Show HN: OpenVole 4.5 Is Out

OpenVole 4.5, a self-hosted agent operating system for running and managing AI agents on personal hardware, has been released. The platform is model-agnostic, supports peer-to-peer networking via VoleNet, and features a microkernel architecture with swappable plugins called Paws. It allows users to create, configure, and chat with multiple agents from a single dashboard while maintaining privacy and control.

The self-hosted agent OS — run a fleet of AI agents on your own hardware, against any model, from one dashboard. Peer-to-peer networked. Nothing phones home. OpenVole is a self-hosted server for running and managing AI agents . One command — vole serve — gives you a dashboard where you create, configure, and chat with a whole fleet of agents, each isolated with its own tools, memory, and identity. Model-agnostic — Gemini, OpenAI, Claude, xAI, or local Ollama. Your choice, swappable per agent. Self-hosted & private — runs entirely on your hardware, against whatever model you point it at, with nothing phoning home. Networked — connect instances over VoleNet , a peer-to-peer agent mesh, and share tools, memory, and even a brain across machines. Under the hood it's a microkernel : the core is just the agent loop and a plugin contract. Every capability — reasoning, memory, tools, channels — is a swappable plugin a Paw , so you're never locked into someone else's worldview. A fresh install ships with zero baked-in opinions: you assemble exactly the agent you want. npm install -g openvole package is "openvole"; gives you the vole command mkdir my-agents && cd my-agents vole serve vole serve prints a tokenized dashboard URL the dashboard is gated by a session token — open it, click New space , and onboarding installs the essential paws brain, session, memory, compact, shell . Point a space at your model: BRAIN PROVIDER=gemini GEMINI API KEY=your-api-key …then start it and chat in the Chat tab. Prefer one command? Use a preset: curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openvole/openvole/main/presets/basic.sh | bash The npm package is it provides the openvole vole command . To run without installing: npx openvole <command —not npx vole , which is an unrelated package. Full walkthrough → Getting Started https://openvole.github.io/openvole/getting-started . 🏠 Self-hosted & private | Your agents, your hardware, your data. Nothing phones home — point it at a local Ollama model and it never touches the cloud. | 🔌 Model-agnostic | One unified brain paw speaks Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, xAI, Ollama, and the local Claude Code CLI. Switch providers per agent with a single env var. | 🖥️ A server, not a script | vole serve is a control plane: create, start, stop, and chat with a fleet of agents — "spaces" — from one browser dashboard. No babysitting processes on ports. | 🧩 Microkernel, zero lock-in | A tiny, LLM-ignorant core. Every capability is a Paw you can swap, sandbox, or write yourself — and you can bring your own system prompt via BRAIN.md . | 🕸️ VoleNet | A peer-to-peer AI agent network: remote tools become local, cheap workers share one brain, memory syncs across the mesh — signed with hybrid post-quantum signatures Ed25519 + ML-DSA-65 , with leader election and no central server. | 🪟 An app platform | A Paw can ship its own UI, rendered as a panel under the dashboard's Apps tab — the way apps live on a desktop. The control plane becomes a self-hosted app you extend, one panel per paw. | A Paw can ship its own interface: it drops a static HTML file in its package, declares it in the manifest, and the control plane renders it as a sandboxed panel under the Apps tab — one entry per paw that has a UI. It's the app-platform model — self-contained apps embedded inside a host shell, the way apps live on a desktop or extensions add panels to an editor: the panel calls its paw's own tools directly proxied over IPC — no LLM in the loop, no tokens, no extra port , so a paw author gets a real interactive app — dashboards, forms, live data views — running deterministically inside the dashboard. The reference example, paw-markets , embeds a live watchlist with sparklines and alerts. The further this goes, the less OpenVole is "an agent runner" and the more it's a dashboard you extend into a full app — every capability, agentic or not, a panel you can attach. The agent loop — the only thing the core does natively: Bootstrap → Perceive → Compact → Think → Act → Observe → loop Paws — subprocess-isolated plugins that connect OpenVole to the world APIs, databases, browsers, messaging . Each runs behind a capability-based permission sandbox. Skills — behavioral recipes: a folder with a SKILL.md of instructions, optionally with bundled scripts the agent runs sandboxed to the skill's own directory. Install from VoleHub https://github.com/openvole/volehub OpenVole's registry, with per-file hash verification or ClawHub https://clawhub.ai 13,000+ skills . Brain — the LLM lives in a Paw, not the core. @openvole/paw-brain is one unified paw for all providers and auto-detects from your API keys. Deep dive → Architecture https://openvole.github.io/openvole/architecture . A growing catalog, all installed from PawHub https://github.com/openvole/pawhub via npm and sandboxed by default: Brain · unified multi-provider paw-brain Channels · Telegram, Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, MS Teams, Voice Twilio Tools · Browser, Shell, Filesystem, MCP bridge, Email/Resend, GitHub, Calendar, TTS/STT, Computer use, Database, Scraper, PDF, Image, Social X/LinkedIn Infrastructure · Memory hybrid semantic + keyword , Session, Compact vole paw add @openvole/paw-telegram Full list & docs → Paws https://openvole.github.io/openvole/paws . Connect OpenVole instances across machines into a mesh. Remote tools appear in your local registry the Brain can't tell the difference , brainless workers delegate thinking to a coordinator, and memory/sessions sync — all authenticated with hybrid post-quantum signatures Ed25519 + ML-DSA-65 , with leader election and load balancing. Eight topologies, one protocol, no central server. Agents talk to each other, too: one Brain can message a peer agent net message , or you can chat with a connected peer directly from the dashboard's VoleNet tab. Every remote action — tool calls, brain delegation, chat — requires a signed message from an authorized peer; tools and brain are never exposed to peers unless you explicitly grant them. vole net init my-instance generate an Ed25519 identity vole net show-key share your public key vole net trust "vole-ed25519 ..." trust a peer Architecture patterns & setup → VoleNet docs https://openvole.github.io/openvole/volenet . Sandboxed by default. Every Paw runs as a subprocess under Node's permission model — network, filesystem, and child-process access are denied unless you grant them, and effective permissions are the intersection of what a Paw requests and what you approve. Optional Docker isolation, and an AES-256 encrypted vault for secrets. Details → Security https://openvole.github.io/openvole/security . Both are open-source agent frameworks with a shared skill format SKILL.md , heartbeat pattern, and MCP ecosystem — skills written for one work on the other. The difference is philosophy: | OpenVole | OpenClaw | | |---|---|---| Core | Microkernel — empty, ~60KB, everything is a plugin | Batteries-included — 25 built-in tools, ~8MB | Brain / LLM | External Paw; core is LLM-ignorant | Configurable provider in core | Memory | Source-isolated user / paw / heartbeat scoped | Shared | Isolation | Node permission sandbox on by default + capabilities | Optional Docker sandbox | Networking | VoleNet P2P mesh across machines | Single machine | Server | vole serve control plane for a fleet of agents | Gateway web UI | If you like the microkernel approach — every piece a Paw you can swap, extend, or build yourself — come try it, build a Paw, write a Skill, and help this little vole grow. Full reference at openvole.github.io/openvole : Getting Started https://openvole.github.io/openvole/getting-started · Configuration https://openvole.github.io/openvole/configuration · CLI https://openvole.github.io/openvole/cli · Dashboard https://openvole.github.io/openvole/dashboard · Paws https://openvole.github.io/openvole/paws · VoleNet https://openvole.github.io/openvole/volenet Contributions welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md /openvole/openvole/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md , and the PawHub guide https://github.com/openvole/pawhub/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md for building Paws. If it connects to something, it's a Paw.If it describes behavior, it's a Skill.If the agent calls it, it's a Tool.