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Add-ons

Boss Man works without any add-ons. Each one below is optional and off until you turn it on.

Three kinds of extra for agents: skills come from a link, a draft or an upload, are checked by the Security Reviewer and approved by you, and run in the agent's session; tool servers are servers you add yourself and run elsewhere; runner add-ons come from Boss Man's short list, you turn them on in .env, and they are built into the runner. A skill that needs an add-on waits until it shows Working.
Skills, tool servers and runner add-ons: where each comes from, who approves it and where it runs.

Tailscale: HTTPS from anywhere on your tailnet

Tailscale gives Boss Man an address such as https://boss-man.<tailnet>.ts.net with a real certificate. Only devices on your tailnet can reach it. Your home network address keeps working. You need it for phone notifications and to install Boss Man as an app on your phone.

  1. In the Tailscale admin console, turn on MagicDNS and HTTPS Certificates.
  2. Generate an auth key that is not reusable and not ephemeral.
  3. In .env, add :deploy/tailscale.yml to the end of COMPOSE_FILE, and add TS_AUTHKEY= with the key.
  4. Run docker compose up -d tailscale server.
  5. Once it has logged in, remove the TS_AUTHKEY line from .env.
  6. In Boss Man, set Notifications > Boss Man's address on your phone to the new address.

Back up $BOSSMAN_DATA/tailscale with your other backups. The full steps are in docs/20-https-tailscale.md.

ntfy: notifications on your phone

See Phone notifications.

Penpot: a design tool for your designer agents

Penpot is an open-source design tool. Boss Man runs it as a separate Compose project, boss-man-penpot, on your home network only.

  1. In .env, set PENPOT_BIND to the machine's home network address (never 0.0.0.0), PENPOT_PUBLIC_URI to http://<that address>:9001, PENPOT_SECRET_KEY (make it with openssl rand -base64 48) and PENPOT_DB_PASSWORD (make it with openssl rand -hex 24).
  2. Start it with docker compose -p boss-man-penpot --env-file .env -f deploy/penpot.yml --profile penpot up -d.
  3. Sign-up is off. To make accounts, add PENPOT_REGISTRATION=enable to .env, start it again, make the accounts, then delete the line and start it again.

Back it up with scripts/backup-penpot.sh. The full steps, including giving agents access, are in docs/15-penpot.md and docs/16-penpot-agent-setup.md.

Runner add-ons: extra tools for agents

Runner add-ons are tools built into the runner image, such as a browser agents can drive. Two exist: agent-browser and webkit.

  1. Add RUNNER_ADDONS=agent-browser to .env. List several with commas, for example RUNNER_ADDONS=agent-browser,webkit.
  2. Run scripts/update-runner.sh as root.
  3. Check under Settings > Server and runner > Runner > Add-ons. Each add-on says Working, Not working or Not installed.

Skills that need an add-on are left out of agents' runs until it works. Details: docs/12-runner-add-ons.md.

Something wrong or missing? Tell us on GitHub.