ACI means Allternit Computer Interface. It is the surface for observing and interacting with a computer used by an agent. A computer, a connector, and an MCP App supply different capabilities.

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A bot’s computer

Open the computer from the bot thread into the ACI pane. The view separates the conversation from the live computer, with a computer header and browser navigation where available. Observe work, take control when you need to intervene, and hand control back when ready. Computer control is separate from the thread’s execution state. Use the thread’s Stop action to interrupt a model turn; use the computer’s controls to manage human interaction with the displayed machine. A running computer alone does not mean a bot is actively working. Provisioning and available actions depend on the selected computer backend and your access. An attached computer does not automatically grant every tool or service permission.

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The agent cursor

When an agent moves or clicks on a computer you’re watching, a cursor glides to the spot and shows a click ring. It’s drawn over the screen in the viewer, so the real mouse pointer on that computer is never moved or restyled by it. It appears in every computer viewer: the Computer side of the browser pane and ACI, a bot’s computer (pane, page and its own window), your cloud computer’s screen, the sign-in screen in Subscriptions, and the full-screen computer view on your phone (ai.allternit.com and the m.allternit.com app), where it’s drawn smaller.
  • Change the style or turn it off: Settings → Computers → Agent cursor. Pick Signature arc (the default), Spring settle, Magnetic, Comet swoop, Adaptive, Classic glide, or Off. The choice is saved on this device.
  • Reduced motion: with your system’s reduce-motion setting on, the cursor doesn’t glide. It appears at each point with the click ring.
  • Screen readers: the drawing is hidden from assistive tech. A polite status line says what the agent did, for example “Agent clicked at 512, 300”, at most every few seconds.
  • The cursor hides after a few quiet seconds and comes back with the agent’s next action. Typing and key presses have no point on the screen, so they don’t move it.

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For developers: the event it plays

The overlay plays computer.action events from the computer’s events channel in allternit-api. The computer toolset executor (POST /computers/:id/toolset) emits one per pointer action:
  • x and y are real screen pixels (after the executor’s model-frame scaling); screen_w and screen_h are that screen’s size. The viewer maps them onto the displayed picture, accounting for letterboxing and the viewer’s fit or actual-size mode.
  • Click members (left_click, right_click, middle_click, double_click, triple_click, left_mouse_down) show the click ring. mouse_move, left_click_drag, scroll and other members with a point glide only. Members without a point are ignored.
  • Live stream: mint a token with POST /api/v1/computers/:id/ws-token {"purpose":"events"}, then open /ws/computers/:id/events?token=…. It replays recent history on connect; the viewer skips events older than the moment it connected. If the stream can’t open, the viewer polls GET /api/v1/computers/:id/events?limit=10 while the page is visible and stops quietly after repeated errors.
  • On this Mac, the ACI engine’s own cursor.moved run-stream events (model frame, with coordinate.contract) drive the same overlay without a round trip.
  • Motion comes from Cua’s MIT @trycua/cursor-motion player, vendored in allternit-ai at src/vendor/cua-cursor-motion/ with the upstream commit in its README.

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Restore points and backups for your cloud computer

Settings → Computers (and the Computers tab on your phone) has a Restore points and backups section for each Allternit cloud computer on your account.
  • Take restore point saves the computer’s disk as it is now. Take one before a big change, such as letting an agent install software or reorganize files. You can keep 5; delete an old one to take another.
  • Restore rolls the computer back to that point. Anything changed since is lost. A running computer restarts, which takes under a minute.
  • Download a copy packs the whole computer into one .tar.zst file. It takes a few minutes. When it’s ready the button becomes Download copy, and the link works for an hour. The file can be imported on any Incus host with incus import.
Your cloud computer is also backed up off-site every night, encrypted, and kept for 8 days. Restore points don’t replace that backup: they live on the same host as the computer.

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Connected tools

MCP tools belong to the session’s tool belt. Connect the server, complete its authentication, and check the available tools before assigning work that relies on it. CLI harness sessions can receive the session’s tools and instructions through the CLI tool bridge; supported computer operations still require a reachable host. See MCP tools, the computers MCP server, and the ACI runtime reference.

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Interactive results

An MCP App can display a tool result as a sandboxed interface rather than plain text. The expanded Allternit host, directory, and extensions have merged to source in a separate integration package. Deployment and installation checks still apply. See MCP Apps status before treating that package as available on your installation.

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Step history and replay

The shared viewer shows the current action, steps grouped by run, and a recorded screen after each action when capture and redaction succeed. Choose a past run, click a step, scrub Replay step, or play the run. Return to live screen closes the recorded screen. Replay only reads history; it cannot send mouse, keyboard or tool actions. Runs predating this feature do not gain historical screenshots. Snapshots are redacted in required mode before saving. History stores action names, result and time, never raw tool inputs or typed text. It is account-authorized through the computer’s existing access check, bounded to 500 steps per computer and 30 days, with a 100 MB budget for full images (oldest full images are evicted first). Screens that cannot be safely captured show No snapshot. While controlling the computer, send/get clipboard text or upload/drop a file (25 MB maximum). Clipboard access requires an explicit button action. Browser permission failures expose a manual text field. Uploads use a unique name in this Mac’s Downloads/Allternit, a Linux guest’s /tmp, or a Windows guest’s Public Downloads. The resulting path appears after transfer. Focus the viewer and use ⌘/Ctrl + Shift + H to toggle take-over and hand-back. Phone and PWA share these controls.

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Runtime routes

All routes below use the existing authenticated computer visibility rules: Clipboard and file transfer require this user’s active control lease on this device, or this user’s active bot desktop take-over. Watching access alone cannot transfer data. Step recording hooks into both direct computer tool calls and structured subtask steps; it never bypasses action policy, lease or approvals. File uploads use 1 MB chunks so they fit through the phone runtime relay. The runtime checks ownership and active control on every chunk and isolates partial uploads by user, computer, and upload ID. Up to four partial uploads are retained in memory; entries older than ten minutes are pruned on the next upload. No destination file is written until all bytes arrive in order.