Understudy
I've been building Understudy, an open-source GUI agent for macOS. Wanted to push the GUI stuff beyond the usual short demos, so I tried turning it into an iPhone app reviewer. You give it one prompt. It browses the real App Store in Chrome, installs the app on a real iPhone through macOS iPhone Mirroring (not a simulator), opens the app and explores it — never seen Snapseed before — records clips and screenshots, composites a narrated review video with FFmpeg locally, uploads it to YouTube, then deletes the app. About an hour, didn't touch the keyboard. The exploration part is what I'm…
Understudy launched on March 13, 2026 with 4 votes, #2,516 of 23,380 launches that month and more than 75% of that year's launches.
What it does
Teach a desktop agent by doing a task once. Understudy learns the workflow, turns it into a reusable skill, and can later execute it for a new input across GUI apps, browsers, shell tools, files, and messaging. It’s open source, local-first, and designed for real cross-app work instead of brittle macro playback. Current state: macOS today, MIT licensed, with teach-by-demonstration working and route optimization still early.
Understudy is an open-source local AI agent that operates your computer. Give it a task, teach it once, and watch it grow. Bring your own model.
Understudy is an open-source AI agent that lives on your computer. Give it a task and it researches, browses the web, clicks through desktop apps, manages files, and replies through your existing channels. Teach it once and it learns. Use it daily and it gets faster. Four demos, each showing a different side of what Understudy can do. The agent researches the web, controls your browser, invokes skills, and delivers a polished result — all from a single instruction. No staging, no multi-step prompting. One local runtime handles everything. Send a message from your phone via Telegram. Understudy receives it on your Mac, converts a file to PDF, opens desktop Telegram, finds the right contact,…from understudy-ai.github.io
In the maker’s words, at launch
I've been building Understudy, an open-source GUI agent for macOS. Wanted to push the GUI stuff beyond the usual short demos, so I tried turning it into an iPhone app reviewer. You give it one prompt. It browses the real App Store in Chrome, installs the app on a real iPhone through macOS iPhone Mirroring (not a…
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Understudy – Teach a desktop agent by demonstrating a task onceMar 2026 · github.com · ▲120I built Understudy because a lot of real work still spans native desktop apps, browser tabs, terminals, and chat tools. Most current agents live in only one of those surfaces. Understudy is a local-first desktop agent runtime that can operate GUI apps, browsers, shell tools, files, and messaging in one session. The part I'm most interested in feedback on is teach-by-demonstration: you do a task once, the agent records screen video + semantic events, extracts the intent rather than coordinates, and turns it into a reusable skill. Demo video:…
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