{"slug": "show-hn-gawkbot-open-source-grok-bot-with-local-vms-for-each-bot", "title": "Show HN: Gawkbot – open-source Grok bot with local vms for each bot", "summary": "Gawkbot, an open-source alternative to xAI's Grok bot, lets users run AI bots locally on their own machines with their own API keys, offering per-action approvals and per-bot tool allowlists to minimize security risks. The project, free with no account or cloud dependency, supports Claude Code, Codex, and local models, and was last updated on 1 September 2026.", "body_md": "# gawkbot, the open source Grok Bot. Bots you almost control\n\nopen source bots that (almost) serve you\n\ngawkbots automate your menial work via AI models and build you microapps to manage the outcome, so that you have a false sense of control.\n\nRuns on your machine, with your keys. No account, no cloud, no per-seat pricing.\n\n## They do the boring part.\n\nYou find out afterwards, on a dashboard.\n\nEvery bot runs on your machine as its own worker, with a shell, a browser, and a working directory of its own. It uses the tools you allow it, nothing more, and then it does the thing you have been putting off since March.\n\n- filer Filed forty-one expense reports overnight. Left you a chart to look at.\n- reconciler Matched the invoices against the bank. Two did not agree. Both now do.\n- triager Triaged your inbox before you woke up. Ninety-three down to four.\n- scheduler Booked the six meetings you kept not booking. Invitations are out.\n- chaser Chased everyone who owed you a reply. Got four. Still working on Dave.\n- tidier Renamed nine hundred files to the convention you described once, badly.\n\n## It is already done.\n\nHere is an app about it.\n\nYou talk to one bot at a time. Mention another and yours goes off to consult it rather than dragging it into your conversation. Ask for something menial and it tends to be finished before you have described it properly. Then it builds you a microapp, so there is somewhere to click.\n\n## Trust your bots with less over time.\n\nThis is the part that is not a joke. An agent with your credentials and a browser is a real risk, and the honest posture is to grant it as little as possible for as long as possible. The defaults below are the actual defaults.\n\n- Runs on your machine, with your keys. There is no gawkbot cloud in the path, and no account to create. Point it at a local model and nothing leaves at all.\n- Every send, commit, purchase, and delete is gated behind an approval you have to click. Approval is per action, not a blanket grant, and it does not persist.\n- Each bot works in its own directory with its own tool allowlist, so what a bot can touch is per bot rather than per workspace. Your credentials never leave your machine.\n- Every tool call is written to a local log you can read. If a bot did something, there is a line for it.\n- Permissions shrink by default. A grant you stop using expires rather than accumulating quietly.\n\n## The open source Grok Bot.\n\ngawkbot is an open source Grok Bot: a team of always-on AI bots that runs on your own machine instead of a vendor's cloud. It is free, it uses the coding agent you already pay for (Claude Code, Codex, or a local model), every external action waits for your approval, and it builds you a microapp so you have something to look at.\n\n| GROK BOT (xAI) | GAWKBOT | |\n|---|---|---|\n| Price | Bundled with SuperGrok and Cursor paid plans | Free. No account, no seats, no usage fees |\n| Source | Closed | Public, Sustainable Use License |\n| Runs on | xAI's cloud | Your machine, with your keys |\n| Models | Grok, chosen for you | Claude Code, Codex, Opencode, local models, Hermes, OpenClaw |\n| Approvals | Bots act on your accounts around the clock | Every send, commit, purchase, and delete waits for your click |\n\n[READ THE FULL GAWKBOT VS GROK BOT COMPARISON →](/open-source-grok-bot.html)\n\nLast updated 1 September 2026. If a row is wrong, [file an issue](https://github.com/najmuzzaman-mohammad/gawkbot/issues) and it gets fixed.\n\nFree.\n\nThe work has already started.\n\nSource-available under the Sustainable Use License. Free to run and free to self-host, for your own internal business purposes and for non-commercial use. You can read it, modify it, and distribute your changes. The licence does not let you sell gawkbot itself as a hosted product. There are no seats, no usage fees, and no plan to add them.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-gawkbot-open-source-grok-bot-with-local-vms-for-each-bot", "canonical_source": "https://gawk.bot", "published_at": "2026-09-02 05:10:41+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-02 05:21:45.591952+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-agents", "ai-tools", "ai-products"], "entities": ["Gawkbot", "xAI", "Grok", "Claude Code", "Codex"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-gawkbot-open-source-grok-bot-with-local-vms-for-each-bot", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-gawkbot-open-source-grok-bot-with-local-vms-for-each-bot.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-gawkbot-open-source-grok-bot-with-local-vms-for-each-bot.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-gawkbot-open-source-grok-bot-with-local-vms-for-each-bot.jsonld"}}