OpenWorker

A Desktop App for everyday work.
A Harness SDK to power your AI ideas.

openworker.com · Desktop App · Harness SDK · Issues

Use the OpenWorker Desktop App to research, write, review code, and carry out tasks across the tools you already use. Or build your own agentic desktop and web apps with the OpenWorker Harness SDK.

Bring your choice of cloud or local models. Set permissions for your agents and decide which actions need your approval.

This README mainly covers the OpenWorker Desktop App. For SDK setup, examples and architecture, see the OpenWorker Harness SDK README.

Use the OpenWorker Desktop App

An AI coworker for your everyday work. Go from a request to a prepared brief, an organized folder, or a reviewed pull request.

It runs on your machine. Bring your own model key or run locally with Ollama, and choose which integrations it can access. Commands can run inside an NVIDIA OpenShell sandbox. See Governed by design for its approval and safety controls.

⬇ macOS (Apple Silicon) _{macOS 12+ · signed & notarized · auto-updates}

⬇ Windows 10/11 (x64) _{builds are not yet code-signed, so SmartScreen will warn; signing is in progress}

Open the app, add a model key (or point it at Ollama), and ask for something real.

The OpenWorker Desktop App is in open beta and supports automatic updates. Issues welcome as we polish rough edges.

Build agentic apps using OpenWorker Harness SDK

Bring agentic capabilities to your own desktop app, web app or local utility. Build the product experience while OpenWorker handles the agent loop, tool calls, approvals, streaming and durable sessions.

Use the TypeScript SDK from npm, or embed the Rust engine in your application. Start with one agent. Add sub-agents, teams, OpenShell sandboxing and observability as your application grows.

npm install @openworkerai/harness-sdk

Explore the Harness SDK → · Desktop guide · Web guide · Build with Codex or Claude Code

The rest of this README focuses on the OpenWorker Desktop App. For SDK documentation, continue with the Harness SDK README.

What you can do with the Desktop App

Specialist coworkers come with tools and instructions for a particular job. Security coworkers ship first.

Try your first task

Start with a folder of meeting notes. No connected apps are needed for this example.

1. Choose a model. Open Settings → Models & Keys and connect a provider or local model.
2. Choose your working folder. Give the session access to a folder containing a few text or Markdown notes.
3. Ask for a brief. Paste the request below, follow the tool activity, and review any approval requests before continuing.

Read the meeting notes in this folder. Create a one-page brief with the key decisions, open questions and next steps. Save it as brief.md. Leave the original notes unchanged and ask before writing the brief.

Open brief.md in the working folder and review it. Continue in the same session: “Make the next steps more specific, and flag anything without an owner.”

Governed by design

The Desktop App combines approvals, recorded tool activity and optional sandboxing. You can review proposed actions and decide how much autonomy to allow.

Bring your own model

Connect OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, OpenRouter and other providers, or use a local model through Ollama, LM Studio, llama.cpp or vLLM. Choose and switch models in Settings → Models & Keys.

See Desktop App model setup for provider options, account connections and custom endpoints. SDK developers can use the separate models and credentials guide.

Desktop App privacy

The OpenWorker Desktop App is local-first. Everything lives on your machine: the agent loop, your conversations, connector tokens, and model keys - all in the app's local secret store. The only cloud piece is a small service that brokers OAuth handshakes for connectors. You can always use the App without signing-in - use the connectors via manually-created credentials/API-keys.

Documentation

Run the Desktop App from source

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│              OpenWorker Desktop App            │  native shell + GUI
├────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│           local agent server (Python)          │  engine · tools · connectors - built on aisuite
├───────────────┬────────────────┬───────────────┤
│  your files   │   your tools   │  your model   │  everything runs with your keys,
│  & terminal   │ 25+ connectors │  any provider │  on your machine
└───────────────┴────────────────┴───────────────┘

git clone https://github.com/andrewyng/openworker
cd openworker

# 1. One-time bootstrap - creates the Python venv at .venv
#    (on Windows, run from Git Bash or WSL)
bash packaging/setup_dev_env.sh

# 2. Start the local agent server
.venv/bin/python -m coworker.server.run --cwd ~/some/project --port 8765
#    (Windows: .venv\Scripts\python -m coworker.server.run ...)

# 3. In a second terminal, start the UI
cd surfaces/gui
npm install
npm run dev        # browser UI on the Vite dev port

Repository layout

Built on aisuite

The OpenWorker Desktop App's engine is built on aisuite, a lightweight Python library providing a unified chat-completions API across LLM providers and an agents layer with tools, toolkits, and MCP support. If you want to build your own agent harness rather than use ours, start there; this repo is a working reference for what aisuite can carry.

OpenWorker was originally developed inside the aisuite repository before moving to its own home here; thanks to the aisuite contributors whose work it builds on.

Contributing

Contributions and bug reports are welcome - open an issue or a pull request. The app updates itself, so fixes reach installs quickly. For any PR, please attach screenshots of what was broken and how it is fixed now. We will shortly add features that you can contribute to. Please note that we are actively developing based off a internal list and goal, so we may not approve PRs that add features that are already under-development or deviates from our vision.

License

MIT - see LICENSE.