HivemindOS manual

Hivemind Office Companion

Hivemind Office lets agents create, edit, and review Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. Agents always work on a copy, and you approve before any original is changed.

It has two parts:

A built-in authoring engine that writes .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx files. It works on every platform without any office app installed.
An optional desktop companion for visually checking documents, PDF work, and hand-editing. HivemindOS can find an existing compatible Hivemind Office, HermesOffice, or GenOffice app on macOS or Windows.

Edit a document safely

Ask the agent to inspect the original. HivemindOS records its fingerprint (SHA-256) and extracts its text.
The agent writes changes to a new candidate file. The original is never touched, and an existing file is never overwritten.
Open the candidate in the desktop app, if you have one, and check layout, formulas, media, and page breaks.
The agent prepares the update. This writes nothing; it shows both fingerprints, the destination, and a checklist.
Confirm to apply it. If either file changed since review, HivemindOS stops and writes nothing.

Keep the original closed during the final step. HivemindOS checks for changes but can’t lock the file in every other app.

Save modes

Saving a copy is the default.

Mode	Required confirmation	Write behavior	Recovery
`copy`	`CONFIRM_HIVEMIND_OFFICE_SAVE_COPY`	Creates a new file. Refuses if the destination exists. The original is unchanged.	Delete the copy.
`replace-original`	`CONFIRM_HIVEMIND_OFFICE_REPLACE_ORIGINAL`	Makes and checks a timestamped backup, rechecks the original, then replaces it.	Restore the backup.

A general request to edit or review never counts as confirmation, and one mode’s confirmation can’t approve the other.

Good to know

Every edit is checked. The engine sometimes reports success for an edit it quietly skipped, so HivemindOS reads each change back. An edit that can’t be confirmed fails instead of giving you a file that only looks changed.
Files carry an engine tag. The engine adds its name and a timestamp as custom document properties, visible in Word’s Properties pane, and they can’t be removed. Keep this in mind before sending a file to a client.
Formulas are calculated, so Excel shows results right away. Table-of-contents page numbers and page counts are left for Word to refresh.
PDF and legacy .xls can’t be authored. The desktop companion can open .docx, .xlsx, .xls, .csv, .pptx, and .pdf for review.
Files must be inside your home folder or vault and at most 64 MiB.

For reading documents into Chat, the brain, or a company data room, use Documents And Brain Drop. Hivemind Office adds editing and visual review on top of it.

Agent tools

The built-in HivemindOS MCP server provides six tools. No extra server or API key is needed.

Tool	Class	Result
`hivemind_office_status`	Read-only	Reports app discovery, provenance checks, gateway health, and the bridge contract.
`hivemind_office_inspect_document`	Read-only	Returns canonical metadata, SHA-256, and optional bounded Markdown extraction.
`hivemind_office_author_candidate`	Filesystem write (new path only)	Creates or edits a DOCX, XLSX, or PPTX candidate, verifying every edit by reading it back.
`hivemind_office_open_document`	Desktop side effect	Opens one validated local file in an already-installed compatible app.
`hivemind_office_prepare_update`	Read-only	Produces a hash-bound review receipt and writes nothing.
`hivemind_office_apply_update`	High-risk filesystem write	Saves a reviewed copy or replaces the original after mode-specific confirmation.

Installing the desktop companion

The companion is optional and not bundled. My Apps shows Install blocked on purpose: automatic install waits until the project publishes a signed, fixed release that can be verified. This stops HivemindOS from downloading or building changeable third-party code.

If you installed a compatible app yourself, HivemindOS can detect and open it, and shows whether its source and code signature check out. Review those before using it with important documents. Removing the app only turns off visual opening.

Don’t paste HivemindOS keys into a third-party editor. Agents should use the built-in tools above.

Provenance

Authoring engine: iOfficeAI/OfficeCLI, Apache-2.0, pinned to a reviewed, signed release. Its self-updates are turned off.
Desktop companion: criptogus/HermesOffice, reviewed at commit 70374e037e1afa97f42948d31df238c0b38250ae, derived from genspark-ai/genoffice. HivemindOS uses only its Apache-2.0 code, never runs its updater or installer, never stores a key for it, and only checks its local health endpoint at 127.0.0.1:8642.