Why you would use it
You stay where you are. You are already in a terminal with Claude. “What needs me in Fermata?” is one question there, not a window switch and a scan of the board. Bulk work is one sentence. The app moves one card at a time. Claude can loop. “Start these five bugs as Auto pieces” files five drafts and releases them; “open a PR for every finished piece” walks the list and opens each one. See what you can do for the requests that map cleanly onto the tools. Another agent can check on its own work. A Claude session that filed a piece can come back later, read its phase, and pick up the pull request link, without you relaying anything.Local only
The server listens on127.0.0.1, the loopback address, so nothing on your network can reach it. Every request carries a token in the URL, and a request with the wrong token is refused before it does anything. Nothing goes through the cloud: the client talks straight to the app on your Mac, and the server stops when Fermata quits.
It does not go around you
The control plane is another way to press the buttons you already have, not a way past them. A piece on the Manual lane still stops at every phase. A build agent on the Safe profile still raises its tool approvals inside Fermata. Stopping agents and marking a piece done always ask you on your Mac first, and you can make runs and pull requests ask too. Merging is not on the list at all: Fermata opens the pull request, and you merge. Consent and safety covers each rule.Next
Connect a client
Turn the server on, register it with Claude Code, and check it answers.
What you can do
Requests you type to Claude, and the tools they become.
Consent and safety
What runs on the call, what waits for a card, and what is never exposed.
Tool reference
Every tool and every piece action, with its arguments.