Meta buys Conductor; cloud shuts 20 Nov

Conductor, the Mac app for running teams of coding agents, says it is joining Meta. New sign-ups and downloads stopped on 4 Nov. Conductor Cloud goes read-only on 13 Nov and shuts on 20 Nov, when deletion of cloud user data begins; active subscribers get a refund. Users can transfer a cloud workspace to local by right-clicking it, or export all data from Settings. Local Conductor keeps getting new models and critical bug fixes until early 2027. Meta confirmed the deal to press but gave no price. HN (210 points, 220 comments): No consensus. The biggest reply thread (26 replies) asks what to switch to. One camp congratulates the team on a fast exit. Another is upset about the Cloud shutdown timeline and hunting replacements. A third says coding-agent harnesses have no moat, and rival founders pitch alternatives throughout the thread. Sorted take: if you run Conductor Cloud, transfer workspaces to local or export before 20 Nov; local keeps updates into early 2027, but plan a migration.