Browser and desktop, same document

Shyne is a cloud project with a live canvas. You can open that project in the browser or in the desktop app. The document is the same. The difference is where the agent runs and how files sit on your machine.

That sentence is the whole architecture, if you are choosing a surface for the afternoon. People sometimes hear “desktop app” and imagine a second file, the way a local .key or .slide used to be the work. That is not this product. A project is the identity. A working copy on disk is a replica of project files. If you treat the replica as the project, you will invent a merge problem we already refused.

Use the browser when the job is a link, a review, or a publish. Use the desktop when the job is a local agent, local MCP, or a working copy you want on the machine. Switch when the hour changes. Do not fork the work.

In the browser

Sign in at app.shyne.ai. Dev and staging live at app.dev.shyne.ai and app.stg.shyne.ai. Production drops the env segment. The marketing site is shyne.ai. Those hosts are easy to transpose and they do not exist the other way around.

The editor talks to the project over the network. The hosted agent works in a per-user cloud sandbox and writes to the same canvas anyone else has open. Sharing a URL is sharing the project, subject to the role you chose. A viewer can look. An editor can make. Project creators and organization admins decide who else gets in.

This is the fastest way to review a draft on a machine you do not own, or to post or schedule without installing anything. It is also the path most people should try first. If the browser loop is enough, you do not owe the desktop a download.

Hosted MCP, if you want your own client pointed at the same projects, is https://mcp.shyne.ai/mcp with OAuth. The browser editor and the hosted MCP are two clients on one graph. They are not two documents.

On the desktop

The desktop app is the shipped local experience: a native shell over the same projects, with a working copy of files when you need one, and an agent that runs on your machine. Installers live at dl.shyne.ai for macOS and Windows. Stable installers are rebuilt through the production release path when desktop-relevant code changes.

Local MCP is built in at http://127.0.0.1:7655/mcp. It starts and stops with the app. It acts as the signed-in user. There is no extra port password. The trust boundary is the machine. Do not proxy it. Close the app to stop it. If you already live in Claude Code or Cursor, this is the door that feels like the rest of your setup.

The desktop agent is a local child process, not the cloud sandbox. It still talks to the AI factory with a user credential. There is still no service token hiding in the app. Spend still lands in the ledger. “Local agent” means the runtime is on your machine. It does not mean the models are a private pile of keys in a config file.

Desktop can fulfill the same export contract locally, including MP4. The artifact types do not change because you clicked from Electron. PNG, PDF, HTML, PowerPoint, and MP4 are still compiles of the current graph.

What a working copy is

Desktop may create a managed, sync-on-use working copy of project files. That directory is a replica. It is not project identity. Labels and authored copy stay in the graph. Files you adopt into another project are adopted there; they do not silently become the source of truth for the first project.

If you zip the working copy and email it, you have sent files, not a project. The recipient still needs access to the project if they want the live canvas, the roles, the sequences, and the teammate. Send the project. Send an export if they cannot join. Do not send a folder and call it Shyne.

What does not change

Project roles, the live graph, brand, sequences, and exports are the same in both places. You are not maintaining a “desktop file” and a “web file.” Canvas ids, frame ids, and sequence ids stay stable. A comment, a render, and a publish target keep pointing at the same work.

Presence is still presence. If a colleague is in the browser and you are on desktop, you are both in the project. The agent you invoked is your seat. Their agent is theirs. The document serializes the writes.

Publishing permission is still explicit. Desktop does not get a quieter path around the approval shown for an agent-initiated send. The persisted target status is still the only publication truth.

Addressing is still explicit. Several canvases still require a named canvas. Reads still never create one. The desktop app does not keep a hidden main for you.

When the surfaces disagree with your habits

If you are used to “the file on my laptop is the latest,” desktop will feel like it is missing a Save As. The latest is the project. Save As is an export.

If you are used to “the browser tab is a preview of the real tool,” the browser is the real tool. Desktop is the same tool with a different process boundary.

If you are used to an offline-first canvas that later syncs if you remember, treat network as part of opening a cloud project. Local relays exist for development. The shipped experience is a signed-in project.

If you are used to installing an app so the agent can see your whole disk, remember the split. The desktop agent can use file tools in its own workspace. The documents are not in that workspace. Canvas writes still go through document operations. That is how we keep a local shell from becoming an invisible second editor.

A week that uses both

Monday, you create the project in the browser and attach the brand files. Tuesday, you install desktop so Cursor can talk to 127.0.0.1:7655 while you write the sequence. Wednesday, a colleague reviews in the browser on a borrowed laptop. Thursday, you post the social release from the browser because that is the machine you have in the office. Friday, you export MP4 from desktop because you want the local compile.

At no point did you duplicate the campaign. At no point did you need a “desktop version” of slide 4. Slide 4 was a frame the whole time.

Choosing for other people

When you invite a viewer, send them the project, not an installer. When you invite an editor who already lives in Claude Code, mention desktop MCP after they can open the project in any surface. For someone managing the project, sharing and the inbox matter more than a local port.

Do not make desktop a gate. The document is already in the cloud. Desktop is a preference and a set of local capabilities. It is not a license tier dressed as an app.

Failures that are surface-specific

If the desktop MCP port refuses the connection, the app is not running or not signed in. Open it. If hosted MCP returns 401, re-authenticate the client. If you open the hosted MCP URL in a browser and see 405, you opened a machine endpoint as a human. That is expected.

If a linked project is in the app and missing from an agent’s global list, address the project directly. That is an access rule, not a desktop bug.

If an export looks wrong, inspect the returned warnings and check that its fonts, scripts, and media are available to the renderer. That failure is the same in both surfaces because both compile the same graph.

If you signed out of desktop, the local port is dead. That is the security model working. Sign in again if you still want the door open.

Local development is not the shipped app

Engineers will meet a different pair of commands: a zero-secret browser stack, a local web agent loop, a desktop shell pointed at local fixtures. Those are for building Shyne. They are not the customer story. Customers sign in, open a project, and optionally install desktop. If a post in this blog ever reads like a worktree setup guide, we have slipped out of the audience.

The shipped desktop app still talks to cloud projects. The shipped browser still talks to cloud projects. The local relay that saves documents in a worktree is how we develop, not how a consultant ships a Friday deck. Keep those rooms separate in your head and the “which app do I download?” question gets quieter.

Same document, different hour

We built two homes so the teammate and the people can stay on one graph no matter which window is convenient. The browser is enough. The desktop is more, for a machine you trust. Neither is a second product.

Open the project. Leave the replica in its place. Run the agent where you want it. Approve consequential actions as yourself. The canvas does not care which window you used, and that is the point.