Brevard CreekLabs

Virtual HQ

The software that
runs Brevard Creek Labs.

We built our own internal workspace to experiment with messaging, documents, calls, automation, and AI agents. It is how we work, and it is where parts of our products get tested first.

The TerraceCar ParkRoadKitchenWCLookingGlassPisgahToxawayThe GymLobbyThe FloorBlue Ridge RoomDavidson RoomLoungeWaitingDataCentreThe Corner OfficeN010 tiles

Drag to pan

Fig. 1 — The floor plan, transcribed from app/office.py — the module the running service reads to build the room. The desks are where the desks are; the grid is five tiles. Press Watch the office live and this drawing is replaced by the office itself, rendered with the office’s own code, with whoever is really in it.

01

What it is

A 2D office you walk around. Forty desks, two conference rooms, a kitchen, a terrace and a data centre. We work in it, and so do the software agents.

Everything in it is a real mechanism rather than a picture of one. A meeting is a room with people in it. A private conversation is a room that turns others away. Handing over a job is walking to somebody’s desk.

It is also just easier to read. When an agent has been working for an hour you can look at the floor and see what is going on, which is not true of a log file.

It runs on our own machines and there is no public way in. The live view above is the only part of it a visitor can see.

02

AI agents

We’re experimenting with software agents that can use the same tools people use (Fig. 2). They can perform tasks, show their work, and hand control back to a person when judgment is required.

Each one is set up the way a person here is: an address on this domain, and an account on the same applications, created and revoked together. There is no separate class of user, so the permission model did not have to learn a new kind of thing.

What any one of them can reach is granted per account. They do not send email or post anything outside the building: that is held behind a second switch, separate from the one that stops them working.

There is a rabbit in a glass case in the corner. You can take him out and carry him around. He is called Potato.

PeopleAgentsDocumentsread, write, drawWorkflowscall, branch, waitCanvasshare, edit, keepVoicecall, answer, routeThe officewhere the agents areA mailboxA phone lineSomebody's fileAn APIThe webOutside our machinesPeopleAgentsDocumentsread, write, drawWorkflowscall, branch, waitCanvasshare, edit, keepVoicecall, answer, routeThe officewhere the agents areA mailboxA phone lineSomebody's fileAn APIThe web
Fig. 2 — What the workspace is wired to. People and agents are on the same rail because they open the same tools. The dashed lines are the boundary: below them the work has left our machines and is touching a real mailbox, file or phone line.

03

What it cannot do

The most useful thing we can publish about a system nobody outside has seen is an accurate list of its limits.

  1. You cannot walk around it

    There is no public entrance. It runs on our own machines and an account is made by an administrator.

  2. You can watch, but you cannot join in

    The live view above is a real feed, and it is the whole of what a visitor gets: where people are, and who they are. You cannot open a door, read a document, hear a conversation or speak to anybody, and there is no route from that page back into the building.

  3. It is not a product

    You cannot buy one. It is where we test parts of our software before they are ready to be a product, and some of them never will be.

  4. It is not autonomous

    The agents are given jobs and do them, and there is a switch that stops all of them. They are not left running the company overnight.

04

What it is working on

The office publishes a record of what it actually does. Nothing on these pages is generated to fill them; when the office is quiet, they say so.

  1. 01

    Activity

    /lab

    What has happened in the building recently, and the jobs people have sent in.

    See the activity

  2. 02

    Problems

    /problems

    Things people told us waste their time, and how many others said they had the same one. It is how we decide what to look at next.

    See the board

  3. 03

    Experiments

    /experiments

    What we are trying, and how far each one got, including the ones we stopped.

    See the experiments

  4. 04

    The staff

    /agents

    Who works in the office: each agent’s role, the tools it is allowed to use, and what it has done.

    See the staff

  5. 05

    The numbers

    /numbers

    Counts of what the office has actually done. Most of them are small and we publish them anyway.

    See the numbers

Our serverBrowserBrowserSIGNALLING ONLYAUDIO AND VIDEOBrowserOur serverBrowserSIGNALLINGSIGNALLINGAUDIO AND VIDEO
Fig. 3 — Where a call in the workspace goes. The dashed lines are signalling: we tell the two browsers how to find each other and then we are not in it. Where a network refuses a direct path, the call relays and we say so in the call.

Curious about any of this? Write to us.

Write to us What we build