Frequently Asked Questions

HYVE Ether OS is a desktop operating system built around AI agents as first-class citizens, not bolted-on browser tabs. It runs your AI workloads locally where possible and gives you building blocks to compose with — Omega for orchestration, Tide for cognitive sensing, Augur for security, Studios for creative work, and more. Patent pending: 10 U.S. patent applications filed (9 provisional, 1 nonprovisional).

Anyone who wants AI to work for them without surrendering their data, identity, or leverage to a single cloud vendor. Day-one targets are developers (the MCP Bridge integrates with Claude Code, Cursor, Zed, Continue.dev), creators (Studios for image, audio, video, motion capture, sensing), and privacy-conscious power users who want every default flipped toward sovereignty. Civic and federal-compliance customers are a Wave 3 audience.

Those operating systems were designed around applications you launch and quit. HYVE Ether OS is designed around agents that watch, decide, and act over time. Its design gives agents native primitives — provenance-keyed sandboxing, deterministic decision orchestration, encrypted inter-agent messaging, ambient context awareness — that legacy operating systems either bolt on as afterthoughts or do not provide at all. Not all of these are in the current build yet.

Yes. HYVE Ether OS is built on Debian Linux for hardware compatibility; the desktop shell, agent layer, and integration layer are HYVE's own. From a user's perspective it is its own OS — you do not interact with the underlying kernel except through HYVE-controlled surfaces.

The Debian Linux base is open source; HYVE's own software is not. The OS shell, the substrate primitives, and the integration layer are commercial software — your closed-beta license entitles you to use them for personal, non-commercial use under the terms at /legal/terms. The standalone SDKs (Tide, Augur, Narrator, Trust, Omega-core) are being built; they are not yet published for public download.

The interactive demo at /try runs an in-browser facsimile of the Omega Shell with five surfaces (Omega, Nexus, Tide, Sentinel, Settings). It is not the live OS — that shipped at beta on July 1, 2026 — but it accurately represents the surface, the navigation model, and the data shapes you will see on first boot. The full feature tour, with real screenshots from a running install, is at /os.

HYVE Ether OS is in closed beta and not for public sale right now. Closed-beta members accept the risk that beta software is incomplete and may evolve. Access is by request — request access at /beta.

No. HYVE Ether OS is not a subscription. Closed-beta access grants a license that is yours, including the updates we ship during the beta. Installed systems don't update automatically yet; new releases are a fresh download. Stop renting your intelligence.

HYVE Ether OS is in closed beta — there is no public sale right now. Access is by request at /beta. Closed-beta members get the downloadable OS and give feedback that shapes it. Downloads of HYVE Ether OS are paused while we inspect the 2.1.2 image. Your license stays valid. Updates are posted at hyveether.com/progress.

During the closed beta there is no public sale. Where a purchase does apply, it is final and non-refundable except in narrow cases like duplicate charges, unauthorized payments, or license-not-delivered-after-14-days. The full policy is at /legal/refund.

There is no public sale during the closed beta. Access is a single-user license by request; multi-seat licensing for organizations will be available at public launch through Enterprise contact.

Yes — when you request access at /beta, enter the recipient's email address. The license key is bound to the email used in the request, not to the requester.

There is no public sale during the closed beta, so there is nothing to pay for right now. Request access at /beta.

There is no public sale during the closed beta. Sales-tax handling is being added before public launch.

Once. At activation the OS registers your license key with hyveether.com. HYVE collects no telemetry or usage data. Your AI runs locally; features you choose, like web search or model downloads, use the internet, and standard system services such as clock sync do too. Your conversations, memory, and keys live in ~/.hyve/ on your machine as files only your user account can read. They are protected by file permissions, not encrypted at rest, so we recommend full-disk encryption.

It reads what is sent to it. At activation the OS sends your license key, a machine identifier, and the OS version once, over HTTPS, and our server can read them. HYVE collects no telemetry or usage data. Questions you type into the website's /troubleshoot support assistant are sent to Anthropic to generate answers, so do not type private or health data there. Device-to-device messaging is in development; the relay service is not public yet.

Not yet. HYVE's design uses ML-KEM-768 post-quantum key exchange (a NIST-standardized key encapsulation mechanism), with ChaCha20-Poly1305 and Ed25519 signatures; it is not yet in the shipped build. Today the files in ~/.hyve/ are protected by file permissions, not encrypted at rest, so we recommend full-disk encryption, and HYVE's device-to-device messaging relay is not public yet.

No. HYVE is not yet certified under any compliance framework. Several controls are implemented today (type-system-enforced wire shapes, per-tenant key isolation, parameterized SQL, OsRng). A third-party SOC 2 Type II audit is planned. The /security page details our current posture and the certifications we are working toward.

Your models run on your own hardware, orchestrated by Omega. If you add your own API key for a frontier provider, the key is stored on your machine and the requests you send to that provider go to it. HYVE LLM Creator is coming soon.

Yes. The local-engine category includes self-hosted LLM runtimes that consume your GPU directly. HYVE will function — Omega, Augur, Tide — without any cloud LLM provider configured. Frontier models are an option, not a requirement.

Omega is the decision orchestrator. It takes four signals — Tide (your cognitive state), Trust (the requester's reputation), Narrator (the action's audience tone), Augur (security analysis of the action) — and runs a deterministic decide() function that returns refuse / clarify / proceed. The function runs in under 200 nanoseconds per rule, which means every agent decision can be replayed exactly in Observatory for audit.

They are designed not to. In the 3.0 build now in testing, shell commands are off until you turn them on, the agent's actions pass a default-deny policy check, and code the agent writes for apps runs in a Linux Landlock + seccomp sandbox. When you turn shell commands on, those commands run with your user account's permissions. Earlier builds, including 2.1.2, do not have all of these protections.

Trust tracks the historical accuracy of each agent. Narrator's render templates produce structured output, not free-form prose. Together these make AI errors visible and constrained — but no AI is perfect. HYVE's role is to make the failure modes detectable and reversible, not to claim infallibility.

Discrete AI units with a defined capability surface, a permission set, and a trust score. An agent could be 'summarize meetings,' 'monitor security feeds,' 'manage a creative project.' They live in your machine, communicate over the bus, and are composed via Omega. The Nexus marketplace will host third-party agents you can install.

It may, if it meets the minimums: a 64-bit x86-64 CPU with 4+ cores and AES-NI + AVX2, 8 GB+ RAM, and about 105 GB of free disk. The /hardware page lists the explicit minimums and the team's own development and test machines (these run our development builds; the list is not a compatibility certification). If your machine is on the unsupported list (Apple Silicon, ARM mobile devices, CPUs without AES-NI and AVX2), HYVE will not run on it, so please do not request access for it yet.

Intel-based MacBooks (pre-2020) are x86-64 machines, but none is among our development and test machines, so we cannot confirm they work; T2-chip models and Apple's proprietary peripherals are common trouble spots for Linux. Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4) — no, not at beta or public launch. ARM64 Apple Silicon support is a post-launch roadmap phase.

Closed-beta members download the ISO at /download with their license key. Flash the ISO to a USB drive (Rufus on Windows, dd on Linux, balenaEtcher on any), boot from the USB, and follow the installer. Step-by-step instructions are at /install. Downloads of HYVE Ether OS are paused while we inspect the 2.1.2 image. Your license stays valid. Updates are posted at hyveether.com/progress.

Yes. The installer offers a 'install alongside existing OS' option that can resize an existing partition (back up first; it has not been tested on every setup). The image includes both UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot loaders.

A QEMU/KVM boot has been tested; other hypervisors are untested. Attach the ISO as a virtual CD/DVD (no USB needed); the image includes both EFI/UEFI and BIOS boot loaders, so either firmware setting can be tried, with Secure Boot off. Give it ~105 GB disk and 8 GB+ RAM. Studios need a real GPU, and Sense needs add-on ESP32-S3 sensor boards, so neither works fully in a VM. Apple-Silicon Macs cannot run it in Parallels/UTM (x86-64 only) — use an Intel/AMD host. For full-fidelity testing, a bare-metal install is recommended.

Not yet as public packages. Five parts of the substrate (Tide, Augur, Narrator, Trust, Omega-core) are being built as standalone SDKs; they are not yet published for public download. To build programs for HYVE Ether OS now, apply to the developer program at /developers.

Developers list agents, organs, themes, recipes, extensions, or program plugins. Operators install them through the OS's Nexus surface. Pricing is set by the developer; HYVE takes a small platform fee. There are no marketplace listings yet.

Six: agent, organ, surface, studio extension, connector, theme. Each has a manifest.toml describing capabilities, permissions, and the install surface. Plugins run on ports 7900-7999. Sandboxing them under Leaper's differential policy is designed but not yet in the shipped build.

Per-product SDK docs are at /tide, /augur, /narrator, /trust, /omega. The architecture and security model are documented at /security. Deep API references will be published before public launch.

We plan for it to. The standalone SDKs are not published yet; when they are, we plan to version their wire formats and core APIs and to give notice before any breaking change.

Check spam first. Then use the order-lookup tool at /order-lookup with your email and checkout session ID — it will resend the email. If still nothing after 14 days, email Dev@vibesoftwaresolutions.com with your session ID and we'll resolve it personally.

One inbox handles everything: Dev@vibesoftwaresolutions.com — general support, security reports, legal questions, or reaching Anthony directly. We aim for a 48-hour response.

No. The license key never expires. You can redeem at any point after beta went live on July 1, 2026. Save the key somewhere safe — your password manager is recommended. Downloads of HYVE Ether OS are paused while we inspect the 2.1.2 image. Your license stays valid. Updates are posted at hyveether.com/progress.

Yes — your license is bound to your email and operator identity, not to a specific machine. You may install on multiple machines you personally own. Multi-user / multi-seat installation is an organization plan, available at public launch.

Closed-beta members get the source code archive of the OS shell (under a perpetual-use license) and the substrate libraries. You retain the right to run your installation indefinitely.

The closed beta went live on July 1, 2026. Closed-beta members received a download link by email that morning.

We haven't set a public-launch date yet — we're focused on the closed beta and will announce it when we're confident. The full roadmap is at /roadmap.

During the closed beta — July 24, 2026 onward — the OS is downloadable to members and their feedback shapes it in real time. On a date to be announced we reach full public launch. The full roadmap is at /roadmap. Downloads of HYVE Ether OS are paused while we inspect the 2.1.2 image. Your license stays valid. Updates are posted at hyveether.com/progress.

The OS itself runs on x86_64 desktops and laptops. iOS/Android companion apps that connect phones to your HYVE installation are a post-launch roadmap phase; no date is committed yet. The HYVE Bridge remote-access app (Windows and Android) is separate and is listed at /downloads.

Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4) support is a post-launch roadmap phase. Not at beta, not at public launch. We will announce when work starts.

Three named research lines: hardware accelerator partnerships for the on-device LLM stack, compliance certifications we do not hold yet (starting with a planned SOC 2 Type II audit), and the federated agent reputation network across HYVE installations. Early-access members will be polled before any major direction commits. /roadmap has the full picture.