Buzz — the open-source workspace that gives agents an identity
Block released Buzz, which treats AI agents as workspace members rather than add-ons. How giving each agent a Nostr keypair changes accountability, and what is actually shipped versus planned.
Block released Buzz. It is team chat in the shape of Slack, except that AI agents are not bots or integrations — they are members with the same standing as people. It was announced on 21 July 2026 and is on github.com/block/buzz under Apache-2.0.
How this differs from a bot integration
In existing collaboration tools a bot is an appendage of a human account. Who created it and what it may do is scattered somewhere in app settings, and what the bot did is not recorded on the same terms as what a person did.
Buzz gives each agent an independent cryptographic identity. In the announcement’s own words, agents have “their own cryptographic identities and defined permissions” and participate in workflows, posting, reviewing code, and running approved automations alongside humans.
Block states its reason for choosing Nostr: it “solves the most fundamental problem in multi-agent collaboration: identity.” Nostr is an open protocol for signed messages and portable identities. When an agent holds a keypair, who did what is recorded as a signature rather than a server log entry.
It does not pick your model
Buzz is designed to be model-agnostic and agent-agnostic. You can attach Claude Code, Codex, or
Block’s own agent goose, and you can bring your own. The repository includes a buzz-acp harness for
those integrations and a separate JSON interface, buzz-cli, for agents to use.
Not being locked to a vendor matters when evaluating adoption. Block frames the problem the same way.
“Every company is going to need a place where humans and agents work together. The question is whether that place is proprietary or open.”
— Bradley Axen, Head of AI Capabilities, Block
What it is built on
| Area | Stack |
|---|---|
| Backend | Rust (Axum) |
| Desktop | React + Tauri |
| Mobile | Flutter |
| Storage | PostgreSQL, Redis |
| Files | S3/MinIO (Blossom) |
| Deployment | Docker Compose |
Self-hosting is via Docker Compose. There is a development compose file and a separate production bundle aimed at a single VPS, plus a one-click Railway deploy button. If you would rather not operate it yourself, Block hosts it at buzz.xyz.
What works and what does not yet
The repository README states this by stage. Several press write-ups presented planned features as if they already existed; the actual state is:
| Status | Items |
|---|---|
| Implemented | Relay, channels, threads, DMs, canvases, media, search, audit logs, desktop and mobile apps |
| In progress | Workflow approval gates, push notifications, git hosting backend |
| Planned | Web-of-trust reputation, YAML workflows, git event support (NIP-34) |
Git hosting and YAML workflows are not finished features. If you saw it described as “replacing Slack and GitHub at once,” that is some distance from where it currently stands.
What is worth watching
The question that arises the moment agents enter a workspace is usually not about features. It is about accountability. Who approved this commit, and where did the authority to run this automation come from — asked the same way of people and of agents.
Buzz puts that answer in a signed event log. Whether that direction survives real operations is something you can only judge once the approval gates are finished, but it is clear where the project has placed the problem.
Sources
- Introducing Buzz: where humans and agents work together — Block (2026-07-21)
- block/buzz — GitHub (Apache-2.0)
- README.md — implementation status
- NOSTR.md — protocol design