Computers, terminal and Git

Use the shared Project desktop

Work in a graphical desktop inside a managed Project, watch what Chetty does there, and take over when a step needs a person.

Before you start

The desktop needs an environment image that supports it. New Projects use project-base@19: GNOME on Wayland with Ubuntu 26.04 and the GitHub CLI (gh).

Note: An environment keeps the image it was created from, and recreating it does not upgrade the image. A Project created from an older image without a supported desktop needs a new Project, and a recreate or restore that involves a retired image is refused before the environment is stopped or changed.

How the desktop starts

Each Project container has exactly one shared desktop. It starts when Chetty explicitly uses the Desktop tool and keeps running until a Project member stops it or the environment stops, including across daemon restarts.

Chetty's Desktop tool always works on the desktop of the Project the conversation runs in. In a conversation outside a managed Project it returns an error that asks you to switch to one first.

Watch and take control

While the desktop of a conversation's Project runs, the chat shows a tile. It stays visible after a page reload or a daemon restart, and it offers the shared full-screen preview, captions of what Chetty is doing and a shortcut to a pending question.

When Chetty meets a login, a captcha or another human-only step, it asks in chat and waits.
Select Take control in the chat tile and finish the step yourself.
Hand control back so Chetty can look again. Collapsing the tile while you hold control also returns it to Chetty.

Every current Project member can watch the shared screen, so application logins and documents are visible to the whole team. Collapsed previews refresh about every 1.5 seconds.

While a live viewer is connected, Chetty's clicks glide to their target briefly before they happen, and a fading ring marks each click; screenshots never include that ring. Agents cannot take control from a person or stop the desktop.

Stop a desktop

Account → Desktops lists the desktops running in the Projects you can open, with their Project links, state and CPU, memory and disk meters.

Find the desktop and use the stop button beside it, or in its expanded preview.
Read the confirmation: the live view and the open desktop applications close, and their memory is released.

Project files stay stored and the environment keeps running. Account never takes control. A monitor icon beside the Project name shows that its desktop is running or starting, and the memory meters measure the entire environment.

Choose picture quality

In an expanded preview, More actions offers Quality and Speed to every viewer, including watch-only previews on Account. Your choice is remembered by the browser.

Quality keeps the native-resolution picture and is the default.
Speed trades detail for responsiveness: where the environment supports it, the screen streams at 75% of its size, so 1920 × 1080 becomes 1440 × 810, and large changes arrive as JPEG at quality 50.
Small changes and settled screens stay lossless. Changing the choice does not reconnect, does not change the shared display resolution and does not grant control.

Start an application

Ask Chetty to start an application from the desktop shell with desktop-open <app> [args]. The command reports the new window's title, and it says so when the window's controls are not readable yet and suggests a screenshot. If no window appears within 10 seconds, it says that too.

A program started this way ends with the desktop session. A program started outside this helper is not covered by that lifetime.

If the desktop does not appear

The Project has no desktop: its image predates desktop support, so create a new Project.
Chetty sees nothing on the screen: the environment may be stopped. Start it from the Project's Environments section.
A step needs you: answer the question in chat and select Take control in the tile.
The stop button is missing: the desktop is not running in that Project any more.

Start, stop and snapshot an environment, Environments overview, Projects overview, Open an interactive Project terminal.