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How Acorn works

Async jobs, routed to idle Macs.

Acorn turns a normal API request into a queued job, dispatches it to an eligible Apple Silicon worker, verifies the result, and settles billing by completed work instead of reserved infrastructure.

OpenAI-compatible routes Verified workers Per-job settlement
API surface
Submit once, then poll or receive a webhook when the job is complete.
Dispatch model
Eligibility first: model, chip, trust tier, and current idle state gate assignment.
Operator burden
No instances, autoscaling groups, GPU quotas, or idle capacity bills.
Lifecycle

Submit. Dispatch. Settle.

The Acorn service keeps the queue, workers claim only jobs they can run, and clients receive consistent results for each route.

01 · Submit

You send the job.

Post audio, prompts, or a batch manifest to an Acorn endpoint. Synchronous routes return when work is ready; async routes return a job id for polling or webhooks.

02 · Dispatch

The router selects a worker.

Acorn matches the job to an idle Mac with the right model capability, trust tier, bandwidth, and availability. Workers receive only the part of your file needed for the claim.

03 · Settle

The result is verified and billed.

Completed output is returned to your app and recorded in the ledger. Customers pay per resolved unit; workers are paid from the same completed-work record.

Under the hood

A queue, a router, and a worker app.

Acorn keeps operational responsibilities separated so customer APIs, worker execution, and settlement can each fail closed.

Acorn service

The Acorn service authenticates API requests, stores job state, applies route-specific limits, and decides which workers are eligible to claim a job.

  • Queue state tracks submitted, claimed, running, completed, and failed work.
  • Route policies enforce model availability, request size limits, and retry behavior.
  • Webhook signing lets your application verify outbound completion events.

Worker app

The Mac app runs locally on enrolled Apple Silicon machines and only works when the host allows it to run.

  • Local inference runs with model weights on the worker, avoiding GPU instance provisioning.
  • Scoped claims give each worker the job fragment and metadata needed for that task.
  • Limited permissions means normal operation does not request camera, microphone, contacts, location, screen recording, or full disk access. macOS App Sandbox is not enabled in the current build.
Trust boundary

Security is part of dispatch.

Worker trust tiers, inputs split into pieces, current app permissions, and signed delivery are documented on the Security page.

Next step

Call the API or run a node.

Read the API docs →

Developers can start with transcription today. Mac owners can install the worker app from the host landing page and join the supply side of the network.