Looks pretty cool, although I'm not sure I see the advantage over a skill using something like a private git repo / file store / server?
So far, I've used that, a UNIX-socket inspired approach to push/pull with a remote git (hosted on my server) that the branches/files can be tossed to, and pulled via other agent. Skill instructs them to make a copy-paste ready instruction for the other prompt.
Sounds like your setup achieves basically the same thing as Jotbus. If you've already got repo/server/skills wired up for this, Jotbus probably wouldn't buy you much.
I had basically 2 motivations for building it:
- I was frequently spinning up places to dump stuff for people/agents. I wanted to make it simple across environments, and have no infra or glue to manage.
- a lot of what I pass around is mid-work/transient - logs, partial implementations, screenshots, etc. Not ready for a commit, don't necessarily want it in git history. Wanted to make it easy to hand off and keep going.
So it's not exactly a novel primitive, it's just a tool to make it quicker/easier.
It is certainly a benefit that the server only ever sees encrypted data.
I have also worked on E2EE for multi-device shared spaces, and the trickiest bugs weren't in the encryption itself, but in edge cases related to key distribution. I have two questions regarding this:
1. When a new client joins but fails to retrieve the workspace key (due to temporary network issues or a 404 error from the server, for example), does it ever generate a new key locally? We encountered exactly this scenario: a device "helpfully" created its own key and encrypted data with it, rendering the message unreadable to other members (without any error notification). We ended up changing the server behavior so that instead of returning a "key missing" response, it signals that the key exists and the client should wait for it.
2. How do you handle key revocation? If you invite someone and later remove them, do you rotate (update) the workspace key and re-wrap it for the remaining members, or does the old key still allow access to past content?
I'm very curious about the viability of this. Like many, I've built something along the same lines, twice (for personal, and work use); I staple on the features as I need them. On the one hand, it doesn't feel unique enough to attempt to polish and monetize. Then on the other, I expected thousands of these and yet when I look at my colleagues workflows, they aren't doing this. So I'm curious if it'll work out that its simply more efficient to use a paid service like this which you can drop into place, than rolling your own.
Two other quick thoughts. One is I think if people are struggling with costs, they really should explore a worfklow like OPs. Merely breaking up long running tasks by producing summaries / next steps and spinning up new agents off of them greatly reduces runtime costs. I'm regularly running out of time / mental energy these days than my $20 claude subscription, but I realize if I don't note share early and often, I can burn up the quota in 20 minutes. Its amazing the difference. Second is I feel encryption plays an important role. I feel like it is more important than merely keeping your own ideas private, and somehow impacts the generation and evolution of unique / diverse ideas _in general_.
Anyways, good luck OP, the use case is definitely there and important!
I too am curious about the viability of a shared knowledge MCP! Ha, as I did do the work to take the one I’ve built twice and turn it into something others can use. OzBrain.com ~ maybe you don’t have to build it a 3rd time now? :)
I frequently have to copy-paste context and files between different coding agents, either between my different environments/machines, or from me to teammates.
I built Jotbus so I wouldn’t have to keep doing that.
You can try it free with:
npx jotbus
No login or signup required. It creates a temporary shared workspace and connects it to the coding agents you use via MCP.
Once it's installed, you can just tell your agent something like
"write this handoff note to jotbus"
or
"send that PDF over Jotbus to @codex"
Then another agent can join the workspace and pull the context.
Messages and files are end-to-end encrypted. Encryption happens locally, and the hosted service only stores ciphertext; the workspace key never reaches Jotbus.
Looks like a really cool project, especially for quick no-setup use cases.
If you prefer to keep things local and open source, and your agents' notes do fit in issues, you might want to check out Epiq too, which is a local but distributable issue board synced via an event log mechanism to ensure consistency when syncing across repos:
I built something similar recently but it also supports file sharing. So you can read a markdown file in the UI, read code in UI, share with a friend, share with an agent, etc. https://agentdrop.lol/
So far, I've used that, a UNIX-socket inspired approach to push/pull with a remote git (hosted on my server) that the branches/files can be tossed to, and pulled via other agent. Skill instructs them to make a copy-paste ready instruction for the other prompt.
Why'd Jotbus be worth the overhead?
Sounds like your setup achieves basically the same thing as Jotbus. If you've already got repo/server/skills wired up for this, Jotbus probably wouldn't buy you much.
I had basically 2 motivations for building it:
- I was frequently spinning up places to dump stuff for people/agents. I wanted to make it simple across environments, and have no infra or glue to manage.
- a lot of what I pass around is mid-work/transient - logs, partial implementations, screenshots, etc. Not ready for a commit, don't necessarily want it in git history. Wanted to make it easy to hand off and keep going.
So it's not exactly a novel primitive, it's just a tool to make it quicker/easier.
1. When a new client joins but fails to retrieve the workspace key (due to temporary network issues or a 404 error from the server, for example), does it ever generate a new key locally? We encountered exactly this scenario: a device "helpfully" created its own key and encrypted data with it, rendering the message unreadable to other members (without any error notification). We ended up changing the server behavior so that instead of returning a "key missing" response, it signals that the key exists and the client should wait for it.
2. How do you handle key revocation? If you invite someone and later remove them, do you rotate (update) the workspace key and re-wrap it for the remaining members, or does the old key still allow access to past content?
Two other quick thoughts. One is I think if people are struggling with costs, they really should explore a worfklow like OPs. Merely breaking up long running tasks by producing summaries / next steps and spinning up new agents off of them greatly reduces runtime costs. I'm regularly running out of time / mental energy these days than my $20 claude subscription, but I realize if I don't note share early and often, I can burn up the quota in 20 minutes. Its amazing the difference. Second is I feel encryption plays an important role. I feel like it is more important than merely keeping your own ideas private, and somehow impacts the generation and evolution of unique / diverse ideas _in general_.
Anyways, good luck OP, the use case is definitely there and important!
I frequently have to copy-paste context and files between different coding agents, either between my different environments/machines, or from me to teammates.
I built Jotbus so I wouldn’t have to keep doing that.
You can try it free with:
npx jotbus
No login or signup required. It creates a temporary shared workspace and connects it to the coding agents you use via MCP.
Once it's installed, you can just tell your agent something like
"write this handoff note to jotbus"
or
"send that PDF over Jotbus to @codex"
Then another agent can join the workspace and pull the context.
Messages and files are end-to-end encrypted. Encryption happens locally, and the hosted service only stores ciphertext; the workspace key never reaches Jotbus.
If you try it out, I'd love feedback!
Thanks!
If you prefer to keep things local and open source, and your agents' notes do fit in issues, you might want to check out Epiq too, which is a local but distributable issue board synced via an event log mechanism to ensure consistency when syncing across repos:
https://ljtn.github.io/epiq