The HQ Ecosystem: Every Product, Explained

Nine products, one HQ · most work for you invisibly

HQ isn't one giant program. It ships as a family of smaller products that each do one job well and compose into the whole. You don't need to install them one by one, and you don't need to know most of them by name: the HQ app and setup put the right pieces in place, and everyday commands use them for you behind the scenes.

This page is the map, so that when a product name shows up (in a menu, an error, or a conversation with your team) you know exactly what it is.

The products#

hq-core is the scaffold and starter kit that seeds a new HQ instance. When you run npx create-hq, this is what builds your HQ folder: the commands, the starter knowledge, the structure described in the mental model. Running /update-hq upgrades it in place.

hq-cli is the hq command in your terminal, used for module management and cloud sync. Everyday users rarely touch it directly; commands like /hq-sync and /hq-secrets drive it for you.

hq-cloud is the bidirectional sync engine that keeps your laptop and the cloud in lockstep. It's the machinery behind both the CLI and the HQ app; you never operate it directly. How sync works.

The HQ app (hq-desktop-app) is the one app everyday users install, on Mac or Windows. It installs your HQ folder, keeps it synced from the menu bar or system tray, and gives you a window for messages, projects, setup, and launching Claude Code or Codex. It replaces the older separate installer and HQ Sync menu bar app. If you remember one product name, make it this one; "HQ isn't running" is the most common support issue.

hq-console is the web admin dashboard, living at hq.computer behind your normal HQ sign-in. Champions and admins use it for the cloud-side things you don't manage from a session: deployments, membership and invites, usage charts, creating and operating cloud bots (listed there as Agents, including their Owners panel), and Personal Integrations like linking your Slack account.

Cloud bots (called Fleet Agents in the HQ Console) are persistent AI teammates, each with its own identity, company membership, and communication channels (Slack, email, Telegram). A cloud bot is not a worker that moved to the cloud: a worker is a task definition that runs inside your own session, while an agent stays available between conversations, is addressed directly, and acts under its own company identity, so work continues when your laptop is closed. Full guide: Fleet Agents.

hq-deploy is the publishing platform behind /deploy. It takes anything HQ builds (static pages and full web apps) and puts it on the web with the right access lock. Standard deployed links always live under *.indigo-hq.com; enterprises that want their own domain can run the entire deploy stack inside their own AWS account, with nothing routed through HQ's platform; custom base domains are an enterprise-self-host feature, not a setting on standard deploys.

hq-mcp is the connector that puts your HQ inside ChatGPT and Claude.ai: browse the vault, search company knowledge, capture notes, and share files from a plain chat window, with no local install. See Using HQ from ChatGPT and Claude.ai.

HQ Workspace is HQ's own email and calendar product, at workspace.hq.computer: team webmail with inboxes that humans and bots can share, plus custom domains with the fiddly email-deliverability records configured automatically. Each organization's mail is isolated from every other's. It's how a Fleet Agent gets a real mailbox instead of screen-scraping yours.

hq-pro is the team platform: the shared vault your files sync through, the credential store behind secrets, and the shared sign-in identity you use at /hq-login. When a company is "cloud-backed", hq-pro is what's backing it.

hq-packages are content packs (skills, workers, playbooks) that can be installed into any HQ instance with hq install or from the Marketplace in the HQ app (the Marketplace icon on the left rail, also in the Core menu). Once installed, a company's skills and workers show up in that company's Brain section. This is how new capabilities arrive without waiting for a full HQ upgrade. How packs work and which one you probably want: Capability Packs.

The capabilities#

Two names you'll see that are features rather than standalone products:

hq-secrets is schema-driven secret access: it injects credentials into commands without ever printing them. It's the reason you never paste a secret into chat.

hq-share creates single-use vault share links with a browser access picker, the machinery behind /hq-share.

Which ones do you use?#

For the deep technical reference on every product, see the full docs site at docs.hq.computer.

Common questions#

If you get stuck#

If a product name shows up in an error you don't understand, don't decode it yourself: paste the error into your HQ session and ask, or file it with /hq-bug. For "nothing is syncing," start with the sync guide.