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Quickstart

This page walks through your first useful turns with the presence. It assumes you’ve installed BOR and finished onboarding.

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Talk to the presence

Click the orb. The composer expands. Type a message and press Enter. While BOR works, the thought bubble opens and streams what it’s doing. You can also:
  • Attach context — drag a file or screenshot onto the composer, or click the attach button.
  • Minimize the bubble (the work keeps running; a task chip appears).
  • Stop a running task.

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Five things to try

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1. Ask a question

“What’s the weather like for a hike near me this weekend?”
BOR searches the web, reads sources, and answers in the bubble with a concise, sourced reply. No app gets built — answering one question is a valid response.

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2. Build a BOR app

“Make me a calorie tracker.”
This is ambiguous on platform, so BOR may ask whether you want a BOR app, a web app, a desktop app, or a mobile app. Say “a BOR app.” BOR researches what a good calorie tracker needs, then builds a full app — camera/photo meal capture, AI nutrition estimates, history, goals, settings — and opens it as its own Mac window. It persists; reopen it any time from the App Library (the grid icon in the bubble header).

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3. Drop a shortcut in the bubble

“Give me a quick currency converter card.”
BOR builds a shortcut — a small live card that renders inside the bubble. It has its own state, can call the AI, and stays across turns.

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4. Build and preview a real project

“Build a landing page for my coffee shop.”
A landing page is a website, not a BOR app. BOR scaffolds a real project into .bor/workspaces/, starts the dev server in the background, and opens it with the browser tool so you can see it render. See Running commands and The browser.

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5. Change how everything looks

“Make it feel like a cozy 2000s aqua desktop.”
BOR sets the Y2K / Frutiger Aero theme, may generate a matching wallpaper, and restyles the presence and every generated surface. See Themes.

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Reading the thought bubble

While BOR works, the bubble shows live cards:
  • Editor card — a file being written, streaming line by line. One card per file.
  • Terminal card — a command running, with live stdout/stderr.
  • Browser card — a browser session: address bar, screenshot, console logs, step pagination.
  • Wait card — a countdown while BOR pauses (e.g. for a build to finish).
  • Image card — a generated image.
  • Web card — search results being read.
Each tool call is “bracketed” in the bubble so you always see what BOR is doing and why.

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The header options

The thought-bubble header has quick actions on the right:
  • App Library — the grid of apps BOR built for you (also mirrored into ~/Applications).
  • Notifications — the notification inbox.
  • History — past conversations.
  • MCP Marketplace — browse and install MCP servers.
  • Minimize / Stop / Close.

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