On the Mac a seat can be powered by a CLI instead of an API key: Claude Code, Codex or Gemini CLI, each running as its own process on your machine with its own tools. A CLI seat brings the vendor's real agent rather than an imitation of it, and it runs on the subscription you already pay that vendor — it bills nothing per call here. On the free plan a CLI seat works for one 14-day trial, then needs Pro.
Setting one up
Install the CLI the way its vendor says, sign in to it once from a terminal, then open Settings → Who's In The Room and press Test on that seat. The app looks for each CLI in the places installers actually use and asks your login shell as a fallback; Test re-runs detection and reports what it found. Once found, the seat's Runs on choice offers the CLI.
What a CLI seat can do
As lead, it changes files in the checkout and runs commands, with each command behind the usual approval. As reviewer, it reads the lead's work and runs its own checks. A CLI seat on a closed network is limited to the hosts the sandbox allows — the vendor's API, package registries, code hosts — and the app says when it refused a connection.
Signing in
The CLI holds its own sign-in; the app never sees it. If a seat reports "OAuth session expired and could not be refreshed", run the CLI's own login in a terminal — claude auth login for Claude Code — and press Test again. See the troubleshooting article of that name.
Where the seat is not
The CLI seats are a Mac feature. The web and the phone run every seat on an API key, ours or yours, so a discussion started there uses the seat's key mode instead. "Run on my Mac" from the web or phone uses the Mac's seats, CLIs included.