Show HN: Open Bot – an open-source Grok Bot that works with any agent harness

CopilotKit released Open Bot, an open-source agent platform that runs on a user's own machine and lets any AG-UI agent operate a real browser, files, and tools through a governance gateway that decides and records every action. The alpha release includes Docker Compose setup, PostgreSQL storage, and three configurable coworkers (General Assistant, Knowledge, Risk Analyst), with support for agents built on LangGraph, Mastra, CrewAI, Pydantic AI, Google ADK, or hand-written. Open Bot requires a CopilotKit Intelligence license and a model key, and is available at copilotkit.ai/openbot.

AI coworkers you can hand real work to, and actually trust with the access. Each gets a computer of its own: a real browser with its own logins, its own files, and only the tools you grant. Every action decided before it happens and recorded after. copilotkit.ai/openbot https://copilotkit.ai/openbot · · quick-start Quick start · features Features · bring-your-own-agent Bring your own agent · architecture Architecture Docs demo-openbot.mp4 Bring any AG-UI agent, written on a framework or by hand, and it arrives as a coworker with a channel of its own. Watch it work on its own screen, take the wheel when it reaches something it should not do alone, then hand it back. It answers with components rather than only prose, and the whole thing runs on your own machine. Alpha, and under active development.OpenBot is early. Expect rough edges and bugs, and expect things to move. Issues and pull requests are welcome. Runs on your machine.Everything below is written for a laptop. Out of the box OpenBot runs with OPENBOT DEV NO AUTH , which skips signing in and admits every request as one administrator. Google sign-in can be wired up instead. An agent platform that runs inside your own infrastructure. Docker Compose brings up every part of it, the data sits in your PostgreSQL, and the model is yours to choose: no model ships in the box, and an administrator supplies the credential, which is encrypted at rest and never logged. Three coworkers ship in the example package, and they are configuration rather than code: General Assistant for everyday work, Knowledge for company questions, Risk Analyst for risk and compliance. Add your own by editing agents.yaml or from /agents in the UI. Anything a Bot does to a computer, a file, an MCP server or a component goes through one gateway that decides and records it. That is the difference between an agent that can use your tools and an agent you can let near them. More at copilotkit.ai/openbot https://copilotkit.ai/openbot . A Bot is any endpoint speaking AG-UI https://github.com/ag-ui-protocol/ag-ui , the open protocol for agent-to-user interaction, so OpenBot is not tied to a framework and neither are you. Agents built with LangGraph, Mastra, CrewAI, Pydantic AI, Google ADK or written by hand all arrive the same way, and the governance rides the protocol rather than the framework. - Docker, for PostgreSQL, browser computers, the supervisor, and the shipped Bots. Bun https://bun.sh 1.3+, for the app and API server.- A CopilotKit Intelligence project and license. - A model key. The proof-of-concept Bot uses OpenAI; the LangGraph Bot can use OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google. - Create .env : cp .env.example .env - Get CopilotKit Intelligence credentials: npx --yes copilotkit@latest login npx --yes copilotkit@latest project select npx --yes copilotkit@latest license --write Put the cpk-... runtime key from project select in .env as INTELLIGENCE API KEY . license --write writes COPILOTKIT LICENSE TOKEN into the existing .env . - Fill the remaining required values: OPENAI API KEY Keep the managed Intelligence URLs from .env.example unless you run Intelligence yourself. The example KEY ENCRYPTION KEY is public and fine locally; generate your own with: openssl rand -base64 32 - Install and run: bun install bash scripts/start.sh - Open http://localhost:3010 http://localhost:3010 . scripts/start.sh starts Docker services, applies migrations, starts the API server on port 3001, starts the app on port 3010, and checks that the services answer their own health routes before printing next steps. - Open /bot and ask: Open news.ycombinator.com and tell me the top story. - Ask the Bot to fill out https://httpbin.org/forms/post https://httpbin.org/forms/post , then inspect /admin/audit . - Open /admin/boundaries , add a deny rule or preset, and retry the same browser action. - Create a coworker from /agents , give it a standing role, and start a channel with it. | Route | Purpose | |---|---| / | Start and browse channels. | /agents | Create, edit, duplicate, hide, delete, and launch coworkers. | /channel/:id | Converse with one coworker and view its live screen/profile panel. | /bot | Direct chat with a Bot; ?agent=<id selects one. | /skills | Create and enable personal skills. | /settings | User preferences. | /admin/connectors | Configure deployment knowledge sources. | /admin/credentials | Store write-only encrypted credentials. | /admin/computers | View, stop, and reset Bot computers. | /admin/boundaries | Configure browser/file/MCP action policy. | /admin/components | Publish components and govern which Bots may use them. | /admin/playground | Draft and publish sandboxed components in the browser. | /admin/plugins | Configure MCP servers, MCP grants, and deployment skills. | /admin/audit | Review permitted, refused, and failed actions. | A computer per Bot : the supervisor gives each Bot its own container, its own /workspace volume and its own browser profile. Set COMPUTER RUNTIME=runsc to run them under gVisor where the host supports it. The gateway is the only way in : it resolves the target from a server-held snapshot, evaluates the policy, writes the audit row, and only then calls the computer. There is no path that acts without the record existing first. CEL policy, fail closed : rules can inspect tool.name , intent , bot.id , actor.id , page.url , page.host , element. , key , file. and mcp. . Deny is evaluated before allow, a missing policy permits nothing, and a broken rule refuses rather than opens. Take the wheel : a Bot that hits a login wall or a 2FA prompt asks for help. Control is handed over in the same panel and recorded as computer.help requested , computer.control taken and computer.control released . While a person is driving, Bot actions are refused rather than queued. Secrets never enter the transcript : the trail records that a secret was requested and how long it was, not what it said. Bring your own agent : any AG-UI endpoint is a Bot, on a framework or hand written. Endpoints are validated with the same target checks used for browser navigation, and an auth header is stored write-only. Components instead of prose : compiled React components live in app/src/components/gallery/ , sandboxed ones are authored in /admin/playground and published with no deployment. Every call asks the server whether the component exists, is published, and is not withheld from that Bot. Data functions are granted per component. Governed MCP : a curated catalogue ships for Atlassian, Box, Slack, Salesforce and ServiceNow. Custom servers must pass URL checks, and any tool not positively classified as a read is treated as a write. Skills are instructions, not capabilities : personal skills attach only to Bots their author owns, deployment skills are admin-owned, and both are invoked with / in the composer. An audit trail you can read : /admin/audit lists what was permitted, what was refused and what failed, and every refusal carries the rule that caused it. Credentials encrypted at rest : stored through /admin/credentials , never returned by an API, and redacted from audit events. Loopback by default : computers bind to 127.0.0.1 and require a per-container token, so nothing reaches a logged-in browser by knowing its port. Durable threads and memory : conversations survive restarts through CopilotKit Intelligence, and each deployment stamps the threads it owns. Any AG-UI endpoint can be a Bot. From /agents , create a coworker with: - name, title, and role description; - private or public visibility; - optional AG-UI endpoint; - optional write-only authorization header. The server validates agent endpoints with the same target checks used for browser navigation. If no custom endpoint is set, product-created coworkers use MANAGED AGENT AG UI URL . Tenant package agents are declared in agents.yaml as either: built-in , with a system prompt; or remote-ag-ui , with an endpoint. See docs/configuration.md /CopilotKit/openbot/blob/main/docs/configuration.md and docs/coworkers.md /CopilotKit/openbot/blob/main/docs/coworkers.md . .env.example is the source template. The API server refuses to start without: DATABASE URL KEY ENCRYPTION KEY MANAGED AGENT AG UI URL INTELLIGENCE API URL INTELLIGENCE GATEWAY WS URL INTELLIGENCE API KEY COPILOTKIT LICENSE TOKEN Settings worth knowing: | Variable | Use | |---|---| OPENBOT DEV NO AUTH | Admits every request as one administrator. How OpenBot runs today. | COMPUTER TOKEN | Secret every Bot computer request must present. start.sh sets one. | SUPERVISOR TOKEN | Secret the supervisor requires. start.sh sets one. | COMPUTER SUPERVISOR URL | Gives each Bot a computer of its own instead of one shared computer. | COMPUTER RUNTIME | Set to runsc to run computers under gVisor, where the host has it. | AGENT COMPUTER POLICY | JSON action policy. Malformed JSON stops server startup. | AGENT COMPUTER ALLOW PRIVATE HOSTS | Lets a Bot reach this machine's own services. | TENANT PACKAGE DIR | Directory containing tenant YAML. Defaults to ../examples/fintech . | DEPLOYMENT ID | Names this deployment when two share one Intelligence project. | Full reference: docs/configuration.md /CopilotKit/openbot/blob/main/docs/configuration.md . | Service | Port | Purpose | |---|---|---| app | 3010 | React/Vite UI. | server | 3001 | Hono API, CopilotKit runtime, auth, policy, audit, plugins, components, coworkers, and channels. | agent-computer | 4100 | Chromium plus /workspace and browser profile. | agent-bot | 4200 | Proof-of-concept AG-UI Bot. | agent-langgraph | 4201 | LangGraph AG-UI Bot. | supervisor | 4500 host / 4300 container | Creates and manages one computer per Bot. | | PostgreSQL with pgvector | 5432 | Product data, policy, audit, credentials, grants, channels, knowledge, and component metadata. | | CopilotKit Intelligence | external | Durable threads and memory. | The server gateway is the product/API path for Bot browser and file tool calls. It resolves the target, evaluates policy, writes an audit row, and then calls agent-computer . The computer also exposes lower-level token-protected service endpoints; keep them private and do not use them to bypass the gateway. More detail: docs/architecture.md /CopilotKit/openbot/blob/main/docs/architecture.md . OPENBOT DEV NO AUTH is the default because it needs no OAuth credentials and no consent screen. To sign in for real instead, create a Google OAuth client and set all four of these together: BETTER AUTH URL=http://localhost:3001 BETTER AUTH SECRET= openssl rand -base64 32, at least 32 characters GOOGLE OAUTH CLIENT ID= GOOGLE OAUTH CLIENT SECRET= Then set the two that decide who gets in and from where: TRUSTED ORIGINS — where the app is served from, http://localhost:3010 locally. It defaults to http://localhost:3000 , which is not where start.sh serves the app. INITIAL ADMIN EMAILS — comma separated. An address listed here becomes an administrator the first time it signs in; everybody else becomes a user. Remove OPENBOT DEV NO AUTH , then restart: the sign-in button is written into the app's generated config at startup, so it appears only once all four settings are present. Accounts, sessions and roles are stored in the same PostgreSQL database as everything else. A partial set is refused rather than ignored: the server will not start with BETTER AUTH SECRET or BETTER AUTH URL but no client credentials, or with a secret shorter than 32 characters. agent-computer drives a browser holding real logins. docker-compose.yml binds it to loopback; leave it there.- Store credentials through /admin/credentials , which encrypts them. Do not put credential values in tenant YAML or in committed files. AGENT COMPUTER ALLOW PRIVATE HOSTS lets a Bot reach services on this machine. Unset it if you would rather it could not. bun run format:check bun run lint bun run typecheck bun run test bun run build After changing the Drizzle schema: bun run --filter server db:generate bun run --filter server db:migrate Use bash scripts/start.sh for the whole stack. Use bun run dev only when you want the app and server without the Docker Bots and computers. copilotkit.ai/openbot https://copilotkit.ai/openbot docs/README.md /CopilotKit/openbot/blob/main/docs/README.md docs/architecture.md /CopilotKit/openbot/blob/main/docs/architecture.md docs/configuration.md /CopilotKit/openbot/blob/main/docs/configuration.md docs/development.md /CopilotKit/openbot/blob/main/docs/development.md docs/coworkers.md /CopilotKit/openbot/blob/main/docs/coworkers.md - Open an issue or coordinate before starting substantial work. - Keep changes focused and update docs when setup, configuration, architecture, or user behavior changes. - Keep secrets, service-account JSON, customer data, and local transcripts out of the repository. - Run the checks in Development development before opening a pull request. MIT /CopilotKit/openbot/blob/main/LICENSE © CopilotKit