Projects, chats, Remote and Local

In Newly v2, at app.newly.app and in Newly for Mac, your work is organized into projects and chats. Each chat runs either in the cloud (Remote) or on your Mac (Local).

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Projects

A project is one app. It holds your app’s code, its chats, and its backend if it has one. You create a project by sending your first prompt from Home. Newly names the project from the first line of your prompt, then starts a chat in it. See Build your first app.

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Finding your projects

The Home sidebar has a Projects group with three views:

• All Projects: every project you can open.
• Created by me: projects you created.
• Shared with me: projects other people shared with you. See Share a project.

Until you pick a view, the list under the group is Recents: your 5 newest projects. When you have projects, the banner on Home shows your last project with “Pick up where you left off.” Press Open Project to go straight back to it. A project’s address in the web app is app.newly.app/projects/<id>. The id at the end is your project id, which you also use with the newly CLI. See Get your code.

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Chats

A project can have many chats. Start another one with the + (New chat) button in the chat header.

• Each chat keeps its own conversation and its own memory of what you discussed.
• A chat runs one request at a time. Messages you send while the agent works wait in a queue. See Chatting with the agent.
• Separate chats are useful for separate pieces of work, such as one chat for a new screen and another for a bug.

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Chats hand the code to each other between turns

Every chat in a project works on the same line of code, but they don’t share one live copy. Each chat has its own working copy, and they sync at turn boundaries:

• When a chat finishes a turn, its work is saved and published to the project’s code.
• When a chat starts a turn, it first picks up everything published since its last one.

So a chat begins where the other chats’ finished turns left off. A change you make in one chat isn’t visible in another until that other chat starts its next turn, and work still in progress in a chat mid-turn isn’t visible anywhere else yet. Restore to here and Undo follow the same rule: they move the project’s code back, and each other chat picks that up on its next turn rather than being changed underneath it while it works. See Where your code lives and Undo and Restore to here.

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Running and parked chats

By default, up to 3 Remote chats can run at once. An idle Remote chat parks after about 15 minutes, and your next message resumes it. A chat doesn’t park while the agent is working or a native build is running. See Parked chats and limits.

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Remote and Local

Every chat is either Remote or Local.

• Remote: “Runs in the cloud, accessible on any device.” Remote chats always use Newly Agent, which uses your Newly credits. Every chat in the web app is Remote.
• Local: “Runs on your computer, Device must stay awake.” Local chats exist only in Newly for Mac. They can use Newly Agent (which uses credits) or your own Claude or Codex login. See Local chats on your Mac.

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Choosing Remote or Local on Mac

In the Mac app, pick Remote or Local from the menu in the prompt box before you send the first message of a chat.

• A new chat uses the choice you made last time. If there isn’t one, it starts as Local.
• A Local chat needs a folder on your Mac for the project. On Home, use Save project to… to pick one, or the Mac app asks you when you send the prompt.
• A Remote chat needs nothing installed on your Mac and works the same as in the web app.

Once a chat has started, it stays Remote or Local. To move an existing chat between the cloud and your Mac, turn on Developer mode. See Settings and Developer mode.

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Where your chat history shows up

When you open a Local chat in the web app, you can read it but not send messages. The web app shows “This chat runs in the desktop app. Open Newly on your computer to continue the conversation.”

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