Pinchy docs

Pinchy is a desktop AI assistant and agent harness built on Claude Code: a small blue lobster that lives on your screen and does real work.

He needs Claude Code installed and signed in, runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, and has an Android app. He is free and runs on your own Claude plan. Download the newest version.

These are the same pages Pinchy looks things up in when you ask him how he works, and the same ones his Help window shows.

Pages

• Add-ons: connectors, skills and extensions — Three ways to give Pinchy more: connectors link him to the apps and services you use, skills are know-how he loads when a task needs it, and extensions add new looks, tricks, tools and panels.
• Agents: coworkers with a standing job — An agent is a coworker you give a job to once. It works on its own, on a schedule or when something happens, and writes to you only when it is done, has an update, or needs your help or approval. You do not manage it step by step.
• Away server: Pinchy keeps going while your computer is off — An away server is a second Pinchy without a screen, on a small machine that is always on: a home server, a mini PC or a rented server. It shares Pinchy’s memory. While your computer is asleep or off, it keeps your agents’ schedules going, runs your server agents, and answers your Telegram bot and yo
• Backup and moving to a new computer — You can save all of Pinchy into one file and bring him back from it, on this computer or a new one. You can also keep encrypted backups in your own cloud storage.
• Discord, Slack and Matrix: Pinchy in the chat apps you already use — Besides Telegram, Pinchy can answer in Discord, Slack and Matrix (Element and other Matrix apps). In each one you make a bot of your own, connect your chat to it once, and then write to him there: he answers, asks his questions and tells you when something needs you. It works the same way in all of
• Talking while he works: add a note without stopping the job — You can type and send messages while Pinchy is working on a job. Your message joins the job he is doing: he reads it at his next step, answers it and carries on. Nothing he has done so far is thrown away.
• Focus mode: a timer where Pinchy keeps quiet — A pomodoro timer. While you focus, Pinchy goes quiet, holds your notifications and reminds you to take a break.
• His right-click menu: arrange it yourself — Right-click Pinchy and his menu opens beside him — always beside him, however you arranged it. The grid button at the top of the menu, next to the ✕, opens Customize: the menu turns into a blueprint and you lay it out the way you want it.
• Look, themes and tricks — How Pinchy looks and behaves on your desktop: the theme of every window, his tricks, his notifications and his keyboard shortcuts.
• Model and plan usage: which Claude he uses and how much of your plan — Pinchy runs on your Claude plan. You choose the model he thinks with and how careful he is with your usage.
• Notes and artifacts: where longer answers go — Pinchy’s chat bubble is small on purpose. Anything longer than a few sentences goes into a note on your desktop, and anything visual or substantial becomes an artifact you can open, change and keep.
• Phone: Pinchy in your pocket — The Android app talks to the Pinchy on your computer. You chat with him, follow your agents, runs and swarms, answer his questions and allow or refuse what he wants to do, with notifications. At home it uses your Wi-Fi. Away from home it needs one way in, and Pinchy has his own: an encrypted link yo
• PinchyMC: Pinchy plays Minecraft with you — PinchyMC is a small Minecraft mod that lets Pinchy play in your game: walk somewhere, follow you, mine, craft, build, fight, use chests and chat. The mod does the fast part (finding a path, aiming, clicking at a human pace); Pinchy is the brain that decides what to do next. You can take over at any
• Deep research and specialists — For questions where being right matters: a long, fact-checked research run that ends in a cited report, and expert helpers with their own instructions.
• Second brain: what Pinchy remembers — Pinchy’s memory is a plain folder of markdown files on your computer, called his second brain. He reads a short part of it at the start of every chat and looks the rest up when a question needs it. You can open, read and edit every file yourself.
• Swarms: a crew of Pinchys on one big job — A swarm is a crew of equal Pinchys that takes one big job, plans it, splits it into parts, works on the parts at the same time and checks each other’s work. Use it when a job is too big for one chat: building something with several pieces, a large refactor, research with many sources, an audit, a pi
• Teach by showing, and explain what is on the screen — Two ways to work with what you see: show Pinchy a task once and he turns it into a skill, or drag a box around anything and he explains it.
• Telegram: talk to Pinchy from a chat app — Pinchy can live in a Telegram chat. You write to your own bot, Pinchy answers there, and he tells you when something needs you: an approval, a question, an agent that is done, a swarm that finished. It works from anywhere your phone has internet, without the Pinchy phone app.
• Undo, pause and permissions — You stay in charge of what Pinchy does on your computer. You can pause him at once, see everything he changed and undo it, and decide what he may do without asking.
• Updates: getting a newer Pinchy — Pinchy updates himself. He checks for a new version a few times a day, tells you when there is one, and installs it when you say so. You do not download an installer again.
• Using your computer: your screen, his own desk, his browser, his own computer — Pinchy can do things on a computer the way a person does: look at the screen, click, type, use apps and websites. He has four places to do that, and he picks the one that disturbs you least.
• Voice: talking to Pinchy and hearing him answer — You can talk to Pinchy instead of typing, and he can answer out loud. Speech is recognised on your computer; nothing you say is sent anywhere.
• Start here: what Pinchy is for and what to ask him — Pinchy is a little lobster on your desktop who gets real things done with Claude: he answers, but he also opens files, edits them, runs commands, uses websites and apps, and remembers what you tell him. There are five ways to work with him, from a quick question to a whole crew on a big job. This pa
• Work and Code: real jobs done beside the chat — Work and Code are conversations with Pinchy for real jobs. You write what you want; he answers, or does the work right there and tells you what he made, and you keep talking in the same conversation. Work mode makes finished work products; Code mode changes a codebase.
• Writing buddy: spelling and wording help in any app — Pinchy can fix spelling and grammar while you type, in every app, and tidy up a text you select.