Block has published Buzz desktop 1.0.0, a free, open-source app where people and AI agents share the same workspace. Builds are up for Apple Silicon and Intel macOS (signed and notarized), Windows x64 (an unsigned installer), and Linux x64, and the company points people to buzz.xyz to download them.
Thomas Petersen, a principal designer at Block who works on Buzz, called it a 1.0 release built around plugins, solo and team chats, a choice of local agents, live audio Huddles, and a feature called Attention that can watch for updates such as a pull request’s checks and reviews. The official @buzzdotxyz account first said Buzz 1.0 was announced and available to download after AGNTCon and MCPCon in late October.
“Your people, your agents, your projects — all in one place.”
— Buzz, on the official desktop app repository
The 1.0.0 GitHub release isn’t marked as a pre-release. Its notes say updater-enabled installs will pick up the build from the stable feed once that release is promoted to it. A stable-feed manifest was also published the same day. The project’s README still carries a warning that “Buzz 1.0 is in beta,” and that Buzz 0.X remains available and supported in the older block/buzz repository.
What Buzz is
Buzz is a desktop app, with mobile apps for iPhone and Android, for team chat and agents. You join a community, talk in channels and direct messages, and can run agents such as Claude, Codex, Goose or Pi on your own computer so they answer in the conversation. Block first introduced the product in July 2026 as a free, Apache-2.0 project built in part on the Nostr protocol. The hosted service is operated by Block; people can also run their own relay. Official terms say the hosted service is offered only to users who are 18 or older.
A community is the workspace boundary: the people, agents and channels you can reach. Inside it, channels are shared rooms, and Solo chats let you work directly with an agent. Official support docs note that a Solo chat can be shared, so the name doesn’t by itself tell you who can read it.
Plugins, chats, and agents
Plugins are the centre of the 1.0 desktop app. They can add pages, panels, shortcuts or tools for local agents, and can be installed from a folder or from Git. Official support docs are blunt about the risk: plugins are trusted code, not sandboxed extensions. They can access your computer beyond the permissions listed at install time, including files and your Buzz private key. The access list describes what a plugin asks Buzz to do; it isn’t a security boundary. Buzz tells people to install only code from a publisher they trust, and to inspect the source when they can.
The official Buzz account has also been posting plugin examples, including maps in conversations, and has said a wider plugins marketplace will open soon. Petersen’s announcement adds an agents marketplace as well.
Agents can work in a Solo chat or be added to team channels. Local harnesses run on your computer and need that machine, and Buzz, to stay available. Official docs list four local options: Claude and Codex, which need macOS or Linux plus their provider sign-in; Goose, which is included with Buzz and works on macOS, Linux and Windows; and Pi, which also works on those three platforms once its plugin is turned on, and needs Node.js 22.19 or later. You can also create teams of agents for different kinds of work, and, where your account allows it, a Builderlab-hosted agent that runs on a cloud computer.
Huddles, Attention, and shared compute
Beyond typing, the app supports voice notes and live audio Huddles. On supported desktop hosts, a running local agent with voice support can join a Huddle when it is also a member of that Huddle’s room; membership of the parent conversation alone isn’t enough. Official help notes that the current audio protocol isn’t a strict privacy guarantee: other people or speakers near your microphones can be heard, and delayed audio can briefly be misattributed when a connection slot is reused.
Attention lets an agent keep a list of responsibilities, called Interests, and wake for events or timers, such as watching a pull request and reporting when checks or reviews change. It runs on the device only while a plugin that shows Attention is on (the bundled plugin is on by default), and then for every local agent; there is no per-agent switch. Mentions can still wake an agent when Attention is off. Local watches still need Buzz and the computer to be running.
Petersen also said Buzz has released a new version of shared compute. Official billing docs describe remote workstations for hosted agents, with a Sharing setting that can use one computer across conversations (the default), or a separate computer per thread or per channel. Paid remote agents and Builderlab model usage (inference) are available in the United States only.
Price, limits, and moving from 0.X
The desktop app is free to download, and the code is Apache-2.0. Hosted Builderlab services are separate. Official docs say each workspace includes 100 GB of data storage and delivery each month. After that, data is US$0.15 per GB-month stored or GB delivered. Cloud compute for remote agents is US$0.65 per vCPU-hour of active execution. Hosted model usage is charged at Databricks list prices. An agent that uses your own connected AI-provider account is billed by that provider. Paid services are currently offered to eligible residents of the fifty United States and the District of Columbia. Hosted communities retain content for 365 days, with up to 50 communities per account.
Other limits matter in practice. The Windows installer isn’t code-signed, so SmartScreen warns before it runs. Intel macOS, Windows and Linux get less testing than Apple Silicon macOS, according to the README. Buzz doesn’t automatically back up a locally imported private key; Builderlab sign-in can upload an encrypted backup. Messages in hosted communities aren’t end-to-end encrypted. Bringing an identity over from Buzz 0.X doesn’t bring communities or agents with it: communities have to be rejoined, and agents and teams imported from the Agents page.
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