life
An AI personal assistant with editable apps on iPhone, Mac and web.
life is a self-hosted AI assistant built on [Claude Code][claude-code]. It will help you meet your goals, whatever they are.
Your Mac (a Mac mini, or a laptop that stays on) runs the agents. It connects to your iPhone over a private Tailscale VPN, and you talk to the agent from an iPhone app, a desktop app or a web app. Nothing is on the public internet. Only your devices can reach it.
The assistant can change its apps to make you new pages, add data sources, or modify itself and the way it interacts with you. Nothing about the app you start with is set in stone; tell the agent your desired changes through the app.
As you work with the assistant, it learns about you and your goals. It can make recommendations, or take actions on your behalf. It connects safely to your data sources, and the data you share is saved on the computer.
Setup takes about 2 hours, but it is mostly following simple steps the agent gives you. Your only job at the start is to open Claude Code and give it the prompt below.
You need: a personal computer that is always on (a Mac), an [Apple Developer membership][apple-dev] ($99 a year, for the iPhone and desktop apps), and a [Claude subscription][claude-pricing] that works with Claude Code (about $20 to $200 a month, depending on plan).
Install: paste one sentence
The only step: open Claude Code on your Mac and give it this prompt.
Clone github.com/mattabate/life-distributable and set up my life agent. Follow its SETUP.md.Most of the 2 hours is waiting on Apple and the Xcode download. The agent runs the Terminal for you. Your part is clicking where it tells you. You never type a command.
⭐ [Star it][repo] to get developer addenda: new features and fixes land in ADDENDA.md, and your agent brings each one to you. Check back often: updates from the developer's own copy land here every week.
Configuration. What it is connected to, what it may spend, and what you are working toward: the Claude plan and how much of each limit is left, the model new sessions start on, your goals, and every data source under the goal it serves.
Is this for me?
Yes, if you want an AI agent that actually does things, not a chat window you have to babysit. You don't need to be technical. You need:
- A Mac that stays on. A Mac mini is ideal. A laptop works if it stays
- A Claude subscription. Pro works. Max is better for an agent that
- Claude Code installed. [Here is how][claude-code-setup]. It's one
Your first five minutes
- Open Terminal: press Cmd-Space, type
Terminal, press Return. - If you don't have Claude Code yet, install it with
- In Terminal, type
claudeand press Return. Sign in with your
- Paste the sentence above and press Return.
- From here, the agent leads. Do what it says, click where it points.
What it does
- Runs sessions for every part of your life. Long-running Claude Code
- Puts a card on your phone when it needs you. One clear thing to do,
- Asks before anything that matters. Money, deleting, contacting
- Tracks your goals. Sessions file what they learn under each goal, so
- Recommends, with receipts. Every suggestion goes in a ledger with its
- Four pages, on iPhone, Mac and web. Sessions, Recs and Calendar
- Grows with you. Ask for a new data source, a page or an automation,
Example app layout
Desktop app
| Approvals. The agent proposes, you approve. | Sessions. It asks one clear question at a time. | |---|---| | !The Weekly investing session in the life desktop app: the agent checks cash and price, then raises an approval card to buy $500 of VTI on Thursday, tagged money | !A session in the life desktop app planning a honeymoon: the agent asks which of six beach and spa plans to pick, St. Lucia and Costa Rica first, each with flight time and total |
| Recs. Suggestions with evidence and a price. | Calendar. Your steps and the agent's runs. | |---|---| | !The Recs page of the life desktop app: get to bed by 11:30 on weeknights, send the first newsletter, destroy an idle $6 a month server, import an art portfolio, each with evidence and Accept or Decline | !The life desktop app's Calendar: supplements as a daily chore, Fenaroli practice in the evenings, the Gmail expense scan and weekly agent runs, with due, do-soon and sessions-waiting lists |
iPhone app
| An approval. In your pocket. | Sessions. Cards waiting on you. | Calendar. Your day at a glance. |
|---|---|---|
 |
 |
 |
The screenshots are the maker's own hub, with private details changed.
What it costs
| What | Cost | Needed for | |---|---|---| | [Claude Pro or Max][claude-pricing] | $20, $100 or $200 a month | Everything. Max is better for an always-on agent | | [Apple Developer Program][apple-dev] | $99 a year | Only the iPhone app and the desktop app. Web only? Skip it | | Tailscale | free | Reaching your hub privately from your phone and laptops | | Backblaze B2 | cents a month | Nightly encrypted backup | | A Mac | the one you own | The hub |
Setup, in order
The agent follows SETUP.md. Here is the timeline.
- Pick your apps, see the costs (2 min). iPhone, desktop, web, or all
- Start the slow things (10 min, then waiting). Apple developer
- Prepare the Mac (10 min). Free tools, never sleep, disk encryption on.
- Your private copy on GitHub (5 min). Your copy, your account, private.
- Tailscale (10 min). A private network only your devices can join.
- The hub is up (10 min). First milestone: the web console works.
- Backups (15 min). Nightly, encrypted, to storage you own, tested
- Apple team and Xcode (10 min). Once Apple says yes.
- The apps (20 min). The desktop app opens, the iPhone app installs
- Your first goals (15 min). The agent interviews you.
- Weekly updates and wrap-up (5 min).
How security works
Your data lives on your Mac. The hub listens only on your private Tailscale network, so nothing about it is public.
- Nothing public. No open ports, no public URL. Your phone reaches the
- Outbound, only four places: Anthropic (your Claude sessions), Apple
- The heartbeat is off unless you say yes. The agent asks once at
https://us.i.posthog.com/capture/ with a random
install id and these fields only: version, active_days,
sessions_started, goals, pages and token_bucket (a range such as
"1-10M"), with GeoIP lookup disabled (hub/internal/usage). Never text,
titles, names or amounts. Settings
shows the payload and where it goes, and switches it off; usage_host in
ops/hub.json sends it somewhere else.
- Backups are yours. Encrypted on your Mac before upload, so the
- The gate. Anything that spends money, deletes, contacts a person,
Updates and addenda
- The copy is yours. Setup makes a private copy in your GitHub account.
- Upstream is read-only. Nothing from this repo lands in your copy
- New every week. The developer runs this same app daily. Each week the
- Your app can drift. Your copy will grow its own pages and look. Each
- Your agent checks weekly. It reads ADDENDA.md every
- Nothing merges without you. The check only reads and shows cards. Say
What you need
- A Mac on macOS 15 or later that stays on
- A Claude Pro or Max subscription, with [Claude Code][claude-code-setup]
- An Apple Developer membership, for the iPhone and desktop apps
- An iPhone, if you want the phone app
- About 2 hours, mostly waiting
FAQ
Do I need to know how to code? No. The agent runs every command. You click, copy and paste where it tells you.
Is my data sent anywhere? Your Claude sessions go to Anthropic, like any Claude Code session. Push notifications go through Apple. Backups go to your own Backblaze bucket, encrypted first. Nothing else, unless you opt in to the counts-only heartbeat (to PostHog).
Can I skip the iPhone app? Yes. Pick web only and skip the Apple Developer membership. The console works in any browser on your Tailscale network, phone included.
Does it run on Windows or Linux? The hub needs a Mac. Once it runs, the web console works from any device on your Tailscale network.
Can the agent spend my money or email people on its own? No. Those actions are gated. It proposes, you approve with your decider code.
Is this an Anthropic product? No. It's an independent open source project built on Claude Code.
How do I get new features? They're announced in ADDENDA.md. Your agent brings each one to you as a card, and you choose.
What's in the folders?
hub/ is the server on your Mac and the web console it serves. app/ is
the iPhone and desktop app. shared/ is the contract between them, so the
two sides agree by test. ops/ is the scripts that run one install: build
and start the hub, back it up nightly, install the apps, screenshot the
pages. Those scripts are the only commands a session may run, so that folder
is also the list of what the agent can do to your Mac.
Who made this
Matt Abate, @_laundry_matt_ on X. Questions and ideas: [open an issue][issues]. Want it set up for you or your team? Get in touch through mattabate.com.
Found a security hole? Report it privately, not in an issue.
License
MIT. See LICENSE.
[repo]: https://github.com/mattabate/life-distributable [issues]: https://github.com/mattabate/life-distributable/issues [claude-code]: https://claude.com/claude-code [claude-code-setup]: https://code.claude.com/docs/en/setup [claude-pricing]: https://claude.com/pricing [apple-dev]: https://developer.apple.com/programs/