For builders
Software you can rewrite, with the AI you already use.
Ion’s apps are open source (MIT) and run on your own computer, and your own Claude Code or Codex can answer questions across them and rewrite any of them for you. The Hub that runs them is source-available. It is personal software, shaped by you rather than for a market.
What is personal software, and why now?
Personal software is an app made for one person or one household rather than a market: the chore rota, the print queue, the pipeline that fits how you actually sell. Robin Sloan called it a “home-cooked app”, and Ink & Switch call software its users can reshape “malleable software”.
What changed is who can do the reshaping. AI coding agents like Claude Code and Codex can read an app, change it and explain what they did, so a change that used to need an afternoon with the source now starts as a sentence. Ion is built around that. Its apps are open source, run on your own computer, and your AI can rewrite them for you.
Can my AI answer across all my apps’ data privately?
With Ion it can. Your apps and their data live on your computer. Your own Claude Code or Codex, signed in with your plan, can answer a question in one app from what all of them know, such as tonight’s dinner from your training, recipes and grocery list, using only connections you approved.
Each app declares what it wants to read from the others, and you approve those connections at install and can revoke any of them. Every cross-app read is written to a log you can read. Data goes to your AI provider when you ask, or for apps you’ve allowed to use AI in the background, and you can see and switch off background AI for any app.
How do I change an app?
Yes. Tell your AI what you’d do differently, in plain language. It rewrites the app on a private draft; you preview it and keep it only if you like it. The apps are open source, so the version you end up with is yours.
Because the apps are MIT-licensed, the draft is ordinary source code, and the change is yours to keep, fork or share. For an app that doesn’t exist yet, Ion’s apps are built in dev-hub, the workshop described on the developers page, which has no public release yet.
At launch, updates keep your changes: new versions are merged with yours, and you preview before anything changes.
How do I run agents from my phone or watch?
Anthropic’s Remote Control links a running Claude Code session to the Claude app, and hooks can send a notification when the agent is waiting. dev-hub, the tool Ion is built with, goes further and runs the agents for you on a Mac or Linux computer you own:
- A task board the agent works from. Assign a task to the agent and a background runner picks it up, up to three at once.
- A worktree per run. Each run gets its own git worktree on its own branch, so parallel agents never collide and nothing reaches main until you merge it.
- Needs Attention. When an agent hits a question only you can answer, the task pauses and the question lands in one list on your iPhone, as a widget, and on your Apple Watch, where you pick an answer or dictate one. The run carries on when you reply.
- Previews. Every project’s dev server gets its own HTTPS URL, so you can check what the agent built from your phone, then merge or discard the branch.
If you’re invited. We build Ion with these tools every day. dev-hub has no public release yet: you sign in to download it. Downloads are open to invited accounts for now. The Ion app isn’t on the App Store, and publishing from dev-hub to Ion Apps is being built alongside the catalogue, which hasn’t launched either. The early-access list below is the way to hear when they open up.
What’s open, and what isn’t?
The apps are open source under the MIT licence: read them, change them, fork them. The Hub that runs them is source-available: you can read and run it, but not host and resell it.
The tools are a separate matter. dev-hub has no public release, and the Ion app isn’t on the App Store yet.
Builder questions
Can I run Claude Code from my iPhone or Apple Watch?
You can steer it from there. Anthropic’s Remote Control links a running session to the Claude app, and hooks can push a notification when the agent is waiting. dev-hub, the tool Ion is built with, sends each agent’s questions to one Needs Attention list on your iPhone and Apple Watch, where you pick or dictate an answer. dev-hub has no public release yet.
How do I run several Claude Code agents at once without conflicts?
Give each agent its own git worktree on its own branch, its own dev-server port and a cap on how many run at once, then review each branch before it merges. dev-hub does this from a task board: a background runner picks up tasks assigned to the agent, up to three at once, each in its own worktree, and you merge or discard each branch.
How do I run Claude Code 24/7 on a Mac mini at home?
Keep the Mac mini awake and on power, run the agent inside something that survives disconnects, like tmux or a service that restarts on reboot, reach it over a private link like Tailscale or Cloudflare Tunnel rather than open ports, and give it a queue of work. dev-hub packages that as a task board, background runs and phone approvals, but has no public release yet.
What is malleable software?
Software its users can reshape to fit how they work, rather than waiting for the maker to change it. Ink & Switch set out the idea in their essay of that name. Ion’s apps are built for it: they are open source (MIT), run on your own computer, and your own Claude Code or Codex rewrites them on a private draft you try before keeping.
Can I build personal software with AI?
Yes, and the easiest start is an app that nearly fits. Ion’s library at launch has open-source apps for habits, calories, training, recipes, groceries, tasks, invoices and deals. Tell your own Claude Code or Codex what you’d change, in plain language, and it rewrites the app on a private draft that you try before you keep it.
Building your own? Get your invite.
Invite-only, released in small waves. Free during early access.