# block-berd-caractere-agents-open-source-2026-08-18

## Veille

Corporate blog post from **Block** (`block.xyz/inside`), unsigned — the displayed author is **"Block"** —, published on **August 18, 2026**, ~930 words, announcing **the open-sourcing of Berd**, Block's internal desktop application for working with agents, and laying out the design thesis that guided it: giving agents character *"not only through roles, instructions, skills, and tools, but through distinctive visual identities"* — hence the in-house animated characters, the *"Gloopies"*. The post starts from an observation of fragmentation (*"The technology was powerful, but the experience around it was fragmented"*) and a precisely named interface problem: *"the product gives people little sense of how the agent is configured, which context and tools are available to it, and how it differs from another agent"*. Two structuring contributions. **(A) A three-tier articulation**: **goose** remains the framework and *runtime* that holds the agent loop; **Berd** is the desktop client (projects, context, sessions, agents, configuration); the two communicate via the **Agent Client Protocol**. **Buzz** is designated as the follow-up, for when solo work becomes collaborative (*"Start alone, then go multiplayer"*). **(B) Six requirements handed off to Buzz**, stated as a takeaway: *"private space, durable context, recognizable agent identities, reusable skills, visible configuration, and clearer visibility into an agent's configured context, tools, and capabilities"* — a grid directly reusable for evaluating an agent client. The text itself distinguishes identity from capability: *"The avatars make the agent recognizable. Its role, skills, and tools make it useful."* No usage figures are produced and no license is named for the open-sourcing.

## Titre Article

Designing AI with character: what we learned building Berd

## Date

2026-08-18

## URL

https://block.xyz/inside/designing-ai-with-character-what-we-learned-building-berd

## Keywords

Berd, Block, open source, open-sourcing, desktop application, desktop application, AI agents, character, character, visual identity, visual identity, avatar, Gloopies, anthropomorphism, configuration legibility, visible configuration, empty prompt box, empty prompt box, roles skills tools, roles skills tools, persistent projects, durable context, durable context, goose, agent harness, agent harness, agent loop, agent loop, runtime, Agent Client Protocol, ACP, agent client, Agentic AI Foundation, AAIF, Linux Foundation, MCP, AGENTS.md, Buzz, start alone then go multiplayer, Square, Cash App, design, corporate blog, unsigned author

## Authors

**Aucun auteur nommé** : le billet est signé **« Block »** — le champ *Author* de la page porte le nom de l'entreprise. Publié le **18 août 2026** sur `block.xyz/inside`, le blog **corporate**, et non sur `engineering.block.xyz`.

## Ton

**Profile**: a brand blog post in the form of a lessons-learned account — ~930 words, five short sections, an even and unemphatic tone. The audience is explicitly widened beyond engineers (*"assumed a level of technical fluency that many people did not have"*). Neither a detailed design write-up, nor a benchmark, nor an op-ed: a design intention narrated, paired with an open-source announcement.

**Style**: the takeaway sections are in the past tense (*"Berd gave our teams one desktop application"*, *"Berd showed us the importance of…"*), while the product description stays in the present tense (*"Berd is a desktop application our teams use"*, *"Berd connects to goose"*): the title announces a retrospective, the last section hands off to Buzz, and the product is never declared deprecated. A quiet-report register — no superlatives, no figures. Six outbound links, all functional (`berd.xyz`, `github.com/block/berd`, `github.com/aaif-goose/goose`, `aaif.io`, `agents.md`, `buzz.xyz`), but none to documentation, an architecture, or a specification. The authority argument is a brand-lineage narrative: *"Square transformed payment hardware from something sellers hid behind the counter into something they could display proudly. Cash App brought personality and cultural relevance to personal finance."*

**Marker phrases**:
- ***"At Block, we often build the tools we need ourselves."***
- ***"The technology was powerful, but the experience around it was fragmented."***
- ***"we didn't need another model or agent harness, we needed a consistent environment around them"***
- ***"Many AI interfaces begin with an empty prompt box."***
- ***"Different agents can look distinct because they are distinct."***
- ***"The avatars make the agent recognizable. Its role, skills, and tools make it useful."***
- ***"The goal was not to disguise the technology, but to make its capabilities more visible, approachable, and personal."***
- ***"Start alone, then go multiplayer."***

**Epistemic position**: design intention, documented with screenshots and a brand lineage. Citable as **Block's design doctrine on agent identity** and as the source for the **Berd / goose / Buzz articulation**. No study, no user testing, no adoption measurement is produced: the post does not establish that visual character improves understanding of an agent.

## Pense-betes

- **Date / source**: **August 18, 2026**, **corporate** blog of Block (`block.xyz/inside`), **unsigned** post, ~930 words. Announces the open-sourcing of **Berd** (`github.com/block/berd`), no license named.
- **Key framing**: the problem stated is a **configuration-legibility** problem — *"how the agent is configured, which context and tools are available to it, and how it differs from another agent"* — and the answer put forward is a **visual identity** (animated avatars, the *"Gloopies"*). The post itself distinguishes the two registers: *"The avatars make the agent recognizable. Its role, skills, and tools make it useful."* An avatar makes an agent **distinguishable**, not **legible**. ### The three-tier articulation Verbatim: *"goose remains the open agent framework and runtime. Berd is a desktop application built around it. Berd connects to goose through the Agent Client Protocol. This separation lets Berd focus on the desktop experience, including projects, context, sessions, agents, and configuration, while goose handles the underlying agent loop."* | Tier | Role | Boundary | |-------|------|-----------| | **goose** | agent framework and *runtime*, holds the agent loop | — | | **Berd** | desktop client: projects, context, sessions, agents, configuration | **Agent Client Protocol** | | **Buzz** | shared space where solo work becomes collaborative | not specified in the post |
- **Production occurrence of the Agent Client Protocol** — Zed's ACP, not to be confused with the *Agentic Commerce Protocol*: see [[girard-acp-deux-protocoles-un-sigle-2026-08-02]] for the disambiguation and [[agentclientprotocol-introduction-2026-08-02]] for the specification.
- **The separation thesis**: *"we didn't need another model or agent harness, we needed a consistent environment around them"* — the missing layer is neither the model nor the harness, it is the client. The post says nothing about how Berd connects to Buzz, nor whether the same ACP boundary is used there. ### The six requirements handed off to Buzz Verbatim: *"Berd showed us the importance of private space, durable context, recognizable agent identities, reusable skills, visible configuration, and clearer visibility into an agent's configured context, tools, and capabilities. Buzz gives those ideas somewhere to go when individual work becomes collaborative."* | # | Requirement | Demonstrated in the post? | |---|----------|----------------------------| | 1 | *private space* | no | | 2 | *durable context* | yes — persistent projects | | 3 | *recognizable agent identities* | yes — it is the subject of the text | | 4 | *reusable skills* | no | | 5 | *visible configuration* | no | | 6 | *visibility into context, tools, capabilities* | no | List usable as-is as an **evaluation grid for an agent client**. On skill portability across clients, cross-reference with [[janakiram-agent-platform-portability-contract-2026-07-20]] and [[google-agent-plugins-packaging-skills-mcp-2026-08-06]]. ### Affiliations and ecosystem
- **goose** is hosted at `github.com/aaif-goose/goose` — **Agentic AI Foundation** (`aaif.io`), a foundation under the aegis of the **Linux Foundation**, neutral governance.
- The post refers to **MCP** and **AGENTS.md** (`agents.md`) as shared standards. ### Product thesis *"Work with an agent often begins alone. You research, experiment, gather context, and shape an idea before it is ready for other people… But work rarely stays private."* → *"Start alone, then go multiplayer."* This is the most falsifiable claim in the post, and the one that motivates the move from Berd to Buzz. ### Caveats
- **No figures** anywhere in the text: no user count, no repo count, no duration, no cost.
- **No license named** for an open-source announcement.
- One overreaching sentence, without example or screenshot: *"Just by chatting with Berd, users can easily create custom agents to do any task they want, even helping with everyday tasks like planning travel or shopping."*

## RésuméDe400mots

Corporate blog post from **Block** (`block.xyz/inside`), **unsigned**, published on **August 18, 2026**, announcing **the open-sourcing of Berd** and laying out the design thesis that guided it.

**What Berd is.** *"Berd is a desktop application our teams use to work with AI agents across projects, skills, tools, and models."* Born of an internal problem: Block had access to capable agents — **goose**, **Claude Code**, **Codex** — but each imposed *"different interfaces, configuration systems, and ways of managing context"*. The conclusion drawn: *"we didn't need another model or agent harness, **we needed a consistent environment around them**"*. Berd brings together conversations, files, folders, instructions, agents and skills around **persistent projects**, to stop rebuilding context for every task.

**The design thesis.** Give agents **character** — not only through roles, instructions, skills and tools, but through **distinct visual identities**, including a collection of animated characters, the *"Gloopies"*. The problem invoked is that of the empty prompt box: *"the product gives people little sense of how the agent is configured, which context and tools are available to it, and how it differs from another agent"*. The post places the approach in the lineage of **Square** and **Cash App** — bringing design where the category had none. **But the problem stated is a configuration-legibility problem, and the avatar solves distinguishability**; the text acknowledges this in one line it does not develop: *"The avatars make the agent recognizable. **Its role, skills, and tools make it useful.**"*

**The architecture.** Berd descends from **goose**, the open source agent framework launched by Block in **January 2025**, contributed to the **Agentic AI Foundation** (Linux Foundation, December 2025) alongside **MCP** and **AGENTS.md**. Explicit division: *"goose remains the open agent framework and runtime. Berd is a desktop application built around it. **Berd connects to goose through the Agent Client Protocol.**"* goose holds the agent loop, Berd holds the experience.

**The sequel is Buzz.** Berd served to explore **solo** work; *"But work rarely stays private"*. What Berd showed — *"private space, durable context, recognizable agent identities, reusable skills, visible configuration"* — will feed **Buzz**, the shared human+agent space. *"Start alone, then go multiplayer."*

**Caveats.** **No figures, no user testing, no license named**; one isolated overreach (*"create custom agents to do any task they want"*); and a post whose title announces a retrospective while keeping the product in the present tense — **Berd is not declared deprecated, but the roadmap points to Buzz**.

## GrapheDeConnaissance

- Block —publie→ Berd (TECHNOLOGIE, 0.98)
- Block —a_créé→ goose (TECHNOLOGIE, 0.97)
- Berd —est_instance_de→ client de bureau pour agents (CONCEPT, 0.96)
- Berd —utilise→ goose (TECHNOLOGIE, 0.97)
- Berd —utilise→ Agent Client Protocol (TECHNOLOGIE, 0.97)
- Agent Client Protocol —permet→ séparation client / boucle d'agent (CONCEPT, 0.94)
- goose —fait_partie_de→ Agentic AI Foundation (ORGANISATION, 0.95)
- Agentic AI Foundation —fait_partie_de→ Linux Foundation (ORGANISATION, 0.96)
- Berd —résout→ fragmentation des interfaces d'agents (CONCEPT, 0.92)
- Berd —réduit→ reconstruction du contexte à chaque tâche (CONCEPT, 0.91)
- Berd —utilise→ identité visuelle d'agent (CONCEPT, 0.95)
- identité visuelle d'agent —permet→ distinguabilité des agents (CONCEPT, 0.92)
- identité visuelle d'agent —s_oppose_à→ lisibilité de la configuration d'agent (CONCEPT, 0.8)
- Gloopies —fait_partie_de→ identité visuelle d'agent (CONCEPT, 0.93)
- Block —affirme_que→ "The avatars make the agent recognizable. Its role, skills, and tools make it useful." (CITATION, 0.98)
- Block —affirme_que→ "we didn't need another model or agent harness, we needed a consistent environment around them" (CITATION, 0.97)
- Block —affirme_que→ "Work with an agent often begins alone. But work rarely stays private." (CITATION, 0.96)
- Block —affirme_que→ « le caractère d'un agent est à la fois visuel et fonctionnel : des agents peuvent avoir l'air distincts parce qu'ils le sont » (AFFIRMATION, 0.94)
- Block —prédit→ « ce qui a été appris sur Berd nourrira la suite du travail sur Buzz : commencer seul, puis passer en multijoueur » (AFFIRMATION, 0.93)
- Berd —s_applique_à→ travail solo avec agents (CONCEPT, 0.94)
- Buzz —s_applique_à→ travail collaboratif humains-agents (CONCEPT, 0.94)
- Buzz —est_basé_sur→ Berd (TECHNOLOGIE, 0.85)
- Berd —observé_dans→ Block (ORGANISATION, 0.95)
- Claude Code —concurrence→ Berd (TECHNOLOGIE, 0.78)
- Berd —s_oppose_à→ boîte de saisie vide (CONCEPT, 0.88)
- Square —fait_partie_de→ Block (ORGANISATION, 0.96)
- Cash App —fait_partie_de→ Block (ORGANISATION, 0.96)
- design comme différenciateur —observé_dans→ Square (TECHNOLOGIE, 0.9)
- lisibilité de la configuration d'agent —améliore→ confiance vérifiable dans un agent (CONCEPT, 0.82)

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Canonical: https://www.thekb.eu/en/fiches/block-berd-caractere-agents-open-source-2026-08-18/