January 6, 2026
Siri, but with Trust Issues
System: Control your Mac from anywhere using natural language
Genius or chaos? Internet split on a chatty Mac that could text your wife—or delete your stuff
TLDR: An open-source tool lets you control your Mac by chatting, with an AI “brain” online and a “body” on your laptop. Commenters love the convenience but roast the security risks, unreadable dark docs, and the generic name—while debating if it quietly puts your computer on the internet.
A new open-source tool called “System” promises you can talk to your Mac from anywhere and it’ll do your bidding—play music, send texts, schedule stuff—thanks to an AI “brain” in the cloud and a local “body” on your laptop. The brain runs on Cloudflare’s servers, while the body clicks buttons and runs scripts on your Mac. Sounds slick, right? The crowd is… not calm. The top fear: security. One user flatly declares that any setup where an AI can run commands on their computer is not “secure,” split-brain architecture or not. Another jokes-while-not-joking about the bot having an existential crisis and wiping their files. Meanwhile, a visual accessibility mini-mutiny breaks out over the docs’ ultra-dark theme—“cool” until you actually try to read it. And the name “System”? The comments call it “obnoxious,” adding that good luck Googling help for something named like a Windows error. Even fans are confused: is this a neat framework or are you exposing your Mac to the internet via Cloudflare? Still, the demo’s vibes are undeniable—hands-free Mac control, iMessage with confirmation, and Apple Music on command—fueling a classic internet standoff: magic convenience vs. nightmare risk. Grab popcorn and a backup drive.
Key Points
- •System enables remote, natural-language control of a Mac via a split architecture with an agent on Cloudflare Workers and a local bridge on macOS.
- •Setup requires cloning the GitHub repo, running npm install and an interactive setup (Anthropic API key, Raycast extensions, remote access), then starting the system to launch the bridge, tunnel, and agent UI.
- •All requests are authenticated using an API secret passed via Bearer header or query parameter token.
- •Users can issue chat commands, schedule tasks with natural language or cron, and the agent maintains persistent state including preferences and conversation history.
- •Core tools cover Mac automation (AppleScript, shell, Raycast), media and volume controls, iMessage with confirmation, system settings, calendar/reminders, and display/focus options.