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berd

role
Product designer, Engineer
date
2026
team
Berd

overview

The team released Berd as an open-source desktop application in August 2026. Goose remains the agent framework and runtime; Berd provides an environment for projects, context, sessions, agents, and configuration, with support for different harnesses.

This covers the 2026 explorations that led there, and the launch work I implemented.

agents and identity

By 2026, we were exploring how people could shape their agents and the context they worked in. I built a separate prototype alongside the internal app so the design team could try ideas before committing to them, including agent avatars and a concept we called “worlds.”

The companion flow let someone give an agent a name and describe its character. The prototype paired those descriptions with distinctive avatars and showed the companions together in a collection.

Prototype companion creation screen with fields for a name and personality.
Early proof of concept: creating a companion.
Prototype companion collection with distinct character avatars, names, and descriptions.
Early proof of concept: visual agent identities.

worlds

With worlds, we explored how someone could keep an agent’s memory focused on a topic or project. We imagined each world growing and changing visually as its memory developed.

We built and tested visual explorations to make the idea concrete. Working memory and adaptive growth were outside the MVP scope; the screenshots show the interface concept.

Prototype world home with companion avatars arranged around a soft visual world, alongside navigation and chat.
A visual exploration of companions gathered around a world.
Prototype world selector showing Home and School, each with a visual representation and companion count.
Worlds as spaces for subjects someone wanted to return to.

project cube and motion

I implemented the 3D project cube: a glass artifact with images inside, tinted by the project’s color. It is the hero when creating a project and a pin on Home. Drag orbits it; pointer movement on Home gives it a short spin.

I also tuned motion around launch: agent builder and profile transitions, avatar editing, the skills grid, and the create-project and add-agent panels.

The screenshots below show the app the team launched. The team’s account of building Berd covers the broader design effort.

Try Berd

The launched Berd desktop app, with agents surrounding a central visual, navigation for projects, chats, skills and automations, and a starter checklist.
Berd at launch, August 2026. Home, with the 3D project cube at the center.
Create a project panel with a 3D cube preview, a color picker, a name field, a folder picker, and notes for the agent.
Creating a project.
Agents gallery with character avatars.
The agents collection.

© 2026 Nahiyan Khan

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