What is the Brain's Live View browser, and how do I use it?

Every brain has its own web browser, and you watch it in the Live View panel at the top of the Brain drawer. It is switched on by default. You turn it on and off with the globe button (🌐) in the drawer header: hover it and the tooltip reads "Show Brain browser" when the panel is hidden, or "Hide Brain browser" when it is showing. To send the browser to a page, type a web address into the URL bar near the top of the panel and press Enter, or ask the brain in the terminal to open a page for you. You and the brain drive the same browser. The first time a brain's browser is empty, it loads Google by itself so the panel always has something to show.

This is the Brain's own browser, inside the drawer. It is not the preview browser a quadrant shows out in the main grid.

Before you start

• This is a desktop feature. codus runs on macOS.
• Open the Brain drawer first.
• Claude Code must be installed on your Mac. Without it, the drawer shows an install prompt instead of the browser, and the globe has nothing to toggle. There is more on this at the end of this page.

Show or hide the Live View

Two controls do the same thing:

• The globe button (🌐) in the drawer header. Its tooltip is "Show Brain browser" when the panel is hidden and "Hide Brain browser" when it is showing.
• The chevron button in the Live View panel's own header, tooltip "Collapse Live View". Clicking it hides the panel.

Both remember your choice, even after you quit and reopen codus. So if the Live View "stopped appearing", you (or a stray click) collapsed it once and codus kept it that way. Click the globe again to bring it back.

Reading the panel header

The header reads "Live View", then the brain's name after a dot, for example "Live View · Brain 1". That name tells you which brain's browser you are watching. (Brains start out named "Brain 1", "Brain 2", and so on.)

When a page is actually loaded, a small green dot appears next to the name. Hover it and it reads "Mirroring a live page". No dot means no page is loaded yet.

Why it opens Google on its own

When a brain's browser has never loaded anything, the panel shows the note "No live page yet — type a URL above, or ask this brain to open one." That note is usually only on screen for a moment, because an empty brain browser loads Google automatically the first time so the panel is not blank.

This happens once per brain. If the brain has already opened a page, the panel leaves that page where it is and does not jump back to Google.

One browser per brain

Each brain tab has its own separate browser. The Live View follows whichever brain tab is selected, so switching tabs switches which browser you see. Each brain's browser is seeded to Google on its own the first time, so opening a second brain does not share the first one's page.

You and the brain share it

The browser in the Live View is the same one the brain uses for its own work. Either of you can drive it. If you type an address in the URL bar and press Enter, the brain's browser goes there. If the brain opens a page, you see it appear here.

Tabs

Above the page, a strip shows the browser's open tabs, with a + button to open a new one (it starts on Google). Tabs the brain opens or closes appear and disappear here as it works. Click a tab to switch to it, or click the × on a tab to close it. The + stops at six tabs; when you reach the limit it greys out and its tooltip reads "Tab cap reached (6)".

The toolbar row

Below the tabs is a row of browser controls:

• Reload. Click the circular arrow to reload the page. To do a hard reload (a completely fresh copy that ignores anything the page has saved to speed itself up), right-click that same button. Its tooltip reads "Reload (right-click or ⌘⇧R for hard reload, bypasses cache)".
• The URL bar. Type a web address and press Enter to go there. Its empty-box hint text is "Enter URL". A small lock beside the address tells you whether the connection is secure; hovering it shows one of "Connection is encrypted", "Not secure (no HTTPS)", or "Not secure (certificate not trusted — likely self-signed dev cert)".
• Device size. Four icon buttons preview the page at different screen sizes. Hover them for their names: "Native (no device emulation — real browser fingerprint, best for bot-checked sites)", "Desktop preview", "Tablet preview" and "Mobile preview". Native shows the page as the real browser with no size emulation; the others reshape it to a desktop, tablet or phone. These buttons grey out while the annotate tool is on.
• Annotate. The circle button turns on red-circle drawing (tooltip "Draw red circle annotations"; while it is on the tooltip reads "Stop drawing red circles"). Draw a circle on the page and a small panel opens where you can type a note. Sending it hands the brain a screenshot of the page with your red circle plus your note, so you can point at something on screen and ask the brain about it. The Clear annotations button removes your circles.
• Brightness. The sun button opens a small slider to dim the preview, from 20% up to 100%. Reset returns it to full brightness (and is greyed out when it is already at 100%).

The help panel hides it for a moment

The ⓘ "What can Brain do?" button opens a help card. While that card is open, the mirrored page hides so the help can sit on top of it. Close the help and the page comes back on its own. This is expected.

Only when Claude Code is installed

The Live View browser (and the terminal below it) only appear when Claude Code is installed on your Mac. If it is not, the drawer shows "Claude Code isn't installed on this machine" with a Get Claude Code button. The globe still shows in the header, but there is no browser to toggle until you install Claude Code and reopen the drawer.

How do I know it worked?

A web page appears in the panel, and a small green dot shows up next to the brain's name in the header with the tooltip "Mirroring a live page". If you typed an address, the URL bar shows where you landed.

Common problems

• The Brain browser stopped appearing. You collapsed it once and codus remembers that across restarts. Click the globe button (🌐) in the drawer header (its tooltip will read "Show Brain browser") to bring it back.
• The globe does nothing. If Claude Code is not installed on your Mac, there is no browser to show, only the install prompt. Install Claude Code and reopen the drawer.
• It opened Google by itself. That is normal. An empty brain browser loads Google once so the panel is not blank. It will not overwrite a page the brain has already opened.
• The page vanished when I opened the help panel. Expected. The mirrored page hides while the ⓘ "What can Brain do?" help card is open and comes back when you close it.
• The page looks tiny. Drag the left edge of the drawer to make it wider. The Live View keeps a fixed shape, so a wider drawer shows a bigger page.
• The device size buttons are greyed out. They are switched off while the annotate (red-circle) tool is on. Turn annotate off to change the device size again.