Connect your own computer

Give your agents a computer to work on: install Sidekick on it, sign in once, and choose what they may do there. The same app on Windows and on a Mac, where it is an experimental build. To give them your web browser instead, see Or connect your browser.

Before you start

Sidekick gives an AI real control of a computer. Depending on the access you choose, it can read what is on the screen, click and type, run commands and change files, and nothing undoes what it does. Using it means accepting the consequences of that on your own machine. It is recommended for people who already have some experience working with AI. If you ask your assistant to set it up, it asks you to confirm this first.

You need the address of your installation, the one you type into the browser, and an account there.

Install it

1. Go to https://sidekick.1p.dev and download the installer for your computer: Windows, or Mac (macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon or Intel).
2. Run it. Your computer may stop it once, and that is all the warning means:
3. Windows: the installer is not signed yet, so Windows shows Windows protected your PC. Choose More info, then Run anyway. It installs for your own account and asks for no administrator password.
4. macOS: the Mac build is not signed yet, so macOS says Apple could not verify ... is free of malware. Choose Done (not Move to Trash), open System Settings, then Privacy & Security, scroll down to Security and press Open Anyway, then enter your password and choose Open. Control-clicking the file does not work on a current Mac; the Open Anyway button appears only after that first try. The installer offers Install for me only, which needs no password, or Install for all users.
5. Sidekick starts and opens its setup, a few short steps. On Windows its icon is in the tray, by the clock (sometimes behind the ^ arrow); on a Mac it is in the menu bar, at the top right, with no Dock icon. Closing its window leaves it running there.

Connect it

1. The setup's Connect step is the Add connection box; later, right-click the icon and choose Manage connections..., then Add connection.
2. Type your installation's address. The app tidies it as you type.
3. Choose Sign in with browser (or press Enter). Your normal browser opens on your installation's own sign-in page. Sign in the way you always do; the app never sees your password.
4. The page asks Connect Sidekick on ? Choose Approve. The tab says you can close it, and the app shows the connection as signed in.

Signing in is the only thing that connects, and Sign out is the only thing that disconnects and forgets the pairing on both sides. There is no separate connect or disconnect button to look for.

Choose what it may do

1. The setup's Access step, or the connection's page from the icon's menu afterwards: under Access, choose one of Off, Observe only, Change things or Full access (YOLO). A new connection starts at Observe only, and your choice is kept across restarts. On a Mac, seeing the screen needs Screen Recording and acting on it needs Accessibility; the setup adds a step for each, with Open System Settings to open the right page. Screen Recording takes effect after a relaunch, which the step offers. If a step still shows Not granted, select Sidekick in that list, press −, then + and add it again, and relaunch. Until the Mac build is signed, you will be asked for these again after each update, and a Mac asks once more about the keychain: Allow is the right answer.
2. Under the two middle choices, tick what the agent may do: see the screen, act on the screen, run commands, files.
3. To share folders, tick Files and add each folder, choosing read or read and write. Under Observe only every folder is read only, whatever you set.

Your agent sees the choice at once. Say "what's on my screen?" and it looks; say "run the backup script here" and it does, if you allowed commands.

Change your mind

• Pause all access in the tray stops everything now and keeps your choices for when you resume.
• Change the access or the ticks on the connection's page at any time. It takes effect on the next thing the agent does.
• Sign out on the connection's page ends the pairing and tells your installation to forget the computer, so nothing stale is left behind. Remove connection does the same and forgets the connection here too.

Or connect your browser

The Sidekick browser extension connects Chrome, Brave or Edge rather than the whole computer, so an agent can work in the web pages you allow, with your own sign-ins.

1. Install Sidekick from the Chrome Web Store. Chrome and Brave take it as they would any extension; Edge needs Allow extensions from other stores switched on first. Pin its icon from the puzzle-piece menu and click it to open the side panel.
2. Put your installation's address in Instance URL and press Sign in. A tab opens on your installation; sign in the way you always do. Allow the extension on that address when the browser asks.
3. The page asks Connect Sidekick in your browser, with the extension's id underneath. Choose Approve. The tab closes and the panel shows your chat.
4. Open the connection from the strip at the top of the panel and choose the access: Observe only to start, or Change things with See the page, Act on the page and, if you want it, Open and close tabs.
5. Add any site Player One must never touch, such as your bank, to Sites Player One never sees.

Player One asks before it uses a page, and your browser shows its own banner while Player One is working in a tab. Stop, or the banner's Cancel, takes the tab back at once.

When it does not work

• Windows setup said Install Partially Succeeded, or the app never opens: that was version 1.0.0 on a new or freshly set up PC. Download the installer again from sidekick.1p.dev and run it; the current version installs over the broken copy. An installer saved from before fails the same way, so it has to be a fresh download.
• The app says it is not connected: open the connection's page and use Sign in with browser again. A computer removed from your installation's Devices page has to sign in again from scratch; that is expected after a removal.
• Your assistant says a computer is paired but not connected: open Sidekick on that computer and sign in. Nothing needs reinstalling.
• The agent says it was refused: the message names the access or the tick box to change. Raising the access is not the fix when it is a tick box.
• Nothing appears in the chat after you connected: the pairing did not complete. Start again at Add connection.
• The browser extension will not finish signing in: allow it on your installation's address when the browser asks, then press Sign in again.

Sidekick describes the app and the four choices; When something goes wrong covers the rest of the installation.