Cloud agents: scheduled agents that run while your computers are off

A scheduled agent is only useful if it runs. On your computer, a Morning briefing planned for 8:30 waits for Barside to be open at 8:30, and a laptop in a bag misses it. Cloud agents, part of Barside Plus since version 1.37, move your scheduled agents to Barside's server. They run at their times, with the AI you connected and your own key, even when every computer of yours is off. Their notes arrive through cloud sync, and everything they propose still waits in your approval inbox.

Barside pays for no AI and brings none of its own: a cloud run uses your Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or OpenRouter account, like a run on your computer. This guide covers what cloud agents need, how to turn them on, what a cloud run can read and write, what stays on your computers, and what happens with your key. Start with AI agents that ask before they act if agents are new to you.

What cloud agents need

Settings → Cloud agents lists three things, each with a check mark when it is ready:

1. Barside Plus. US$20 a month or US$200 a year, plus the sales tax where you live, in Settings → Barside Plus. Plus also brings cloud sync and encrypted cloud backup; Barside stays free.
2. Cloud sync on this computer. Cloud agents read your synced notes, and their notes come back through sync. Turn on Settings → Cloud sync → Sync this computer (the switch says PC on Windows) on each computer. See how to sync notes between computers.
3. An AI connected in Settings → AI, with the model you want the agents to use.

You also need at least one scheduled agent in Agents & approvals → Scheduled, such as the Morning briefing preset (weekdays at 8:30 AM) or Weekly review (Fridays at 4:00 PM).

Turn it on

1. Open Settings → Cloud agents and turn on Run scheduled agents in the cloud.
2. Barside sends the company, model and key of the AI you connected to its cloud-agents service, with your sign-in. The service checks the key with your AI company, seals it, and keeps only the sealed bytes and the key's last 4 characters.
3. Your agent settings get a "cloud" mark that syncs to your other computers, and the time zone of this computer is stored, so the agents keep their local times.

Barside says "Cloud agents are on. Your scheduled agents now run on Barside's server." The card then shows how many agents run in the cloud and in which time zone. From that moment, your computers stop running scheduled agents themselves, and Agents & approvals → Scheduled says where they run, so no time runs twice. Only times after the switch count on either side.

If you later change the AI or its key on the computer that sent it, that computer sends the new one within about two minutes.

What a cloud run does

Barside's server checks every five minutes which agents are due, in your time zone, with the same schedule rules as the app: the latest planned time counts, and a time missed by more than 12 hours is recorded as skipped. Each due run is claimed once, so a job never runs twice for the same time. Then:

• It reads your synced library. The most recently changed workspaces and notes, about 8 MB at most, with the open tasks and reminders in them. An agent set to read Reading also gets what came into Reading since its last run, from the same synced library. Notes and workspaces you left out of Library AI, in Library & briefing → Sources, never reach the AI, in the cloud or on your computer. Your calendar and Library search live on your computers, so a cloud run does not have them.
• It asks your AI, with the agent's own instructions and the same prompt the app uses, through your key and model.
• It writes the note the way the app would: a new note named after the agent and the date, or a dated heading added to the note you chose, as a synced record. Every computer with cloud sync receives it within seconds of coming online.
• It keeps the proposals the agent made, such as reminders, tasks for its note or an email draft. They wait with the run until the first of your computers that has the note takes them into Agents & approvals → Inbox; then no other computer gets them. You approve, edit or refuse them there, as always.

A run that fails, because the key was refused, the account had no credit, or a chosen note was deleted, is recorded with a plain reason. Settings → Cloud agents lists the recent runs with Done, Did not finish, Skipped or Running…. A run stuck for 30 minutes is marked as failed.

What stays on your computers

Cloud agents move only the scheduled agents. Everything else in Agents & approvals stays where it was:

The approval inbox and its History also stay on each computer, as before. If you turn cloud agents off, your computers run the scheduled agents themselves again from that moment, and Barside keeps your key sealed on the server for the next time unless you remove it.

Your AI key on Barside's server

• The key is checked with your AI company when you turn cloud agents on, then sealed with AES-256-GCM under a secret that only Barside's cloud-agents service holds, bound to your account and that company. The database holds the sealed bytes and the last 4 characters, never the key, and it is never written to a log.
• It is used for one thing: running your scheduled agents. Your AI company bills those runs to you, as it bills runs on your computer.
• Remove my AI key from Barside, at the bottom of the Cloud agents card, deletes it and turns cloud agents off. Barside answers "Your AI key is removed from Barside's server."
• When Plus ends, runs stop, your computers take over, the key is deleted 30 days later, and the run records after 90 days.

Details and limits

• The check runs every five minutes, so a run may start a few minutes after its time. A busy pass carries on in the next one.
• A cloud run uses the time zone of the computer that turned cloud agents on. To change it, turn cloud agents off and on again on a computer set to the new time zone.
• Runs need your Plus to be active, cloud sync to have synced your notes, and a working key. Settings → Cloud agents shows which one is missing.
• The service runs Claude through Anthropic's official library, and ChatGPT, Gemini and OpenRouter through their standard chat interfaces.
• Cloud runs are not counted by the AI spending limit in Settings → AI, which counts the AI each computer uses. Set a spending limit on your AI account to cap them.
• Cloud agents are the same in Barside for Mac.

Privacy

A cloud run sends the agent's instructions and the synced notes it reads to the AI company you connected, whose data policy applies, and Barside's server works with your notes as cloud sync stores them. Unlike cloud backup, which only your recovery key opens, synced notes can be read by the server; that is how it can run your agents. Notes and workspaces left out of Library AI never reach the AI. Your key is sealed as described above and used for nothing else. Proposals wait on the server only until one of your computers takes them. Read how agents use your data and local-first storage, backups and sync.

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