Product documentation

What Pacific Machines is

Pacific Machines helps a company decide what to automate with AI by learning from approved real work. It finds recurring patterns and exceptions, then turns that evidence into inspectable insights, opportunities, and reports.

A person reviews the evidence and decides what should move forward. The product does not deploy automations on its own.

Decide what to automate first, with evidence.

Pacific Machines is the public name of both the company and the desktop app. The legal entity is Reefo, Inc.

Who it is for

• Operators who know where work hurts but cannot yet prove what deserves automation.
• Operational leaders who need evidence before funding an AI project.
• Teams that want to compare work across people without starting from a blank process map.

Install and sign in

Download the current desktop build from pacificmachines.ai. The landing page and the in-app updater read the same public release feed, so they stay on the same version.

Supported platforms

Intel Mac is not offered. If a platform is temporarily paused, its download button is unavailable until the current build is approved again.

First launch

1. Open the installer (macOS disk image or Windows setup). On Windows and macOS the app shows as Pacific Machines (or Pacific Machines Preview on preview builds).
2. Sign in to your Pacific Machines account and organization.
3. Complete onboarding: describe your role, then grant the permissions Learning needs.
4. Start a Learning session and do normal work.

If your install is below the minimum required version, Pacific Machines shows a clear Update action that installs through the signed in-app updater on macOS and Windows — not a separate downloads-folder step.

New organizations receive a 14-day trial. See Plans.

Learning from work

Capture begins on your computer. When Learning is on and the operating system has granted the needed permissions, Pacific Machines observes approved screen and accessibility signals while you work.

It does not capture microphone audio or system audio. Meeting transcription is not part of the product.

Low mode and High mode

Settings exposes two Learning modes:

A small Learning pill can stay on screen (near the top center) so you can pause, resume, or return to the app without hunting for the window.

Permissions the app may request

You can skip a permission during onboarding and finish later in Settings. Revoking screen recording stops capture. Pacific Machines cannot override operating-system privacy controls.

Using Learning

1. Turn Learning on in the app (or from the Learning pill on your desktop).
2. Do your usual work. Capture skips apps and sites you have ignored.
3. Pause or stop Learning when you do not want observation.
4. Run Update Brain (or let the built-in daily schedule do it) so captured days become Brain notes, then use Recaps, Opportunities, and Chat.

What stays local

Learning evidence is stored on your computer under ~/.jarbas by default. Your full capture library is not uploaded to a remote learning store. Some features use the cloud on purpose: sign-in, Brain document sync, shared team reports, plugins you connect, and model inference when you use Chat or Agent.

For file locations, cleanup, and deletion, read the Privacy Policy.

Workspace: Chat, Brain, Recaps, Opportunities

After Learning has something to work with, the desktop app is organized around a few surfaces.

Chat

Ask questions about the work Pacific Machines has already learned. Chat can pull local capture context, Brain notes, recaps, and — if you connected them — optional plugins. When you send a message, relevant context is sent to the model provider for that request. The whole capture library is not uploaded.

Asking Chat about your day does not pause Learning; capture keeps running while Chat looks up history.

Chat can also run named skills, such as generating a recap or a report, and can write Brain facts when you ask it to remember something.

Brain

Brain is your local Markdown workspace under ~/.jarbas/brain/: identity, company context, workflows, daily recaps, and related notes. Browse it in Graph, Preview, and Files views.

• Update Brain commits captured days through yesterday into Brain (daily recaps and workflows) and can sync those documents when you are signed in.
• Check Brain reports whether captured days still need Update Brain, without blocking your work.

Built-in schedule (fires only while the app is open):

You can pause or resume that schedule. Older weekly / monthly / yearly rollup schedules are retired.

Recaps

Day recaps are written into Brain as part of Update Brain. They reconstruct work episodes: one coherent objective at a time, not a fixed time bucket and not an app switch.

Opportunities

Find Opportunities is Brain-first: it reads what Update Brain already learned (especially workflows), instead of waiting on a separate multi-stage evidence pack or a storage-size gate.

1. Capture work with Learning.
2. Run Update Brain (and Check Brain if you want a status check).
3. Find Opportunities from the committed Brain.

Each opportunity is meant to be inspected: evidence, confidence, and a writeup a person can accept, reject, or refine. A person still decides what should move forward. Building a skill from an opportunity is an explicit step, not an automatic deployment.

Plugins

Optional connectors add context from tools you already use — for example mail, calendar, issue trackers, or documents. They enrich recaps and Chat. They never replace measured screen capture.

You choose which tools to connect. Connected-app reads are explicit. Disconnect a plugin in the app when you no longer want it.

Pacific Machines may call a connected service only for tasks you approve (for example sending a message). Plugin credentials are managed through the connection flow, not pasted into a generic secrets file in Settings.

Team reports and the Team Dashboard

When you are signed in to an organization, finished Brain documents and recaps can sync so teammates with access can use them. That upload is the recap or report you chose to create — not your full screen history or db.sqlite.

Team Dashboard

Admins can open a Team Dashboard built from members' synced daily recaps. It shows numbers the organization can inspect: active time, focus, context switches, apps used, and coverage. It does not read another person's capture database.

Coverage is labeled complete, partial, or sparse so comparisons are not treated as precise when too few days were observed.

Team narrative recaps

A separate admin action can write an organization-level narrative recap from members' synced recaps. That is a story for the org, not a second copy of anyone's raw capture.

Shared reports

Chat can generate an HTML report from synced recaps for people who should review the same evidence. Finished reports for the organization are stored in the cloud workspace so teammates with access can open them.

Local deletion of capture on one computer does not remove shared reports or synced Brain documents already stored for the organization. Those are managed from Team by someone with access.

Privacy controls

You control what is captured and what is shared.

• Pause capture by turning Learning off or revoking screen recording permission.
• Choose Low or High Learning in Settings. Low is the default and avoids continuous screenshots and OCR.
• Ignore lists skip capture while an ignored app or URL is in focus. Saving the list applies going forward and does not delete past captures.
• Text cleanup finds common secrets and personal data in stored text and replaces matches with labeled placeholders. It edits extracted text, not the pixels in screenshot files.
• Delete local data from Settings → Storage for a date range, or reset all local Pacific Machines data on this computer (~/.jarbas).

Cleanup is pattern-based. It can miss sensitive data that does not match a rule, and screenshot images (when High mode saved them) may still show information until those frames are deleted. Enable automatic cleanup when a recording ends to shrink the window where Chat might see uncleaned text.

The full Privacy Policy is the technical reference for data flows, file layout, retention, and limitations.

Plans

New organizations receive a 14-day trial.

Continued access requires the Business plan at US$2,000 per month for up to 10 users. Access blocks when no subscription is active. There is no permanent free tier. Annual billing may be offered in-app at a discount.

Billing and seat management run through the account flow in the app. Payment details are handled by the payment processor, not stored in the local capture library.

For larger rollouts or a Business Associate Agreement when you process regulated health information, book a call.

FAQ

Does Pacific Machines record my microphone or meetings?

No. It currently uses screen and accessibility signals. Audio is not captured.

Does Learning save continuous screenshots?

Not by default. Low mode (the default) keeps app, window, and activity context without continuous screenshots, OCR frames, or video. Turn on High mode in Settings if you want screenshots and OCR.

Where is my Learning data stored?

On your computer under ~/.jarbas by default. Sign-in, Brain sync, shared team reports, plugins you connect, and Chat/Agent inference use cloud services as described in the Privacy Policy. The raw capture library is not mirrored to a remote learning store.

Does Chat pause Learning?

No. Asking Chat what you were doing keeps Learning running. Answers about your day come from capture history and Brain notes.

Can my employer see my raw screen history?

Teammates with access can see synced Brain documents, recaps, opportunities, and reports your organization chooses to share. They do not get another person's capture database. Team Dashboard numbers come from synced daily recaps, not from live screen video.

What happens if I deny permissions?

Learning cannot capture without screen recording. Other features (Chat on already-learned data, Brain notes already on disk, account settings) can still be available. You can grant permissions later in system settings and in the app.

Does it work on Intel Macs or Linux?

No public Intel Mac channel is offered. The public beta is Apple silicon on macOS 11+ and x64 Windows 10/11.

Will it automatically deploy automations?

No. Pacific Machines finds patterns and drafts opportunities. A person reviews the evidence and decides what should move forward.

How do I get a new version?

Use the download buttons on pacificmachines.ai or the in-app updater. Both read the same public release feed. If a newer build is required, Update installs through the signed updater. Product changes are listed on the changelog.

How do I delete everything on this computer?

Settings → Storage → reset local data, or uninstall and remove ~/.jarbas (the Pacific Machines data folder). Shared team reports and synced Brain documents already in the organization workspace are not removed by a local reset.

Who do I contact?

Product and privacy: hans@pacificmachines.ai. Sales and onboarding: book a call.

Support and updates

This guide is the public user documentation for the Pacific Machines desktop app. It is updated when product behavior that users rely on changes.

Related public pages:

• Product — what Pacific Machines is, and current downloads
• Changelog — release notes, newest first
• Status — public application status and incident communications
• Security — security whitepaper and how to report a vulnerability
• Privacy Policy — how information is collected, stored, and shared
• Terms of Service — terms that govern use of the app and this website

Contact: hans@pacificmachines.ai