--- title: "FAQ" description: "Straight answers about PoolParty beta capabilities, agent crews, model and provider setup, the Your Pool browser workspace, privacy, platforms, and feature plans." canonical: "https://poolpartyai.com/faq/" site: "PoolParty" generated_from: html --- ![The courtyard pool — limestone courtyard · morning, with an opening path of pale blue and cream tesserae on the pool floor.](https://poolpartyai.com/_astro/faq-preview-1672.CZT5MDUj.webp) Questions & answers # Know what your pool can do. Get clear answers about computers, models, agents, storage, and media. See what works in the beta, what is in development, and how browser access will be approved. - Your computers - Your agents - Your permissions Explore the experiences: [Apps overview](https://poolpartyai.com/apps) · [Chat](https://poolpartyai.com/chat) · [PitchDeck](https://poolpartyai.com/pitchdeck) · [Social](https://poolpartyai.com/social) · [Theater](https://poolpartyai.com/theater) Planning to manage your pool in a browser? [Explore Your Pool](https://poolpartyai.com/pool) · [Open the workspace preview](https://app.poolpartyai.com/) ## What it is How it works From separate computers to one private pool 1. **Install** Your first computer starts a pool. 2. **Join with a code** Add the computers you choose. 3. **Use one network** Discover their models and resources. Keep your hardware. Connect what it can do. ### How do I use AI across computers I already own? Install PoolParty on supported computers and join additional devices with a code. The pool can route a request to an eligible model on a compatible computer, send supported jobs to hardware that can run them, and store sealed files across approved devices. You can ask in the app, use the OpenAI-compatible endpoint, or connect an agent through MCP. Answers identify the model and selection reason. Separate computers do not combine their GPU memory or split one model across devices in the beta. ### Can my Mac and my Windows PC share one AI? Computers can join the same pool. Connecting your own devices across networks, and using a phone or laptop as a consume-only device, are coming after the beta and are not included yet. The macOS build is signed and notarized. Windows and Linux packages are unsigned. Linux model serving has not been measured; check the download page for current platform and package details. ### How is this different from renting cloud compute, or from a network that routes my prompts through a coordinator? Nothing is rented: the machines are yours, your friends’, or your company’s, and no stranger can book them. Nothing sits in the middle: in a pool of your own machines there is no third party that decrypts your prompt in order to route or bill it. The Public Pool is not open yet. It is planned for optional, small sandboxed batch jobs; its public work is designed not to include anyone’s private prompts or files. ### What can I do with PoolParty today, and what is still being built? The beta includes personal AI chat, model selection, MCP access for supported agents, agent-to-agent messaging, supported GPU jobs, and sealed storage. Agent crew orchestration, browser-based pool management, provider onboarding, and shared conversations are in development. PitchDeck, Social, and Theater are also in development. See the Apps overview for the purpose of each experience and its availability. Code or a plan does not count as a released feature. ### Can one large model use the memory of several computers? No. PoolParty can route a request to a model running on an eligible computer, but the beta does not combine VRAM or system memory across computers to load one larger model. Multi-computer model serving is planned and still needs cross-machine qualification. ### Can I connect provider models and external agent harnesses? The beta supports local models through the pool API and MCP clients that you configure on your computer. A guided provider-API connection flow and broader harness onboarding are in development. Provider credentials and provider charges will remain separate from PoolParty credits. ### Can I manage my pool from a website? A browser workspace called Your Pool is in development for devices, models, agents, storage, compute, chat, and media. It will require a web account and approval from an installed PoolParty device. The public website remains a static guide and does not control your computers. Local desktop use does not require that web account. Preview the workspace at /pool/. ### Do I need NVIDIA PAIR? Does PoolParty work with it? NVIDIA’s Personal AI Router (September 2026) joins the PCs on one home network so local agents can send independent requests to whichever machine has capacity. It fronts Ollama and LM Studio and hands each request whole to one machine; by NVIDIA’s own description it does not pool GPU memory, split a model, or leave the network. PoolParty connects computers into a pool for models, compute, encrypted storage and agents. Cross-network access is coming after the beta. The Public Pool is not open yet. If you run PAIR, its connection to PoolParty is being measured and will be listed here when it has been. ## Agents How it works Give an agent access to your pool 1. **Your agent** Connect through an MCP client. 2. **Owner approval** Choose the tools it may use. 3. **Pool tools** Models, jobs, storage and messages. Turn access off and the next tool call is refused. ### How do I give Claude Code, or another agent, a local model? One command registers the pool as a Model Context Protocol server: \`claude mcp add poolparty -- poolparty mcp\`. The agent then sees the pool’s machines, models and storage as tools, behind that machine’s own credential — no login, no key to paste. Consent is one switch in the app, and turning it off refuses the very next call in plain words. Code that already speaks the OpenAI API ports with a change of base URL: the pool answers on your own network directly, and from anywhere through the hosted gateway at api.poolpartyai.com behind a key you mint. The agents page is the same material written for an agent to read. ### Can my agents message each other or coordinate a crew? Agents can message other agents through the beta’s pool connection when the sender, receiving machine, and receiving agent each allow it. Messages do not by themselves grant permission to run the recipient’s tools. Coordinated crews are in development. The planned flow has a lead agent assign tasks to approved worker agents, collect their results, and show the person what happened. Broader harness support remains subject to qualification. ### Is this safe to install, and how can I verify it? Do not take the page’s word for it. Every release publishes a manifest with the SHA-256 digest of each artifact, signed update metadata, and a software bill of materials. Download, compute the digest, compare it to the manifest, then install. An agent can do this for you; the trust page is written so it can. Verification proves integrity and origin. It cannot prove the absence of every defect, and the site says so. ## Your machine How it works Your computer comes first 1. **You opt in** Contribution starts with your consent. 2. **Conditions hold** Idle, plugged in and within thermal limits. 3. **You return** Contribution stops immediately. Storage has its own byte budget. Stop everything remains available. ### Is it safe to let my machine do this? Contribution is opt-in on each machine and gated continuously, not just at setup. Work runs only while the machine is idle, plugged in, above a battery floor, and within thermal limits. The thermal gate is never waived by any preset on any platform. Come back to the machine and running work stops immediately — it is not allowed to finish first. There is a switch that stops everything, always visible, and deleting the contribution policy is a harder stop still. Whatever the software refuses to do, it tells you which gate refused and why, in plain language. What runs by default is sandboxed WebAssembly. The native tier that can use a graphics card directly is a separate, explicit opt-in, because its sandbox is weaker and the consent says so. ### Will this slow my computer down? It should not, because it only runs when the machine is idle and stops the moment you return. That is what the gates are for. Storage is different from compute: sealed pieces sit on disk within a byte budget you set, and placement past that budget is refused outright rather than negotiated. ### Can I turn it all off instantly? “Stop everything now” is on the first screen of the app and in the menu bar. It stops serving, sealing and every door, for every pool the machine belongs to, in under a second, and says so. ## Privacy How it works Encrypt first. Then distribute the pieces. 1. **Your file** Starts on an approved device. 2. **Encrypt & split** Encryption happens before upload. 3. **Pool storage** Machines store encrypted chunks. Only approved devices hold the keys needed to read the file. ### What happens to my prompts? In your own pool, a prompt goes to one of your machines, the model runs there, and the answer comes back with a routing line naming the model and why. There is no third party in the path. In a friends’ pool, your prompt can be answered by the host’s machine, and whoever owns that machine can read it — the app says exactly that before you turn Use on, and by default only the host’s own machines answer guests. The Public Pool is not open yet; public work is not available today. ### What is “sealed” storage, exactly? Three operations in a fixed order: encrypt, then split, then scatter. The encryption happens first and on your device, because that is where the secrecy comes from. Splitting is what stops any one machine from holding a whole thing, and scattering places the pieces so that no machine holds enough to reconstruct even the encrypted file. Recovery uses a 2-of-3 scheme with codes generated once, shown once, and never stored by PoolParty. ### What if I lose my recovery codes? If you lose every enrolled device and your recovery codes, the data is unrecoverable. Permanently. There is no reset link and no support route that recovers it. That is deliberate — a back door for you is a back door for whoever gets in. It also means PoolParty is not a backup product and does not present itself as one. ### Does the app phone home? No, except for two things you control: the update check (consent-first, signed, roll-back-able) and diagnostics, which are off by default and, when on, are built from an allowlisted set of technical fields and shown to you in full before anything is sent. No file contents, no prompts, no secrets. ## Friends, the public pool, and credits How it works Share only with the people you invite 1. **Invite someone** Share a one-time join code. 2. **Approve access** Choose what guests may do. 3. **Share a pool** Either side can leave or revoke. The Public Pool is not open yet; if it opens, it will be a separate opt-in with separate limits. ### Can I pool with a friend? Yes. Invite them with a one-time code shown on your screen; approve their machine with a tap. Their idle time helps your pool and yours helps theirs. You choose what guests may do, and by default only your own machines answer their prompts. Either side can leave or revoke at any time. ### Will public community chat be available? Public topic rooms are planned as opt-in spaces with clear membership, reporting, blocking, and moderation. They are not available until those community controls are ready. Private AI chat in the beta remains separate from public or shared Room history. ### Can one machine be in more than one pool? You can use your own pool and a friends’ pool at the same time. The Public Pool is not open yet. Pool support for public contribution will be described when the service opens. ### What does it cost? The desktop beta is free for local pool use and does not require a website account. The planned Your Pool browser workspace will require account sign-in and approval from an installed device. Credits measure compute used in your own pool. The Public Pool is not open yet, so credits cannot currently be earned there or spent on public capacity. Credits are not money; real-currency pricing and payouts belong to a later, deliberately gated phase. One page does carry dollar figures, and they are all other people’s: Calculate economics prices cloud API tokens and the hardware you would buy, so that you can work out what a workload costs you now and what it would cost on machines you already own. It prices nothing of ours, and it says so on the page. ### Is this crypto? No. There is no token, no mining, and no blockchain anywhere in it, and that is a decision rather than an omission. Credits are a ledger entry inside a pool. When money eventually enters the picture, it does so through ordinary payment rails. ### Can my company use it? Company mode is the same product run as an organization: the hub inside the company network, operator-controlled admission, directory sign-in, an escrow keyring, and policy that can only narrow what a machine offers. It is packaged today and offered with a company release and a real price, not before; there is no pricing page because we are not going to invent one. The company page has the detail and an address to write to. *Working it out for yourself* ## Calculate economics The cost answer above says what the beta costs and why there is no PoolParty price. What it cannot tell you is what your own workload costs today, or what it would cost on machines you already own. That is a calculation, so it gets a calculator — with every assumption labelled and the unflattering parts kept in. [Open the calculator](https://poolpartyai.com/faq/calculate-economics) ![The evening pool — courtyard · blue hour, with a pearl and gold celestial mosaic on the pool floor.](https://poolpartyai.com/_astro/theater-preview-1672.D22qE6-o.webp) Theater · In development ## The next generation of theater. Powered by your pool. Bring photos, films and generated worlds together with your pool’s resources. Theater is in development for your own hardware. - Photos & video - Virtual cinema - Your media [Explore Theater](https://poolpartyai.com/theater) ## Contact us with a question Write and ask. An assistant reads that address first and passes anything this site does not already answer to a person. [hello@poolpartyai.com](mailto:hello@poolpartyai.com) [Download PoolParty](https://poolpartyai.com/download)