How Nebo Works
A deep dive into every capability: what it does, how it does it, and what that looks like in practice.
Nebo is a personal desktop AI companion, not a chatbot with extra features bolted on. It's built from the ground up to do things on your computer, not just talk about them. This page walks through each capability in detail: what it actually does, the technology behind it, and real examples of it in action.
It Remembers You
Persistent memory across every conversation
The first time you talk to Nebo, it asks your name. The hundredth time, it already knows your name, your communication style, your projects, your preferences, and the context of your last conversation. This isn't search history. It's a three-tier memory system.
Tacit Memory
Long-term facts about you. Your name, where you live, what tools you use, how you like to communicate. Stored permanently, referenced naturally.
Daily Memory
Today's context. What you worked on, decisions you made, things you mentioned. Auto-scoped to the current day.
Entity Memory
People, places, projects, and things. Your coworkers, your company, your tech stack. Nebo builds a knowledge graph about your world.
"Plan my Orlando trip." Nebo already knows you travel with your wife and two friends, your budget is around $5K, and you prefer direct flights. It doesn't ask 20 questions. It plans the trip.
It Controls Your Computer
Native access to everything on your desktop
Nebo doesn't simulate being helpful. It actually touches your system. Calendar, email, files, reminders, clipboard, window management, system settings, music playback. These aren't API calls to cloud services. They're native integrations that work because Nebo runs on your machine.
Calendar & Email
Read your schedule, create events, check availability, read and send email through Mail.app. No OAuth dance, no cloud sync. Just direct access.
Files & Shell
Read, write, edit, search files. Run shell commands. Manage processes. Full access to your development environment.
Desktop Control
Window management, clipboard, screenshots, notifications, system volume, brightness, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, dark mode. The whole desktop.
Reminders & Contacts
Create reminders with due dates. Search contacts, look up phone numbers and emails. Works with your existing Apple ecosystem.
"Remind me to call the dentist tomorrow at 9am, and email Sarah that I'll be 10 minutes late to lunch." Nebo creates the reminder, drafts the email, and confirms both.
It Browses the Web
Full browser automation, including your logged-in sessions
Nebo has two modes of web access. Simple fetch for reading public pages. And a full browser with JavaScript rendering, page interaction, and access to your Chrome sessions. That means it can check your Gmail, read your Twitter feed, or interact with any web app you're logged into.
Web Search
Search DuckDuckGo or Google. Get real results, not hallucinated links.
Page Reading
Fetch any URL and extract its content. Handles both static pages and JavaScript-rendered SPAs.
Browser Automation
Navigate pages, click buttons, fill forms, take screenshots. Uses accessibility snapshots to understand page structure.
Chrome Profile
Access your Chrome browser's logged-in sessions. Check Gmail, interact with dashboards, manage social media, all through your existing authentication.
"Find flights from Provo to Orlando for late April, 4 people, under $500 each." Nebo opens Google Flights in the browser, searches real prices, and reports back actual availability and costs.
It Plans & Manages
Complex multi-step work, not just Q&A
This is where Nebo stops being a chat window and starts being useful. It can plan a trip, manage a project, track tasks, coordinate schedules, and make decisions on your behalf. It delegates decisions to you only when it should. Otherwise it just does the work.
Trip Planning
Research flights, hotels, activities. Build itineraries within budget. Handle the logistics so you just review the plan.
Project Management
Connected to Monument (project management platform) for task tracking, critical path analysis, objectives, and team coordination.
Sub-Agents
Nebo can spawn sub-agents for parallel work. Research one thing while working on another. Explore a codebase while planning a feature.
Scheduled Tasks
Cron-style scheduling for recurring work. Daily briefings, periodic checks, automated reports. Set it and forget it.
"Break down the Nebo project from Monument into a prioritized task list with completion percentages." Nebo pulls all 83 tasks across 13 lists, calculates progress, and identifies blockers.
It Runs Your Business Tools
Products, customers, email campaigns, content
Through MCP (Model Context Protocol) integrations, Nebo connects to your business infrastructure. Manage products and pricing, handle customer support, run email campaigns, publish content. All from the same conversation where you're also planning your vacation.
Product Catalog
Create products, set pricing, manage subscriptions. Sync to Stripe. Full commerce operations.
Customer Management
Search customers, track activity, manage tags, monitor health scores. CRM operations without the CRM interface.
Email Marketing
Email lists, drip sequences, broadcast campaigns, transactional emails. Design templates, track opens and clicks.
Content Publishing
Create and manage blog posts, pages, categories. SEO metadata, scheduling, drafts. Full CMS through conversation.
"Create a welcome email sequence for the newsletter list. 3 emails, spaced 2 days apart, introducing the product." Nebo creates the list, builds the sequence, writes the emails, and sets the delays.
It Has a Personality
Not a feature. A design philosophy.
The first thing Nebo does is ask you to co-create its identity. You name it, choose its character, define its vibe, pick its emoji. This isn't cosmetic. It fundamentally changes how the agent communicates. A "ride-or-die best friend" responds differently than a "meticulous research assistant."
Identity Co-Creation
Name, creature type, vibe, signature emoji. You define who your agent is. It remembers and embodies that identity.
Communication Adaptation
Nebo learns how you communicate. Short and punchy, detailed and thorough, casual and warm. It matches your energy.
Personality Directives
Tell Nebo how to behave: "be direct, don't over-explain, have opinions." These directives persist and shape every interaction.
Relationship Over Time
The more you interact, the more Nebo understands you. It notices patterns, remembers context, and builds on previous conversations.
After a few conversations, Nebo knows you prefer terse responses, hate being asked "would you like me to..." and want it to just do things. It stops asking and starts doing.
It Runs Locally
Privacy by architecture, not by promise
Nebo is a native desktop app built with Go and Wails v3. It runs entirely on your computer. Your conversations, your memory, your files: none of it leaves your machine unless you explicitly ask it to (like sending an email or browsing the web). The only cloud calls are to LLM providers for AI inference.
Local Database
SQLite for all persistent data. Memory, sessions, settings, app state. No cloud database, no sync service.
Native App
Built with Wails v3 (Go + SvelteKit). System tray, native window, direct filesystem access. Not an Electron wrapper.
Your AI Keys
Bring your own API keys for Claude, GPT, Gemini, or use Ollama for fully local inference. You choose what goes where.
Multi-Layer Security
Hard safeguards on system paths, environment sanitization, SSRF protection, origin-based restrictions. Defense in depth.
Your memory database, conversation history, and personal preferences live in ~/Library/Application Support/Nebo/, encrypted at rest by macOS FileVault and accessible only to your user account.
It Speaks & Listens
Voice conversation, not voice commands
Talk to Nebo through your microphone and speakers. It uses VAD (Voice Activity Detection) to know when you're speaking, Whisper for transcription, and system TTS for response. It's a conversation, not a "Hey Siri" trigger word.
Voice Activity Detection
Always listening, but intelligently. VAD detects when you start and stop talking. No wake word needed.
Whisper Transcription
OpenAI Whisper for speech-to-text. High accuracy, handles accents and background noise.
Natural Speech Output
Responds through your speakers using system voices. Pick your preferred voice. Modern premium voices, not robotic TTS.
Full Agent Access
Voice isn't a limited mode. Everything you can do in chat, you can do by voice. "Check my calendar and tell me if I have time for lunch" works.
You're cooking dinner and say "Hey Billy, what's on my calendar tomorrow?" Nebo checks your calendar and reads the schedule through your kitchen speakers.
Under the Hood: The STRAP Pattern
How Nebo manages 50+ tools without overwhelming the AI
Most AI agents register every capability as a separate tool. 50 capabilities = 50 tools the LLM has to understand. This bloats the context window, increases cost, and confuses the model.
Nebo uses the STRAP pattern, a tool design pattern we built to collapse 96 MCP tools down to 10. Single Tool, Resource, Action, Parameters.
Instead of 50 separate tools, capabilities are consolidated into a handful of tools with a
consistent tool(resource, action, params) interface.
file(action: read, path: "/src/main.go")web(resource: browser, action: navigate, url: "https://gmail.com")agent(resource: memory, action: store, key: "user/name", value: "Alma")Result: 80% fewer tool definitions, lower token cost per interaction, and a consistent mental model for the AI to follow.
Architecture
Four layers, one binary
Frontend
SvelteKit UI running inside a Wails v3 native window. System tray, native menus, and direct access to the host OS. Not Electron. Actual native app.
Backend
Go service layer with the STRAP tool system, session management, memory persistence, and app runtime. SQLite for all local data.
AI Layer
Multi-provider abstraction supporting Claude, GPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, and Ollama. Automatic model switching, fallback chains, and per-task model selection.
Security
Seven independent security layers from hard safeguards to network protection. Defense in depth, where every layer assumes the one above it might fail. Read the full security deep dive →
Ready to try it?
Nebo is open source and free. Download it, name your agent, and start working together.
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