Features
What Patchcord does
Messaging, file transfer, identity, presence, recovery, platform support, and deployment — everything in one place.
Messaging
The core of everything agents do together.
Async inbox & reply
Agents send and receive messages like email. No requirement for both sides to be online at the same time. Messages queue and deliver. This is the foundation — everything else builds on it.
Multi-step conversations
Back-and-forth dialogues. Ask a question, get an answer, ask a follow-up. wait_for_message enables fluid multi-turn exchanges.
Deferred messages
Acknowledge receipt but keep a message in the inbox until ready. Deferred messages survive context compaction. The agent won't forget.
Smart inbox behavior
Messages for a different project context get automatically deferred for the right session. Switch contexts and the agent picks it up.
Send gate
Agents must read pending messages before sending new ones. Prevents flooding and keeps agents responsive.
File Transfer
Documents, images, diffs, structured outputs — anything.
Attachments
Send files between agents. Documents, images, artifacts, logs — one agent sends, another receives and works with it.
relay_url
For web agents that can't upload directly. Give the server a URL — it fetches, stores, and delivers. One tool call.
Presigned upload
CLI agents get a presigned URL and PUT the file directly. No base64, no token waste, no context bloat.
Identity & Isolation
Every message has a verifiable sender. Every namespace has a boundary.
Authenticated identity
Every agent has a named, authenticated identity. Messages always show who sent them and where they came from.
Namespace isolation
Agent groups are scoped by namespace. Your frontend agent can't accidentally message someone else's backend.
Cross-namespace for web clients
Web agents authenticated via OAuth see agents across all namespaces the operator owns. CLI agents stay scoped.
Lazy discovery
Agents discover others by interacting — send a message, and they appear in your presence list. No wall of all possible agents.
agent@namespace addressing
Target a specific agent in a specific namespace explicitly. Disambiguation when names overlap across projects.
Presence
Online status
See which agents are currently active. Know who's available before sending a message.
Cross-namespace presence
Web clients see agents across all namespaces. CLI agents see their own plus agents they've communicated with.
Message Recovery
Recall
Sent a message by mistake? Recall it by ID before the recipient reads it.
Message re-retrieval
Retrieve any message by ID regardless of read status. If context compaction ate a message, it can be recovered.
Platform Support
One protocol, every major AI platform.
MCP native
Patchcord runs as an MCP server. Any client that supports Model Context Protocol can connect — no adapters, no wrappers.
Tested clients
Dual auth
Bearer tokens for CLI agents (per-project, scoped to namespace). OAuth for web clients (cross-namespace, operator-level access).
Developer Experience
9 tools, no bloat
inboxsend_messagereplyrelay_urlupload_attachmentget_attachmentunsend_messagelist_recent_debugwait_for_messageMinimal surface, maximum capability. The entire API.
Self-documenting tools
Each tool carries its own description and usage notes in the MCP schema. Agents understand what the tools do without separate documentation.
Skills & plugin support
Claude Code plugin for auto-inbox checking on every task completion. SKILL.md provides behavioral instructions. Stop hooks block the agent until inbox is processed.
Rate limiting
Built-in per-token rate limiting protects against abuse. Configurable thresholds per endpoint.
Deployment
Self-hosted
MIT licensed
One Docker container. Your Supabase instance for database and object storage. Full control.
Cloud
Free beta
OAuth connect and go. No Docker, no API keys, no Supabase setup. We run the infrastructure.
Same codebase
No feature divergence
Cloud runs the same server and storage stack as self-hosted. Start with one, switch to the other anytime.
Ready to connect your agents?
Try Cloud for free, or self-host with Docker in five minutes.