Frequently asked questions

Do I need this if I'm the only developer on my project?

Yes, if you use multiple AI coding sessions in parallel. One Claude Code chat won't collide with itself, but two Claude Code windows, or Claude Code plus Cursor, absolutely will. Those sessions don't know about each other, and when both write to auth.ts within a few seconds, the second write wins silently. AgentCollision prevents that.

If you only ever run one AI tool at a time, you don't strictly need this. But it costs nothing, and the moment you spin up a second session, you're protected.

Does it slow down my edits?

No. The PreToolUse hook talks to a local daemon over a Unix socket and gets a sub-millisecond response. You won't notice the overhead.

On Windows it's slightly higher (~3ms) because named pipes are slower than Unix sockets, but still imperceptible.

What's a "lease"?

A lease is a short-lived reservation on a part of your codebase. Before any AI tool edits a file, it asks the daemon "can I have a lease on src/auth/login.ts?" If no one else holds it, the daemon grants a 30-minute lease. If someone does, the request is blocked with the current holder's ID and expiry time. The lease releases automatically when the tool finishes, or when the TTL expires (safety net for crashed sessions).

What happens if two agents try to edit the same file at the same time?

First one wins. The daemon grants the lease to whichever request arrives first. The second request gets a synchronous denial with a descriptive message, so the AI tool can back off, try a different file, or wait.

How do I install it?

One command — works on macOS, Linux, and WSL:

curl -fsSL https://install.agentcollision.com | sh

The installer uses Homebrew automatically if you have it; otherwise it downloads the binary directly. After that, run agc login to connect the machine to your account. See the full quickstart.

Prefer brew directly? brew install agentcollision/tap/agentcollision also works.

Do I need to sign up before installing?

No. You can install and use AgentCollision locally without an account — single-machine file-conflict protection works out of the box. You only need an account (and agc login) if you want cross-machine coordination with a team, or access to the hosted dashboard at dashboard.agentcollision.com.

How much does it cost?

Solo is free forever — single-machine coordination, no account needed, no telemetry.

Startup is $8/user/month — hosted cross-machine coordination, team dashboard, audit log, up to 2 active machines per user. Unlimited users.

Enterprise is $25/user/month — everything in Startup plus SSO, SLA, self-host license, priority support, team analytics, up to 5 active machines per user.

See the full pricing page for the feature matrix.

Is there a trial?

Yes. Both Startup and Enterprise include a 14-day free trial with no credit card required. You get every feature of the tier during the trial. If you don't add a payment method before it ends, your team drops to the free Solo tier automatically — no charge, no surprise invoice.

Trials are one per user. Deleting a team and signing up again doesn't reset the clock.

What gets billed — per user, per machine, or per team?

Per user (a distinct human with a Supabase identity on the team). You can install AgentCollision on as many of your own machines as you want for no extra cost; each plan just caps how many of them can be active at once (2 on Startup, 5 on Enterprise). Newest-wins bumping handles switching between laptops automatically.

A team with 3 humans each using 2 laptops pays for 3 seats, not 6.

How does canceling work?

You can cancel anytime from Settings → Billing → Cancel subscription. Your access continues until the end of your current billing period, then your team moves to the free Solo tier. You keep all your team data, members, and audit history — just the paid features pause.

We'll ask a single optional question on your way out about why you're leaving. Skipping it doesn't block cancellation.

How do refunds work?

Refunds are handled case-by-case — email hello@agentcollision.com and tell us what happened. We'll respond within 2 business days.

Can I upgrade or downgrade mid-cycle?

Yes. Changing plans happens immediately with prorated billing: you're credited for the unused portion of your current plan and charged for the new one, calculated by the day. Downgrading from Enterprise to Startup is effective immediately; downgrading to Solo takes effect at the end of your current billing period (so you don't lose features you already paid for).

How long do you keep my data?

Lease activity events: 30 days for all tiers. These are the per-edit coordination events the daemon emits ("lease acquired," "blocked by another agent"). Older than that they're noise; we delete them automatically.

Audit log: 90 days on Solo and Startup, 365 days on Enterprise. Includes admin actions like invites sent, members added/removed, billing changes, role promotions.

Account data (your team, members, subscription history, billing): kept while your account is active. Delete your team from Settings → Team → Danger zone to wipe it permanently.

File paths are HMAC-hashed before they leave your machine, so even retained data never contains plaintext code or directory layouts. See Privacy model.

Does Anthropic (or anyone) see my code?

No. AgentCollision doesn't read or transmit file contents. Only metadata (which file, for how long, by which session) flows anywhere — and even that is HMAC-hashed before leaving your machine.

Does the coordinator see my file paths?

No, not in plaintext. Every file path is hashed with HMAC-SHA256 using a team-specific key before being sent. The coordinator stores and returns h:a3f9b2c1d4e5, never src/auth/login.ts.

If you want to see real file names in the hosted dashboard, the daemon can optionally push AES-256-GCM-encrypted display hints. Only browsers with the team's HMAC key can decrypt them. The coordinator still only stores ciphertext.

What if I don't trust the hosted coordinator?

Enterprise customers can self-host. Contact us for a commercial license + deployment support. For Solo and Startup plans, the hosted coordinator is what we support — and remember, it's zero-knowledge by design: even if you don't trust us, we can't see your file paths or code.

Which AI coding tools does it work with?

Anything with a PreToolUse-style hook. Out of the box:

• Claude Code (first-class support)
• Cursor (via hook adapter)
• Cline (via hook adapter)
• Windsurf (via hook adapter)
• Aider (via hook adapter)
• Claude Desktop and any MCP-compatible tool

Everyone calls agc init once, it auto-detects what's installed, and wires up each tool.

Does it work on Windows?

Yes. Install via the PowerShell script. The daemon uses named pipes instead of Unix sockets but otherwise functions identically.

How do I add a teammate?

An admin runs agc team invite to generate a 6-character invite code. Share it however you like (Slack, email, in person). Teammates run agc team join CODE on their machine. That's it — they're in.

Invites can be rotated with agc team revoke-invites followed by a fresh agc team invite.

What's the difference between admin and member?

Admins can:

• Change team name
• Invite new members and revoke invites
• Promote/demote members
• Remove members
• Edit the team's coordination policy (lease TTL, cooldown, orphan threshold)
• Delete the team

Members can view the dashboard, see who else is on the team, and rename themselves. That's it.

What is "coordination policy" and why should it be team-wide?

Three settings control how the daemon behaves: how long leases last by default, how long after a release before another agent can grab a lease, and how long without a heartbeat before a lease is considered abandoned. If Alice uses cooldown=5s and Bob uses cooldown=60s, they'll make different decisions about when it's safe to edit. The team settings feature lets an admin set one value for the whole team and every daemon respects it.

Can chats actually talk to each other, or do I have to relay messages by hand? (v0.24+)

Yes — agc msg send / inbox / reply / ack, plus agc msg broadcast for everyone-reachable scope checks. Same-machine via SQLite, same-team via teamsync push, cross-org via JWS-signed federation. All three look the same to the CLI.

To make chats actually use it without prompting, run agc install-etiquette in a repo. That drops a block into CLAUDE.md telling agents when to broadcast (touching cross-scope files, changing shared interfaces, ≥3 renames, long blocking ops) and when not to (work already scoped to them, trivial fixes, read-only ops).

Does AgentCollision see when I have a file open in my editor? (v0.27.11+)

Yes, if you install the VS Code extension. It heartbeats every 15 seconds with your active editor's file path. When an AI agent tries to write to a file the human is editing, the daemon refuses the lease with 409 human_present and the agent's hook surfaces the message to the model.

This is the deepest local-only feature in AgentCollision — cloud orchestrators structurally can't do it because they don't see your editor. JetBrains plugin is on the roadmap; the wire format is open so any IDE can produce presence by POSTing to /v1/presence/heartbeat.

How do I get Slack notifications for AgentCollision events? (v0.27.17+)

Create an incoming webhook in Slack, then subscribe AgentCollision to it:

curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:7777/v1/webhooks \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://hooks.slack.com/services/T/B/X","events":["lease.acquired","policy.fired","spend.cap_exceeded"]}'

AgentCollision auto-formats the payload as Slack blocks when the URL matches hooks.slack.com — no relay process, no separate adapter. Same pattern works for Microsoft Teams once URL detection lands.

Wildcard event "*" subscribes to everything. All deliveries are HMAC-signed; verify the X-AC-Signature header on the receiver side.

Is there a macOS menu bar app? (v0.27.13+)

Yes. agc menubar install builds the menubar binary, registers a LaunchAgent so it autostarts on login, and within ~2 seconds you'll see a colored dot in your menu bar: green when clean, yellow on contention risk, red on trouble. Click to open the dashboard.

agc menubar uninstall removes it cleanly. The default agc binary doesn't carry the GUI dependencies; the menubar is a separate optional install.

I have agents in multiple repos. Can I filter the dashboard by repo? (v0.27.17+)

Yes. The Coordination and Leases pages have repo chip rows above the table, auto-populated from the daemon's /v1/repos registry. Click a repo chip to filter; click "all" to clear. The daemon learns about repos from every PreToolUse hook's CWD — no configuration needed.

The hook isn't firing when Claude Code edits a file.

Run agc doctor. It'll diagnose and usually offer a one-line fix. Common issues:

• Hook wasn't installed (run agc init)
• Claude Code was running when you installed it (restart Claude Code)
• Daemon isn't running (run agc daemon)

A lease is stuck in "held" state and won't release.

The holder crashed. Wait for the lease TTL (default 30 minutes) or force-release from the local dashboard. Enable allow_revoke in settings if you want to use the dashboard's Release button.

How do I uninstall it?

agc uninstall-hooks
brew uninstall agentcollision
rm -rf ~/.agentcollision

That removes the hooks from all AI tools, uninstalls the binary, and deletes local state.

What if the hosted coordinator goes down?

Your local daemon keeps working. Each machine falls back to local-only coordination. Team sync resumes automatically when the coordinator comes back.