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OpenWork

OpenWork helps you run your agents, skills, and MCP. It's an open-source alternative to Claude Cowork/Codex (desktop app).

Core Philosophy

• Local-first, cloud-ready: OpenWork runs on your machine in one click. Send a message instantly.
• Composable: desktop app, WhatsApp/Slack/Telegram connector, or server. Use what fits, no lock-in.
• Ejectable: OpenWork is powered by OpenCode, so everything OpenCode can do works in OpenWork, even without a UI yet.
• Sharing is caring: start solo, then share. One CLI or desktop command spins up an instantly shareable instance.

OpenWork is designed around the idea that you can easily ship your agentic workflows as a repeatable, productized process.

Alternate UIs

• OpenWork Orchestrator (CLI host): run OpenCode + OpenWork server without the desktop UI.
  • install: npm install -g openwork-orchestrator
  • run: openwork start --workspace /path/to/workspace --approval auto
  • docs: packages/orchestrator/README.md

Quick start

Download the correct version in here, in the latest releases or install from source below.

Why

Current CLI and GUIs for opencode are anchored around developers. That means a focus on file diffs, tool names, and hard to extend capabilities without relying on exposing some form of cli.

OpenWork is designed to be:

• Extensible: skill and opencode plugins are installable modules.
• Auditable: show what happened, when, and why.
• Permissioned: access to privileged flows.
• Local/Remote: OpenWork works locally as well as can connect to remote servers.

What’s Included

• Host mode: runs opencode locally on your computer
• Client mode: connect to an existing OpenCode server by URL.
• Sessions: create/select sessions and send prompts.
• Live streaming: SSE /event subscription for realtime updates.
• Execution plan: render OpenCode todos as a timeline.
• Permissions: surface permission requests and reply (allow once / always / deny).
• Templates: save and re-run common workflows (stored locally).
• Skills manager:
  • list installed .opencode/skills folders
  • install from OpenPackage (opkg install ...)
  • import a local skill folder into .opencode/skills/<skill-name>

Skill Manager

Works on local computer or servers

Quick Start

Requirements

• Node.js + pnpm
• Rust toolchain (for Tauri): install via curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
• Tauri CLI: cargo install tauri-cli
• OpenCode CLI installed and available on PATH: opencode

Local Dev Prerequisites (Desktop)

Before running pnpm dev, ensure these are installed and active in your shell:

• Node + pnpm (repo uses pnpm@10.27.0)
• Bun 1.3.9+ (bun --version)
• Rust toolchain (for Tauri), with Cargo from current rustup stable (supports Cargo.lock v4)
• Xcode Command Line Tools (macOS)
• On Linux, WebKitGTK 4.1 development packages so pkg-config can resolve webkit2gtk-4.1 and javascriptcoregtk-4.1

One-minute sanity check

Run from repo root:

git checkout dev
git pull --ff-only origin dev
pnpm install --frozen-lockfile

which bun
bun --version
pnpm --filter @different-ai/openwork exec tauri --version

Install

pnpm install

OpenWork now lives in packages/app (UI) and packages/desktop (desktop shell).

Run (Desktop)

pnpm dev

pnpm dev now enables OPENWORK_DEV_MODE=1 automatically, so desktop dev uses an isolated OpenCode state instead of your personal global config/auth/data.

Run (Web UI only)

pnpm dev:ui

All repo dev entrypoints now opt into the same dev-mode isolation so local testing uses the OpenWork-managed OpenCode state consistently.

Arch Users:

sudo pacman -S --needed webkit2gtk-4.1
yay -s opencode # Releases version

Architecture (high-level)

• In Host mode, OpenWork runs a local host stack and connects the UI to it.
  • Default runtime: openwork (installed from openwork-orchestrator), which orchestrates opencode, openwork-server, and optionally opencode-router.
  • Fallback runtime: direct, where the desktop app spawns opencode serve --hostname 127.0.0.1 --port <free-port> directly.

When you select a project folder, OpenWork runs the host stack locally using that folder and connects the desktop UI. This lets you run agentic workflows, send prompts, and see progress entirely on your machine without a remote server.

• The UI uses @opencode-ai/sdk/v2/client to:
  • connect to the server
  • list/create sessions
  • send prompts
  • subscribe to SSE events(Server-Sent Events are used to stream real-time updates from the server to the UI.)
  • read todos and permission requests

Folder Picker

The folder picker uses the Tauri dialog plugin. Capability permissions are defined in:

• packages/desktop/src-tauri/capabilities/default.json

OpenPackage Notes

If opkg is not installed globally, OpenWork falls back to:

pnpm dlx opkg install <package>

OpenCode Plugins

Plugins are the native way to extend OpenCode. OpenWork now manages them from the Skills tab by reading and writing opencode.json.

• Project scope: <workspace>/opencode.json
• Global scope: ~/.config/opencode/opencode.json (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/opencode/opencode.json)

You can still edit opencode.json manually; OpenWork uses the same format as the OpenCode CLI:

{
  "$schema": "https://opencode.ai/config.json",
  "plugin": ["opencode-wakatime"]
}

Useful Commands

pnpm dev
pnpm dev:ui
pnpm typecheck
pnpm build
pnpm build:ui
pnpm test:e2e

Troubleshooting

Linux / Wayland (Hyprland)

If OpenWork crashes on launch with WebKitGTK errors like Failed to create GBM buffer, disable dmabuf or compositing before launch. Try one of the following environment flags.

WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER=1 openwork

WEBKIT_DISABLE_COMPOSITING_MODE=1 openwork

Security Notes

• OpenWork hides model reasoning and sensitive tool metadata by default.
• Host mode binds to 127.0.0.1 by default.

Contributing

• Review AGENTS.md plus VISION.md, PRINCIPLES.md, PRODUCT.md, and ARCHITECTURE.md to understand the product goals before making changes.
• Ensure Node.js, pnpm, the Rust toolchain, and opencode are installed before working inside the repo.
• Run pnpm install once per checkout, then verify your change with pnpm typecheck plus pnpm test:e2e (or the targeted subset of scripts) before opening a PR.
• Use .github/pull_request_template.md when opening PRs and include exact commands, outcomes, manual verification steps, and evidence.
• If CI fails, classify failures in the PR body as either code-related regressions or external/environment/auth blockers.
• Add new PRDs to packages/app/pr/<name>.md following the .opencode/skills/prd-conventions/SKILL.md conventions described in AGENTS.md.

Community docs:

• CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
• SECURITY.md
• SUPPORT.md
• TRIAGE.md

First contribution checklist:

• Run pnpm install and baseline verification commands.
• Confirm your change has a clear issue link and scope.
• Add/update tests for behavioral changes.
• Include commands run and outcomes in your PR.
• Add screenshots/video for user-facing flow changes.

For Teams & Businesses

Interested in using OpenWork in your organization? We'd love to hear from you — reach out at ben@openworklabs.com to chat about your use case.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.