a route, it goes on with the coding agent’s other accounts. You can also switch a session’s account yourself at any time. See A route for each session.

Does my code or data go to Atlas’s servers?

There are none. Atlas has no account, no telemetry and no cloud of its own. Your memory, conversations and encrypted keys stay in a folder on your machine, and what leaves it goes to the services you set up, such as your model provider. See Privacy and your data.

Which models can Atlas’s own agent use?

OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini or OpenRouter with your key, or a local model through Ollama or vLLM, and any other server that speaks OpenAI’s API. Each conversation can switch models and effort. See Models and keys.

Can I use my Claude or ChatGPT subscription for Atlas’s own agent?

No: Atlas’s agent calls the provider’s API, which needs an API key. Your subscription keeps serving the coding agent it belongs to, which Atlas runs on your own login.

Is it safe to let it run commands?

Every command passes the approval gate: a few never run in any mode, dangerous patterns go to a reviewer model or to you, and anything that acts outside your machine, such as merging a pull request or sending an email, asks you every time. The gate guards; it is not a sandbox, so keep auto mode for work you trust.

Can I use it from my phone?

Yes, through a Telegram bot of your own: talk to Atlas, send files and voice notes, and answer your coding agents’ questions and permission requests. See Telegram.

Can it run on a server and be used from my laptop?

Yes. Install Atlas on a home lab, a VPS or an office PC, and open it from the app on your laptop over Tailscale or an SSH tunnel. It can run as a service, with the app closed. It also runs in a container with Docker Compose. See Several machines and Install.

Which systems does it run on?

Windows, macOS and Linux, installed with one line, and anywhere Docker runs. On Linux, a system on musl (such as Alpine) is not supported outside the container.

Does it remember things between conversations?

Yes. Every few messages a copy of the agent rereads the conversation and keeps what it learned: who you are in your profile, facts about your setup in its notes, how to do a task in a skill. It is all plain text you can read and edit, and anything that would replace or remove what it knows waits for your approval. See Memory.

Can I keep several conversations open?

Yes. Each conversation, bot and coding agent session you open has a tab above it, one row of tabs per home. A click in the list opens it in the passing tab, in italics, which your next click reuses; it stays once you send a message there or double-click it. Ctrl+1 to Ctrl+8 show a tab and Ctrl+9 the last, Ctrl+Tab the next, and Ctrl+W closes the one on screen; on a Mac, ⌘1 to ⌘9 and ⌘W do the same. When a question or an approval waits somewhere else, the tabs say how many, and a click takes you there. The app reopens on the tabs you left, and a closed tab stays closed.

Can I add my own tools?

Yes: an MCP server in mcp.json, a skill in your home, or a plugin, which can add skills, commands, hooks, tools, channels and new coding agents. The marketplace has reviewed ones, and Writing a plugin shows how to make one.

How do I update it?

Press the update button that appears in the app when a new version is out, or run atlas update with the app closed. If a step fails, Atlas goes back to where it was. See Backups, updates and homes.