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Try Loopgate on your laptop

MarkdownOpen in ClaudeOpen in ChatGPT

At the end, Loopgate runs on your laptop and has done a first task on your code. No sign-in, no team.

Set this up with your agent

Copy this to a coding agent on your laptop. It runs the commands and checks each step with you; what you sign in to, press or paste stays yours.

This is for a coding agent that can run commands on my laptop (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor), not a chat website.
Walk me through Loopgate's guide "Try Loopgate on your laptop": https://loopgate.dev/runner/guides/laptop.md. The guides it links to are beside it, each ending in .md.
Run its commands yourself, on my laptop or on my box over SSH as the guide says, one step at a time, and check each "You should see" line before the next step.
These are mine: tell me when it is my turn, wait for me, and never ask me to type them into this chat. Signing in to anything (the portal, a cloud console, Slack, GitHub), pressing Add a runner, every token and password, my AI subscription's device code, and making the Slack app.
If I paste you the portal's install line, run it on the box: its token works once, for an hour.

At a glance

Time: 5 minutes with Node, 15 with Docker.

What you need:

  • Node 22 or newer and Git, or Docker instead
  • A coding tool you already use (Claude Code, Codex or pi), or a ChatGPT or Claude subscription
  • A folder of code, or a repository address

Steps:

  1. Start Loopgate
  2. Check your coding tools
  3. Add a workspace
  4. Give it a first task

Steps

The quick way, with Node

  1. Install Node 22 or newer from nodejs.org.

    You also need Git. A Mac offers to install it the first time you type git.

  2. Open a Terminal and start Loopgate.

    npx loopgate ui

    You should see: your browser open on Loopgate's Tasks page, asking what needs doing.

    Loopgate keeps running in the background, with its data in your user folder (on a Mac, ~/Library/Application Support/Loopgate). Run npx loopgate ui again whenever you want the page back.

  3. Open Settings → Engines.

    You should see: the Claude Code, Codex or pi you already use, each saying Ready when you are signed in to it. Loopgate uses them as they are.

    None there? Press Install pi on its row, or run npx loopgate engines install pi, then Sign in with ChatGPT or Sign in with Claude.

  4. Choose Add a workspace, type the path of a folder of your code, such as ~/code/my-app, and press Add. Or paste a repository address and press Clone.

    The agents work on a branch of their own, in a folder beside yours.

  5. On Tasks, type what you want done and press Run, with Who left on Auto. For example: "Add a README that explains how to run this project".

    You should see: the copilot's proposal: who works it, the steps, and what each is told.

  6. Press Start, then watch it work.

    You should see: every step's message in the conversation, what it was sent and what it said back.

    Type in the box at the foot to steer it. Only your laptop reaches Loopgate, never your network. Workflows lists the built-in templates; Open in builder shows one as a track and Simulate walks every route without spending anything. Agents lists the agents you can give a task to alone. npx loopgate --help lists every command.

Without Node, in Docker

The laptop needs about 2 GB of free memory and 5 GB of free disk, plus room for your code.

  1. Install Docker. On a Mac or Windows, install Docker Desktop and open it once. On Linux, install Docker Engine with the Compose plugin.

    You should see: on a Mac or Windows, the whale icon in the menu bar or the taskbar.

  2. In a Terminal, make a folder for Loopgate and download Loopgate's file for laptops into it.

    mkdir loopgate && cd loopgate && curl -fsSLO https://loopgate.dev/runner/laptop.compose.yaml

    On a Mac, Terminal is in Applications → Utilities. On Windows, open Terminal from the Start menu.

  3. Start Loopgate.

    docker compose -f laptop.compose.yaml up -d

    You should see: the download progress, then Container loopgate-laptop-loopgate-1 Started. The first download is about 170 MB.

  4. Find the launch link.

    docker compose -f laptop.compose.yaml logs loopgate

    You should see: a line that starts http://127.0.0.1:4312/#token=.

  5. Open that link in your browser within a minute.

    You should see: Loopgate's Tasks page, asking what needs doing. Your browser stays signed in from then on.

  6. Open Settings → Engines and press Sign in with ChatGPT or Sign in with Claude on pi's row. Open the address the page shows and enter the code it shows. With Claude, paste the code Claude shows back into the page.

    You should see: pi's row says Ready.

    Codex or Claude Code too? Press Install Codex or Install Claude Code on its row, then Sign in. Sign in to your own subscriptions has the details; on a laptop, use docker compose -f laptop.compose.yaml exec where it says docker compose exec, and loopgate where it says runner.

  7. Choose Add a workspace, paste a public repository address and press Clone, such as https://github.com/<org>/<repo>. Or type a name and press Create for an empty folder.

    You should see: Cloning <repo>… with git's progress, then the workspace chosen.

    Your own folder instead: in laptop.compose.yaml, remove the # in front of - ~/code:/repos/code, with your folder in place of ~/code, then run docker compose -f laptop.compose.yaml up -d, open a new launch link (step 5), and add /repos/code as the folder path. The agents change your own files there, on a branch of their own.

  8. Give it a first task, as in steps 5 and 6 of the quick way.

Check

Your task is listed with how it ended (in Docker, docker compose -f laptop.compose.yaml exec loopgate loopgate runs):

npx loopgate runs

Next

Ready for your team and Slack? Set it up for your team. Curious what else it does first? Your first workflow.

If something is off

  • The launch link no longer opens Loopgate. Each link works for a minute, and a new one appears on every start. Get a fresh one with docker compose -f laptop.compose.yaml exec loopgate loopgate ui --no-open.
  • It is slow on an Apple Silicon Mac, in Docker. The image is built for x86 processors, so Docker runs it under emulation. The Node way does not.
  • No engine says Ready. Press Sign in on its row in Settings → Engines.

Stop or remove it

  • Stop it: docker compose -f laptop.compose.yaml down. Your workspaces and sign-ins stay.
  • Remove everything, including your workspaces and sign-ins: docker compose -f laptop.compose.yaml down -v.

Doing it by hand

For a runner your team shares, By hand sets one up from files.