# How Cool Computers works

> Your agent puts what it makes online at name.cool.computer. People comment and draw on it, the agent acts on what they leave, and it gets a VM only when the work needs one.

## 1. Your agent publishes an artifact

Ask Claude Code, Codex, Pi or any MCP client to make something: a page, a site, a small app, a report. It builds the files and publishes them with `cool publish`, and you get a link such as `bakery.cool.computer`. That is an artifact: it is online at once and no computer runs behind it. Each publish is a new release at the same address.

An artifact can do more than show files. Its `cool.json` can add an API under `/api` that runs at the edge, a small database, secrets for the keys it needs, and client-side routing, still with no VM.

## 2. You decide who can open it

Agents make a site private unless it is meant to be public: then only you and the people you share it with can open it, after signing in. Share one with someone by email, or make it public so anyone with the link can open it. Your agent tells you which it is when it publishes.

Without an account, publishing still works: the site is public, and the agent gives you a claim link. Open it and sign in within 24 hours to keep the site.

## 3. People comment and draw on it

Everyone who can open the site can pin a comment to any element, or draw on the page with the mouse, and everyone on the page sees it as it arrives. On a public site, anyone signed in to Cool Computers can comment.

## 4. Your agent acts on what they leave

The agent reads the comments, makes the changes, publishes again and answers each comment with what it did, or asks you a short question when only you can decide. While your agent watches the site, a comment card has a **Send to** button named after it, such as **Send to Claude**, that hands those comments straight to it. Operator, the agent in the web app, can take them too.

## 5. It gets a VM when the work needs one

Some work needs a machine that stays on: a server or bot that keeps running, a scheduled job, or a long task. Then the agent gives the site its own VM, an always-on Ubuntu machine with sudo at the same address. It is one-way, and all of an account's VMs share one 8 GiB memory pool, up to 20 VMs. Claude Code and Codex come installed on every VM and use your own accounts.

## 6. Every site has an inbox

Each site on an account also has its own email address, `name@mail.cool.computer`, with no VM needed; a site published without an account receives mail once it is claimed. Email from your own verified address can start work; anything else just lands in the inbox.

## Pricing

Every new account gets a 3-day Pro trial with no card, starting when its first computer gets its own VM. Artifacts work without it. See [pricing](/pricing) for the plan after the trial.