GitHub’s Agent HQ is GitHub’s plan for one place to run and steer coding agents from several makers, with Claude and Codex available in public preview on Copilot. Its agents run asynchronously in GitHub’s cloud and hand back draft pull requests. If you would rather run your agents on your own computer, free and with no account, Friday is a free, MIT-licensed desktop app. Facts about GitHub are from its own blog, changelog and docs, checked 4 November 2026.
Why would you look for a GitHub Agent HQ alternative?
Your work shouldn’t own your day, and agents that carry on in the cloud while your laptop is closed are a strong way to get that. GitHub’s announcement describes a mission control that follows you across GitHub, VS Code, mobile and the command line, and promised agents from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Cognition and xAI.
People look for an alternative for practical reasons: it sits inside a paid Copilot subscription, sessions are billed (the February 2026 post says one premium request per session, and the current docs say Actions minutes and AI credits), and the code runs in GitHub’s cloud. Others want their own agents on their own computer, with no account.
How does Friday compare with GitHub Agent HQ?
| Friday | GitHub Agent HQ (from GitHub’s own pages) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A free desktop app that runs your coding agents side by side on your own computer | A unified place on GitHub to run and steer coding agents from several makers, announced in October 2025 |
| Which agents | Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and 13 more by name, plus any ACP agent | Copilot’s own agent, plus Claude and Codex, which GitHub labels public preview; more makers were promised |
| Where agents run | On your own computer, under your own accounts; they stop if it sleeps | In GitHub-hosted cloud sandboxes, each an isolated Linux environment per session; Copilot CLI runs locally |
| What comes back | Each run’s changes, reviewed line by line with notes sent back to the agent, and git built in | Draft pull requests you review, with CodeQL and secret scanning before the pull request is finalised |
| Agents working together | Agents message each other, and when one hits its usage limit the task moves to another with a record of what the first did and changed | Several sessions run at once and you can steer a running one; we found no agent-to-agent messaging in what we read |
| Cost | Free, MIT, no account; you use your own coding tools’ plans | Part of a paid Copilot subscription, with usage billed as premium requests or AI credits; its docs and its February post differ |
Last checked: 4 November 2026
Check GitHub’s Copilot docs, the Agent HQ announcement and its changelog for what has changed since 4 November 2026. We could not tell from the pages we read which Copilot plans below Pro+ include Claude and Codex.
Where is GitHub Agent HQ stronger?
It lives where your code and pull requests already are. Agents work in isolated cloud sandboxes without using your machine, so they can carry on when your laptop is closed, and you can start sessions from github.com, GitHub Mobile and VS Code. It has enterprise controls for which agents are allowed, and it runs several sessions concurrently. If your team is on GitHub Copilot already, that integration is hard to match.
When is Friday the better pick?
If you want your code and agents on your own computer, a free app with no account, and agents that work as a team on a task board and message each other. Friday’s agents run on your computer, so they stop if it sleeps.
See how to run multiple coding agents at once, and the other comparisons.
What is Friday?
Friday is a free, open-source (MIT) harness for coding agents that work as a team. It runs on your own computer with no account: the desktop app for macOS, Windows and Linux, or one command with Node.js 22 and Git.
- Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and 13 more coding tools (16 by name, plus any ACP agent) run side by side on their own plans and sign-ins.
- One agent splits a job into a task board, the others pick up tasks, and every finished task is checked before it counts as done.
- Agents message each other as they work, and each can work in its own copy of the repository.
- When a tool runs out of usage mid-task, the task moves to the agent best placed to finish it.
- Review each run’s changes line by line, with git built in.
- No account; anonymous usage counts you can turn off; it listens on 127.0.0.1 only.
Install it with npx github:splashxmoon/friday or from GitHub; see the docs. Friday Team, the hosted version for several people in one session, is available to companies: talk to us.