CoWork OS is a local-first option for production workflows.
Security-hardened, local-first AI operating system — 30+ LLM providers, 15 channels, 139 skills
Getting Started · Use Cases · Platform Updates · Documentation · Changelog · Security · Contributing
- 30+ LLM providers — Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Ollama, AWS Bedrock, OpenRouter, and more. Bring your own keys.
- 15 messaging channels — WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, Slack, Teams, iMessage, Signal, X, and more. Chat with your AI from anywhere.
- 139 built-in skills — Documents, code review, web search, image generation, cloud integrations, game development, mobile development, financial analysis, infrastructure-as-code, and more.
- Digital Twin Personas — Pre-built AI twins for every role (engineer, manager, PM, director). Each twin absorbs cognitively draining work — PR triage, meeting prep, status reports, dependency tracking — so the human stays in flow.
- Zero-Human Company Ops — Configure CoWork OS as a founder-directed autonomous company shell with venture workspace kits, a dedicated Companies tab, persistent operator twins, strategic planner loops, and Mission Control ops monitoring.
- Managed Devices — Run and inspect tasks across saved remote machines from a dedicated Devices tab with connection controls, summaries, remote task feeds, and remote file attachment picking.
- Automations Control Center — A single Automations section now groups task queueing, scheduled tasks, event triggers, webhooks, daily briefings, and the self-improvement loop.
- Plugin Platform — 17 bundled role-specific packs (including Mobile Development, Game Development, and 5 Financial packs) with 55+ skills, in-app Plugin Store for installing community packs, remote registry, and enterprise admin policies for organization-wide control.
- Active Context sidebar — Always-visible panel showing connected MCP connectors with branded Lucide icons and enabled skills, auto-refreshed every 30 seconds.
- Agent teams — Multi-agent collaboration with shared checklists, collaborative mode, multi-LLM synthesis, and persistent teams.
- Think With Me mode — Socratic brainstorming that helps you clarify thinking without executing actions.
- Build Mode — Go from idea to working prototype with a phased canvas workflow (Concept → Plan → Scaffold → Iterate) and named checkpoints.
- AI Playbook — Auto-captures what worked from successful tasks and injects relevant patterns into future prompts. Repeated patterns auto-promote to governed, one-click-approvable skills via the Playbook-to-Skill pipeline.
- Evolving Intelligence — Unified Memory Synthesizer merges all 6 memory subsystems into a single coherent context block. Adaptive Style Engine learns your communication preferences from message patterns and feedback. Evolution Metrics dashboard quantifies improvement over time (correction rate, knowledge growth, style alignment).
- Usage Insights — Dashboard showing task stats, cost/token tracking by model, activity heatmaps, top skills, and per-pack analytics.
- ChatGPT History Import — Import your full ChatGPT conversation history. CoWork OS instantly knows your preferences, past projects, and context — no cold start. All data stays encrypted on your machine and never leaves it.
- Security-first — Approval workflows, sandboxed execution, configurable guardrails, encrypted storage, and 3200+ tests.
- Structured guidance — In propose-style flows, the agent can pause with short multiple-choice prompts instead of ambiguous free-text follow-ups.
- Runtime resilience — Adaptive turn budgets, context-overflow recovery, and safe path normalization keep long-running tasks moving without silent file drift.
- Local-first & BYOK — Your data and API keys stay on your machine. No telemetry. No middleman.
Since v0.4.13, the main product updates are:
- Devices tab + managed remote devices — CoWork OS can now save remote machines, connect over direct/Tailscale/SSH-backed control-plane routes, inspect device summaries, browse remote workspaces, attach files from remote machines, and open remote task history in a dedicated session view.
- Automations section refresh —
Settingsnow groups Task Queue, Self-Improve, Scheduled Tasks, Webhooks, Event Triggers, and Daily Briefing under Automations, while the home dashboard highlights recent automation work instead of burying it in settings. - Bounded self-improvement campaigns — The improvement loop now favors smaller, PR-first campaigns with explicit stages, provider-health reporting, verification/promotion gates, cooldowns, and candidate parking when repeated failures indicate the loop should stop retrying.
- Company workflow cohesion — Companies, Digital Twins, and Mission Control now share persisted company-linked operators so a founder can define a company, activate operators, run the planner, and inspect execution without losing context between surfaces.
- Remote session clarity — When you inspect a task from another device, the UI now makes it explicit that you are viewing remote history rather than the current machine’s live task context.
The latest updates also add five evolving agent intelligence capabilities:
- Unified Memory Synthesizer — All 6 memory subsystems (profile, relationship, playbook, knowledge graph, notes, workspace kit) now merge into a single deduplicated, relevance-ranked context block, eliminating redundancy and contradiction in the system prompt.
- Adaptive Style Engine — The agent observes your message patterns (length, emoji use, technical vocabulary) and feedback signals, then gradually shifts its response style to match your preferences. Rate-limited and admin-toggleable.
- Playbook-to-Skill Auto-Promotion — When a task pattern is successfully reinforced 3+ times, the agent auto-drafts a skill proposal with evidence and a prompt template, routed through the existing admin approval workflow.
- Cross-Channel Persona Coherence — The agent's core personality adapts its delivery per channel: concise bullets on Slack, formal structure in email, short messages on WhatsApp — same knowledge, channel-appropriate voice.
- Evolution Metrics Dashboard — Track agent improvement over time: correction rate trend, adaptation velocity, knowledge graph growth, task success rate, and style alignment score. Surfaced in the daily briefing.
See Evolving Agent Intelligence for architecture details.
Previous updates added four core runtime capabilities:
- Tier-1 chat integration setup with
integration_setup(list,inspect,configure), OAuth support, and stale-plan safety viaexpected_plan_hash - Approval-gated skill expansion with
skill_proposal(create,list,approve,reject) and workspace-local proposal persistence - Workspace bootstrap + heartbeat alignment with
.cowork/BOOTSTRAP.md,.cowork/VIBES.md,.cowork/LORE.md, onboarding lifecycle state, and proactive task frequency enforcement - Guided input + runtime recovery with
request_user_input, adaptive turn-window recovery, context compaction retry, grouped parallel tool lanes, and workspace/task-path repair
See Integration Setup, Skill Proposals, and Bootstrap Lifecycle for the integration/bootstrap changes, and Features for the guided-input and runtime-recovery additions.
Download the latest release from GitHub Releases:
| Platform | Download | Install |
|---|---|---|
| macOS | .dmg |
Drag CoWork OS into Applications |
| Windows | .exe (NSIS installer) |
Run the installer and follow the prompts |
macOS first launch: The app is currently unsigned. On first open, macOS will block it — go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Open Anyway, or run:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/CoWork OS.app"
Windows first launch: Windows SmartScreen may show a warning for unrecognized apps. Click More info > Run anyway to proceed.
Works out of the box — defaults to OpenRouter's free model router, no API key needed.
npm install -g cowork-os
cowork-osWindows npm install notes:
- Run
npm install -g cowork-os/npm uninstall -g cowork-osfrom%USERPROFILE%(or another neutral directory), not from%APPDATA%\npm\node_modules\cowork-os, to avoidEBUSYlock errors.- On Windows ARM64, first launch may take longer while native modules are rebuilt; this can run multiple fallback steps before the app opens.
- If native rebuild fails, install Visual Studio Build Tools 2022 (C++) and Python 3, then retry.
- If startup logs show
ERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND ... dist/renderer/index.html, reinstall the latest package and check Troubleshooting.
git clone https://github.com/CoWork-OS/CoWork-OS.git
cd CoWork-OS
npm install && npm run setup
npm run build && npm run packageWindows prerequisites: Native module setup may require Visual Studio Build Tools 2022 (C++) and Python 3. On Windows ARM64, setup automatically falls back to x64 Electron emulation when ARM64 native prebuilds are unavailable.
npm run setupalso installs local git hooks (.githooks/) including a pre-commit secret scan. If needed, reinstall hooks withnpm run hooks:install.
See the Development Guide for prerequisites and details.
- Create a task — Describe what you want ("organize my Downloads by file type", "create a quarterly report spreadsheet"). No workspace needed — a temp folder is used automatically if you don't select one.
- Choose a mode — Run normally, or toggle Autonomous (auto-approve actions), Collaborative (multi-agent perspectives), or Multi-LLM (compare providers with a judge) per task.
- Monitor execution — Watch the real-time task timeline as the agent plans, executes, and produces artifacts. Parallel tool bursts are grouped into lane summaries, and shell commands run in a live terminal view where you can see output in real-time, stop execution, or provide input (e.g.
y/n) directly. - Respond when needed — Destructive operations require explicit approval (unless Autonomous mode is on), and propose-mode tasks can pause for structured multiple-choice input before continuing.
Task-based execution with dynamic re-planning, four per-task modes (Autonomous, Collaborative, Multi-LLM, Think With Me), agent teams with persistence, agent comparison, git worktree isolation, AI playbook, and performance reviews. Learn more
Autonomous self-improvement runs now use the same runtime with stricter safeguards: they start only after memory services are initialized, require isolated git worktrees by default, skip non-git workspaces when worktree isolation is required, and can notify you when runs start, fail, or open a PR. See Self-Improving Agent Architecture and Troubleshooting.
Completion state and file availability are now explicit:
- High-signal completion toast: finished tasks with outputs show
Task completewith filename/count and actions for Open file, Show in Finder, and View in Files - Right-sidebar focus: if you are viewing the completed task and the panel is collapsed, the Files panel auto-opens and highlights the primary output
- Unseen-output badge: if completion happens in another task/view, the collapsed right-panel toggle shows a numeric badge until you open Files
- Filename-first rows with clear location context: Files rows stay filename-only, with output folder context shown separately (or Workspace root)
- Artifact parity: artifact-only outputs are treated the same as normal file outputs in completion toasts, timeline details, and Files panel
Long-running tasks now have clearer operator handoffs and stronger recovery defaults:
- Structured input cards: propose-mode tasks can pause with 1-3 short multiple-choice prompts, with answers captured inline in the desktop UI or via the Control Plane web dashboard
- Adaptive turn recovery: execute-mode tasks reserve room for a final answer, soft-stop exhausted follow-up windows, and make a bounded recovery attempt before triggering a safety stop
- Context overflow retry: context-capacity failures trigger compaction and retry instead of immediate hard failure when the model context window is exceeded
- Path repair:
/workspace/...aliases and drifted relative paths can be normalized back into the active workspace or pinned task root, with strict-fail policies available when you want hard enforcement - Parallel timeline lanes: read-only tool batches render as grouped timeline rows so the UI stays readable even when searches/fetches run concurrently
Centralized agent orchestration dashboard with a Kanban task board, real-time activity feed, agent heartbeat monitoring, standup reports, and performance reviews. Learn more
The Devices tab turns CoWork OS into a multi-machine control surface. Save and reconnect remote CoWork nodes, inspect device summaries (activity, apps, storage, alerts, resource signals), launch tasks against a selected machine, browse that machine's remote workspaces, and attach files directly from the remote filesystem before dispatching a task. Learn more
Automations are now organized as a first-class operating surface instead of a scattered set of settings pages. The Automations section in Settings groups Task Queue, Self-Improve, Scheduled Tasks, Webhooks, Event Triggers, and Daily Briefing, while the home dashboard surfaces recent automation runs so you can monitor background systems without hunting through tabs. Learn more
CoWork OS can be configured as a founder-operated autonomous company shell: venture workspace kit context, a dedicated Settings > Companies control surface, persistent company-linked operator agents, heartbeat-driven proactive work, strategic planner issue generation, and Mission Control ops monitoring. Create the company in Companies, activate operator twins such as Company Planner and Founder Office Operator, then run and monitor the company loop from Mission Control. Learn more
Role-specific AI twins that proactively handle cognitive overhead. Pick a template (Software Engineer, Engineering Manager, Product Manager, VP, Founder Office Operator, Company Planner, and more), customize it, and activate — the twin runs on a heartbeat, automatically executing tasks like PR triage, status digests, meeting prep, dependency scans, and company-ops follow-up. Built-in templates span engineering, management, product, data, operations, and venture/operator roles, and can now be persistently linked to a company for company-aware operations. Learn more
Agent-driven visual workspace for interactive HTML/CSS/JS content, data visualization, and iterative image annotation. Build Mode adds a phased idea-to-prototype workflow with named checkpoints and revert support. Learn more
Unified AI gateway across 15 channels with security modes, rate limiting, ambient mode, scheduled tasks, and chat commands. Learn more
Built-in cloud infrastructure tools — no external processes or MCP servers needed. The agent can spin up sandboxes, register domains, and make payments natively.
- Cloud Sandboxes (E2B): Create, manage, and execute commands in isolated Linux VMs. Expose ports, read/write files — all from natural language.
- Domain Registration (Namecheap): Search available domains, register, and manage DNS records (A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT).
- Crypto Wallet: Built-in USDC wallet on Base network. Auto-generated, encrypted in OS keychain. Balance displayed in sidebar.
- x402 Payments: Machine-to-machine HTTP payment protocol. Agent can pay for API access automatically with EIP-712 signed USDC transactions (requires approval).
All infrastructure operations that involve spending (domain registration, x402 payments) require explicit user approval. Configure in Settings > Infrastructure. Learn more
Advanced web scraping powered by Scrapling with anti-bot bypass, stealth browsing, and structured data extraction. Three fetcher modes — fast HTTP with TLS fingerprinting, stealth with Cloudflare bypass, and full Playwright browser. Includes batch scraping, persistent sessions, proxy support, and five built-in skills (web scraper, price tracker, site mapper, lead scraper, content monitor). Configure in Settings > Web Scraping. Learn more
- Cloud Storage: Notion, Box, OneDrive, Google Workspace, Dropbox, SharePoint
- Enterprise Connectors: Salesforce, Jira, HubSpot, Zendesk, ServiceNow, Linear, Asana, Okta, Discord, Slack, Resend, Google Workspace, DocuSign, Outreach
- Developer Tools: Claude Code-style
glob/grep/edit_file, Playwright browser automation, MCP client/host/registry
Real-time overview of your active integrations, always visible in the right panel. Shows connected MCP connectors with branded Lucide icons (HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, GitHub, Postgres, and 30+ more) and green status dots, plus enabled skills from active packs. Each section shows 4 items with internal scrolling for more. Auto-refreshes every 30 seconds. Learn more
Dashboard with task metrics, cost/token tracking by model, activity heatmaps (day-of-week and hourly), top skills usage, and per-pack analytics (skill usage grouped by plugin pack) with 7/14/30-day period selection. Access from Settings > Usage Insights. Learn more
12 built-in providers + 20+ compatible/gateway providers. Use cloud APIs or run fully offline with Ollama. Learn more
Unified plugin platform with 17 bundled role-specific packs (Engineering, DevOps, Product, Sales, QA, Finance, and more), each bundling skills, agent roles, connectors, and "Try asking" prompts. Packs can link to Digital Twin personas for proactive background work.
- Search & filter: Real-time sidebar search across pack names, descriptions, categories, and skill names
- Per-skill control: Enable or disable individual skills within a pack without toggling the whole pack
- Persistent toggles: Pack and skill states survive app restarts
- Update detection: Background version checks against the registry with visual indicators
- "Try asking" in chat: Empty chat shows randomized prompt suggestions from active packs
- Plugin Store: In-app marketplace for browsing, installing (Git/URL), and scaffolding custom packs
- Remote Registry: Community pack catalog with search and category filtering
- Admin Policies: Organization-level controls — allow/block/require packs, restrict installations, set agent limits, distribute org-managed packs from a shared directory
- Per-pack analytics: Usage Insights dashboard groups skill usage by parent pack
Access from Settings > Customize. Learn more
CoWork OS ships purpose-built packs and Tier-1 connectors for three operational lanes where governed AI delivery has the clearest ROI:
| Lane | Pack | Connectors |
|---|---|---|
| Support Ops | Customer Support Pack | Zendesk, ServiceNow |
| IT Ops | DevOps Pack | ServiceNow, Jira, Linear |
| Sales Ops | Sales CRM Pack | HubSpot, Salesforce, Outreach |
These are the workflows where approval gates, local data control, and measurable outcome delivery pay off most — and where CoWork OS is a vendor-swap-friendly alternative to point solutions or BPO tooling. Learn more
- 139 built-in skills across developer, productivity, communication, documents, game development, mobile development, financial analysis, infrastructure-as-code, and more
- Custom skills in
~/Library/Application Support/cowork-os/skills/(macOS) or%APPDATA%\cowork-os\skills\(Windows) - 17 bundled plugin packs with 55+ role-specific skills and Digital Twin integration
- Plugin Store — browse, install from Git/URL, or scaffold custom packs
- MCP support — client, host, and registry
Text-to-speech (ElevenLabs, OpenAI, Web Speech API), speech-to-text (Whisper), and outbound phone calls. Learn more
Built-in structured entity and relationship memory backed by SQLite. The agent builds a knowledge graph of your workspace — people, projects, technologies, services, and their relationships — with 9 dedicated tools, FTS5 search, multi-hop graph traversal, auto-extraction from task results, and confidence scoring with decay. Learn more
Persistent memory with privacy protection, FTS5 search, LLM compression, and workspace kit (.cowork/) for durable project context. Import your ChatGPT history to eliminate the cold-start problem — CoWork OS knows you from day one. All imported data is stored locally and encrypted on your machine. Proactive session compaction automatically generates comprehensive structured summaries when context reaches 90% capacity — preserving user messages, decisions, file changes, errors, and pending work so the agent continues seamlessly without losing critical context. Learn more | Context Compaction
Role-specific agent personas and intent-first task startup
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Security Layers │
│ Channel Access Control │ Guardrails & Limits │ Approval Flows │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
↕
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ React UI (Renderer) │
│ Task List │ Timeline │ Approval Dialogs │ Live Canvas │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
↕ IPC
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Agent Daemon (Main Process) │
│ Task Queue │ Agent Executor │ Tool Registry │ Cron Service │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
↕
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Execution Layer │
│ File Ops │ Skills │ Browser │ LLM Providers (30+) │ MCP │
│ Infrastructure (E2B Sandboxes │ Domains │ Wallet │ x402) │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
↕
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ SQLite DB │ Knowledge Graph │ MCP Host │ WebSocket │ Remote Access │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
See Architecture for the full technical deep-dive.
Top security score on ZeroLeaks — outperforming many commercial solutions
View Full Report
- Configurable guardrails: Token budgets, cost limits, iteration caps, dangerous command blocking
- Approval workflows: User consent required for destructive operations
- Sandbox isolation: macOS
sandbox-exec(native), Docker containers, or process-level isolation on Windows - Encrypted storage: OS keychain + AES-256 fallback
- 3200+ tests including 132+ security unit tests and 259+ WebSocket protocol tests
See Security Guide and Security Architecture for details.
| Mode | Platform | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| Desktop App | macOS, Windows | Getting Started |
| Headless / Server | Linux VPS | VPS Guide |
| Self-Hosted | Docker / systemd | Self-Hosting |
| Remote Access | Tailscale / SSH | Remote Access |
Live Canvas for visual, iterative build workflows
Structured spreadsheet outputs generated directly in chat
Enterprise connector setup with OAuth and credential management
Usage Insights dashboard with performance, efficiency, and activity trends
Extensions manager for installed plugin packs and lifecycle controls
Pack-level customization with per-skill toggles and suggested prompts
- VM sandbox using macOS Virtualization.framework
- Network egress controls with proxy
- Linux desktop support
See CHANGELOG.md for the full history of completed features.
| Guide | Description |
|---|---|
| Getting Started | First-time setup and usage |
| Use Case Showcase | Comprehensive guide to what you can build and automate |
| Features | Complete feature reference |
| Platform Updates | Detailed implementation notes for integration setup, skill proposals, and bootstrap lifecycle |
| Channels | Messaging channel setup (15 channels) |
| X Mention Triggers | Configure do: mention-triggered task ingress on desktop and headless |
| Providers | LLM provider configuration |
| Migration Guide | Migration checklist and compatibility notes |
| Development | Build from source, project structure |
| Architecture | Technical architecture deep-dive |
| Security Guide | Security model and best practices |
| Enterprise Connectors | MCP connector development |
| Self-Hosting | Docker and systemd deployment |
| VPS/Linux | Headless server deployment |
| Remote Access | Tailscale, SSH tunnels, WebSocket API |
| Knowledge Graph | Structured entity/relationship memory |
| Context Compaction | Proactive session compaction with structured summaries |
| Mission Control | Agent orchestration dashboard |
| Self-Improving Agent | Architecture and operating model for bounded autonomous improvement campaigns |
| Zero-Human Company Ops | Founder-directed company planning, operators, and Mission Control ops workflows |
| Plugin Packs | Plugin platform, Customize panel, and Plugin Store |
| Best-Fit Workflows | Support Ops, IT Ops, and Sales Ops — where CoWork OS delivers the strongest ROI |
| Admin Policies | Enterprise admin policies and organization pack management |
| Digital Twins | Role-based AI twin personas and cognitive offload |
| Digital Twins Guide | Comprehensive guide with scenarios and expanded job areas |
| Windows npm Smoke Test | Clean Windows install/launch validation checklist for npm releases |
| Troubleshooting | Common issues and fixes |
| Uninstall | Uninstall instructions |
- Stored locally: Task metadata, timeline events, artifacts, workspace config, memories (SQLite)
- Sent to provider: Task prompt and context you choose to include
- Not sent: Your API keys (stored via OS keychain), private memories
Users must comply with their model provider's terms: Anthropic · AWS Bedrock
See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.
MIT License. See LICENSE.
"Cowork" is an Anthropic product name. CoWork OS is an independent open-source project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Anthropic. If requested by the rights holder, we will update naming/branding.