Macswarm glossary: Pods, billing and environments

Pod

A Pod is one hosted Mac for one developer. It boots from a golden image in seconds and is destroyed when the work is done: ten minutes after the last session ends the Pod is destroyed, and the next session gets a fresh clone. Two to three active agents per standard Pod are guaranteed; you can run more, and builds and Simulator leases then queue. Pods run on dedicated Apple silicon Mac minis that Macswarm operates in a data center in the Netherlands (EU) or in the US. Each Mac mini runs two Pods; Pods on the same machine are separate virtual machines with their own disks and memory. Each session gets its own git worktree, and a Pod belongs to the developer who started it.

Source: Inside a Pod, Security.

What is a Pod-hour?

Macswarm bills Pod-hours. One Pod-hour is one Pod running for one hour, regardless of how many agents are active. Usage is metered per second while a Pod runs; twelve minutes of runtime is 0.2 Pod-hours. The meter runs until the Pod is destroyed, ten minutes after its last session ends, and those ten idle minutes count. Pod-hours count Pods, not agents or developers: a Pod belongs to one developer, and that developer’s sessions share it. Two developers each running a Pod for an hour use two Pod-hours; one developer running three agents on one Pod for an hour uses one. Free includes 3 Pod-hours once, with no card. Pro is $99 a month for 300 Pod-hours, about $0.33 each, then $0.40 per extra Pod-hour; Team is $399 a month for 1,500, about $0.27 each, then $0.30. Enterprise reserves a pool of Macs and is not metered. Model usage is billed separately by Anthropic or OpenAI. Plans are on the pricing page.

Source: FAQ: What is a Pod-hour?, Limits and queues, pricing.

Golden image

The macOS image every Pod is cloned from. It holds the Latest Xcode and the previous major version with command line tools, current iOS plus the previous major runtime, Simulators, Claude Code, Codex, XcodeBuildMCP, git, and the Homebrew packages common in iOS projects. Environment keys and webhooks are stored encrypted and never written into Pod images; secrets your builds need are injected at session start and are gone with the Pod.

Source: Inside a Pod, Security.

Warm pool

The warm pool supplies clean Pods cloned from the golden image. When you connect an environment, Macswarm warms a pool for your organization; in the Claude Code flow, Connected means the first Pod is ready. Availability depends on the plan’s Pod limit and regional capacity: Macswarm aims for a Pod to be available whenever your plan allows one and the region’s pool has capacity. A session then gets a clean Pod from the warm pool in a few seconds. If no Pod boots, the dashboard shows the region’s warm pool status and the plan’s Pods-at-a-time limit.

Source: Claude Code quickstart, Security.

How does the build queue work?

Each Pod runs two concurrent xcodebuild runs; those are its two build slots. Further builds enter a queue scheduled fairly between agents: the agent that has waited longest goes next. An agent whose build is waiting keeps working on something else until a slot frees up. Incremental builds are fast because the worktree keeps its derived data for the session. Clean builds of large apps take as long as they take on a Mac mini; plan the number of Pods around that, not around agent count.

Source: Limits and queues, Inside a Pod.

Simulator pool

The three to four iOS Simulators pre-booted in every Pod, running current iOS and the previous major on the Latest Xcode. An agent leases a Simulator when it launches the app or starts UI tests, and returns it when done. Leases are short, so three to four devices serve more than three to four agents in practice. A lease that is idle for five minutes is released. When more lease requests arrive than there are free devices, the extra requests queue for a Simulator rather than being refused.

Source: Limits and queues, Inside a Pod.

Self-hosted environment (Claude Code)

How Claude Code reaches a Pod. Self-hosted environments are a Claude Team and Enterprise feature (public beta). You create one in your Claude organization settings, copy its key and paste it into Macswarm with a region. The key identifies your organization to Macswarm and never ships inside a Pod image. Sessions started from claude.ai, Claude Desktop or Slack pick the Macswarm environment. Claude Pro and Max accounts cannot create one, but they can start a Pod on Macswarm Free or Pro and sign in to Claude Code inside it with their own account; the Claude plan and the Macswarm plan are separate choices.

Source: Claude Code quickstart, FAQ: Which Claude plans work?.

Agents API webhook (Codex)

How Codex reaches a Pod. Macswarm is a macOS sandbox for the OpenAI Agents API, and Codex needs an OpenAI account with API access. In the dashboard you connect Codex, pick a region and copy a webhook URL, unique to your account and rotatable at any time. Pasted into your Agents API environment settings as the sandbox webhook, it lets Codex request a Macswarm Pod for a session. Codex picks Macswarm when a task needs Xcode or a Simulator; Linux sandboxes from other providers keep working.

Source: Codex quickstart, FAQ: Does Codex need anything special?.

XcodeBuildMCP

The MCP server installed in every Pod for building, launching and driving the Simulator. With it, Claude Code or Codex builds with xcodebuild, launches the app on a leased Simulator, taps through screens, reads logs and takes the screenshots it attaches to the PR. It is part of the golden image, so there is nothing to install.

Source: Inside a Pod, Claude Code quickstart, Codex quickstart.

Region (EU Netherlands or US)

The selected EU (Netherlands) or US location for an environment’s Pods, agent logs and screenshots. Model requests go directly to Anthropic or OpenAI under your account; other data is covered by the privacy policy. Pods run on dedicated Apple silicon Mac minis in a data center in the Netherlands or in the US. Region is chosen per environment when you connect Claude Code or Codex, and a team can keep one environment in each region. Enterprise contracts write the residency commitment down, with a data-processing agreement that names the region.

Source: Security, privacy policy.

Early access

Macswarm is in early access. Dashboard labels may change before general availability. Free includes 3 Pod-hours once, with no card. Early access has no uptime commitment; Enterprise contracts can include an SLA.

Source: Docs, Security, pricing.

Where these terms are used

Inside a Pod covers the hardware, the image and the lifecycle; Limits and queues the numbers; Security isolation and regions. The Claude Code and Codex quickstarts connect an environment, and Run Claude Code and Codex on a cloud Mac compares a Pod with the other ways to give an agent a Mac. Prices are on the pricing page.