OpenBot

AI teammates you can give real work to, for free.
Bots that use their own computer, learn your workflows, work in parallel, and come back with finished work.
Plus a video brain that transcribes, understands and searches every video you own.

 

Quick start · Features · Screenshots · Demo video · How it works · Contributing

_{▶ A real, unedited capture of the desktop app running on a laptop with a local model. Watch the MP4}

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✨ Why OpenBot?

Always-on AI teammates arrived in 2026, but they sit behind expensive plans. OpenBot gives you the same idea for $0, on your own machine, with your own data.

	OpenBot	Grok Bot (xAI)	dots (OpenAI)	muse.ai
Price	Free, MIT	SuperGrok Heavy / Cursor Ultra	ChatGPT Pro / Business Premium	Paid plans
Runs fully local & private	✅	❌	❌	❌
Bots with their own computer	✅ sandboxed workspace	✅	✅	—
Group chats where bots hand off work	✅	✅	—	—
Learn a workflow once, repeat it (skills)	✅	✅	✅	—
Scheduled routines & proactive mode	✅	✅	✅	—
Allow / Ask / Block rules + approvals	✅	✅	✅	—
AI video search (speech + visuals)	✅	—	—	✅
Transcripts, chapters, clips, embeds	✅	—	—	✅
Bring any model (Ollama, Groq, Gemini…)	✅	❌	❌	—

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🚀 Quick start

Option A: download the app. Grab OpenBot-…-mac-arm64.zip from the latest release, unzip it, move it to Applications, then right-click → Open (the app is unsigned). You'll still need ffmpeg and a free model: brew install ffmpeg ollama && ollama pull qwen3:8b.

Option B: run from source (macOS, Linux or Windows):

# 1. Install the free tools (macOS shown; Linux/Windows work too)
brew install node ffmpeg ollama
ollama pull qwen3:8b            # any tool-capable model works

# 2. Get OpenBot
git clone https://github.com/satiricalguru/OpenBot.git
cd OpenBot && npm install

# 3. Launch the desktop app
npm run app

Tip

Prefer the browser? Run npm start and open http://localhost:4321. To build a double-clickable OpenBot.app, run npm run dist; it lands in dist/mac-arm64/.

The first video you add downloads the open Whisper and CLIP models (~250 MB) once. After that everything runs offline.

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🧩 Features

🤖 Bots with personality Create teammates and design how they look: shape, eyes, mouth, accessory, gaze and colors. They're alive, too: they blink and glance around when idle, bob and scan while working, hop with a red badge when they need you, and bounce when they talk.
💻 Their own computer Every bot has a private, sandboxed workspace with a terminal, browser and files. Open the Computer panel to watch what it's doing live, browse the files it made, and read its activity log. On macOS, commands run in a Seatbelt sandbox that can only write inside the bot's workspace.	👥 Crews that collaborate Put several bots in a group chat. Mention @Scout or @all. The lead picks up the work and hands off to teammates (message_agent) or assigns background tasks (assign_task). You only get pulled in for judgment calls.
🛡️ You stay in control For every tool you choose Allow, Ask or Block. "Ask" pauses the bot and shows an approval card: Allow once, Always allow or Deny. Passwords, sudo, the keychain and destructive commands are always blocked.	🧠 Memory, skills & routines Bots remember your preferences, learn skills (walk through a task once, then click Save chat as a skill), and run routines on a schedule ("every weekday at 9, brief me on…"). Proactive mode does read-only research while you're away.
🎬 A video brain Upload videos or audio and OpenBot will: Transcribe speech locally with Whisper (editable, with VTT/SRT export) See every scene with CLIP, so you can search "whiteboard" or "red car" Write summaries, tags and chapters Answer questions with clickable timestamps Make clips, share links and an embeddable player, with private analytics	🎙️ And more Voice calls with any bot, using free in-browser speech Dark mode by default, with Light and System themes Menu-bar app: close the window and your bots keep working Search everything with ⌘K, create a new bot with ⌘N No build step: plain ES modules and SQLite (node:sqlite)

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📸 Screenshots

Chat with a bot and watch its computer

Crew chat, dark and light

Search inside videos by what's said and what's seen

More screenshots

Overview	Bot studio
Video bot answering with timestamps	Light mode
Video library

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🆓 Free model options

Pick one in Settings → Brain. You can switch any time, or give each bot its own model.

Provider	Cost	Good for
Ollama (default)	Free, local	Private, offline. Try qwen3:8b, llama3.1, gemma4, gpt-oss
LM Studio	Free, local	Any OpenAI-compatible local server
Groq	Free tier	Very fast Llama models
OpenRouter	:free models	Lots of open models
Google Gemini	Free tier	OpenAI-compatible endpoint

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🔧 How it works

flowchart LR
  subgraph App["🖥️ OpenBot desktop app (Electron)"]
    UI["Messenger UI<br/>animated bots · Computer panel"]
  end
  UI <-- "REST + live events (SSE)" --> S["Local server<br/>Node + SQLite"]
  S --> R["Agent runtime<br/>tools · rules · approvals"]
  R --> T1["🌐 Web search & browse"]
  R --> T2["⌨️ Sandboxed terminal & files"]
  R --> T3["🧠 Memory · skills · routines"]
  R --> T4["🤝 Handoffs & background tasks"]
  R --> L["🦙 Free LLM<br/>Ollama · Groq · Gemini"]
  S --> V["Video pipeline<br/>ffmpeg"]
  V --> W["🗣️ Whisper<br/>speech → text"]
  V --> C["👁️ CLIP<br/>frames → vectors"]
  V --> E["🔎 MiniLM<br/>semantic search"]

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Project structure

electron/          desktop shell: window, menu-bar icon, theme sync
server/
  agents/          agent loop (runtime.js), tools + rules (tools.js), scheduler
  video/           ffmpeg pipeline, Whisper/CLIP/MiniLM models, search & Q&A
  llm.js           Ollama + OpenAI-compatible providers
  index.js         REST API + live events
public/
  js/bot.js        procedural animated bot characters
  js/chat.js       messenger-style chat view
  js/icons.js      icon set
  app.css          design system (dark default + light)
scripts/
  capture.cjs      regenerates README screenshots/GIFs/video
docs/assets/       README media

Configuration

Env var	Default
PORT	4321	Server port
OPENBOT_HOST	127.0.0.1	Set 0.0.0.0 to share on your network (add auth first!)
OPENBOT_DATA	./data (dev) · ~/Library/Application Support/OpenBot/data (app)	Database, videos, workspaces, models

Agent tools

Tool	Default rule	What it does
web_search, browse	Allow	Search DuckDuckGo, read pages
read_file, list_files, write_file	Allow	Work inside the bot's own workspace
run_command	Ask	Shell, sandboxed to the workspace
http_request	Ask	Call APIs and webhooks
delete_file, schedule_routine	Ask	Side effects need your OK
remember, recall, save_skill	Allow	Long-term memory and skills
search_videos, ask_video, list_videos	Allow	Use the video library
message_agent, assign_task	Allow	Collaborate with teammates
notify_user	Allow	Ping you when done

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🔒 Privacy & safety

• Everything (chats, files, videos, embeddings) stays in a local SQLite database and folder.
• The server listens on 127.0.0.1 only, with no telemetry and no accounts.
• Risky actions default to Ask. See SECURITY.md.

Warning

OpenBot has no login. Don't expose it to the internet without putting authentication in front of it (for example Cloudflare Access or Tailscale).

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🗺️ Roadmap

• Real browser control for bots (Playwright) with a live screen view
• Slack / Telegram bridges so you can text your bots
• Windows & Linux installers
• Signed macOS build
• Multi-user mode with auth

Ideas and PRs are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

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If OpenBot is useful to you, a ⭐ helps others find it.

_{MIT licensed · Built with Node, Electron, SQLite, ffmpeg, transformers.js, Whisper, CLIP and your favorite open model.
OpenBot is an independent project and is not affiliated with xAI, OpenAI or muse.ai.}