← Ask Idle

Ask Idle Host

The download is one app. There is no token to copy.

1. Unzip. Drag Ask Idle Host into Applications.
2. Double-click it. macOS may ask you to Open an app from the internet — click Open.
3. An A icon appears in the menu bar (Mac) or near the clock (Windows).
4. Use that icon: Share Full (jobs while you work), Idle-only (new jobs after you step away ~90s and leftover CPU/GPU is quiet), or Off. A job already running finishes. README, or quit.

The machine must stay in the United States. If a local runtime (Ollama, LM Studio, llama.cpp, vLLM) is already running, the host uses it.

Updates: menu bar → Check for update. The app replaces itself and should reopen on its own. Same machine, same token — no second listing. Re-downloading from the site rotates the token so the old copy quits.

What a renter cannot do to your machine

• No inbound ports. The app only phones home over HTTPS/WSS.
• A job is text posted to a model already running on localhost (Ollama, LM Studio, llama.cpp, or vLLM). Not a shell, not your files, not your browser.
• Attachments are turned into plain text in the renter’s browser before they reach you. No PDFs, Office files, zips, or apps land on disk.
• Idle-only / Off in the menu bar stops new jobs immediately. The machine stays listed as in-use or off so renters can wait or pick Auto. Delete the listing on the site to pull it off the market.
• The installer is locked to this computer. A copy on another box is refused.