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+ Paperclip — runs your business +

+ +

+ Quickstart · + Docs · + GitHub · + Discord +

+ +

+ MIT License + Stars + Discord +

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+ +
+ +## What is Paperclip? + +# Open-source orchestration for zero-human companies + +**If OpenClaw is an _employee_, Paperclip is the _company_** + +Paperclip is a Node.js server and React UI that orchestrates a team of AI agents to run a business. Bring your own agents, assign goals, and track your agents' work and costs from one dashboard. + +It looks like a task manager — but under the hood it has org charts, budgets, governance, goal alignment, and agent coordination. + +**Manage business goals, not pull requests.** + +| | Step | Example | +| ------ | --------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------ | +| **01** | Define the goal | _"Build the #1 AI note-taking app to $1M MRR."_ | +| **02** | Hire the team | CEO, CTO, engineers, designers, marketers — any bot, any provider. | +| **03** | Approve and run | Review strategy. Set budgets. Hit go. Monitor from the dashboard. | + +
+ +> **COMING SOON: Clipmart** — Download and run entire companies with one click. Browse pre-built company templates — full org structures, agent configs, and skills — and import them into your Paperclip instance in seconds. + +
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+ + + + + + + + + + +
Works
with		OpenClaw
OpenClaw		Claude
Claude Code		Codex
Codex		Cursor
Cursor		Bash
Bash		HTTP
HTTP
+ +If it can receive a heartbeat, it's hired. + +
+ +
+ +## Paperclip is right for you if + +- ✅ You want to build **autonomous AI companies** +- ✅ You **coordinate many different agents** (OpenClaw, Codex, Claude, Cursor) toward a common goal +- ✅ You have **20 simultaneous Claude Code terminals** open and lose track of what everyone is doing +- ✅ You want agents running **autonomously 24/7**, but still want to audit work and chime in when needed +- ✅ You want to **monitor costs** and enforce budgets +- ✅ You want a process for managing agents that **feels like using a task manager** +- ✅ You want to manage your autonomous businesses **from your phone** + +
+ +## Features + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
+

🔌 Bring Your Own Agent

+Any agent, any runtime, one org chart. If it can receive a heartbeat, it's hired. +		 +

🎯 Goal Alignment

+Every task traces back to the company mission. Agents know what to do and why. +		 +

💓 Heartbeats

+Agents wake on a schedule, check work, and act. Delegation flows up and down the org chart. +
+

💰 Cost Control

+Monthly budgets per agent. When they hit the limit, they stop. No runaway costs. +		 +

🏢 Multi-Company

+One deployment, many companies. Complete data isolation. One control plane for your portfolio. +		 +

🎫 Ticket System

+Every conversation traced. Every decision explained. Full tool-call tracing and immutable audit log. +
+

🛡️ Governance

+You're the board. Approve hires, override strategy, pause or terminate any agent — at any time. +		 +

📊 Org Chart

+Hierarchies, roles, reporting lines. Your agents have a boss, a title, and a job description. +		 +

📱 Mobile Ready

+Monitor and manage your autonomous businesses from anywhere. +
+ +
+ +## Problems Paperclip solves + +| Without Paperclip | With Paperclip | +| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | +| ❌ You have 20 Claude Code tabs open and can't track which one does what. On reboot you lose everything. | ✅ Tasks are ticket-based, conversations are threaded, sessions persist across reboots. | +| ❌ You manually gather context from several places to remind your bot what you're actually doing. | ✅ Context flows from the task up through the project and company goals — your agent always knows what to do and why. | +| ❌ Folders of agent configs are disorganized and you're re-inventing task management, communication, and coordination between agents. | ✅ Paperclip gives you org charts, ticketing, delegation, and governance out of the box — so you run a company, not a pile of scripts. | +| ❌ Runaway loops waste hundreds of dollars of tokens and max your quota before you even know what happened. | ✅ Cost tracking surfaces token budgets and throttles agents when they're out. Management prioritizes with budgets. | +| ❌ You have recurring jobs (customer support, social, reports) and have to remember to manually kick them off. | ✅ Heartbeats handle regular work on a schedule. Management supervises. | +| ❌ You have an idea, you have to find your repo, fire up Claude Code, keep a tab open, and babysit it. | ✅ Add a task in Paperclip. Your coding agent works on it until it's done. Management reviews their work. | + +
+ +## Why Paperclip is special + +Paperclip handles the hard orchestration details correctly. + +| | | +| --------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | +| **Atomic execution.** | Task checkout and budget enforcement are atomic, so no double-work and no runaway spend. | +| **Persistent agent state.** | Agents resume the same task context across heartbeats instead of restarting from scratch. | +| **Runtime skill injection.** | Agents can learn Paperclip workflows and project context at runtime, without retraining. | +| **Governance with rollback.** | Approval gates are enforced, config changes are revisioned, and bad changes can be rolled back safely. | +| **Goal-aware execution.** | Tasks carry full goal ancestry so agents consistently see the "why," not just a title. | +| **Portable company templates.** | Export/import orgs, agents, and skills with secret scrubbing and collision handling. | +| **True multi-company isolation.** | Every entity is company-scoped, so one deployment can run many companies with separate data and audit trails. | + +
+ +## What Paperclip is not + +| | | +| ---------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | +| **Not a chatbot.** | Agents have jobs, not chat windows. | +| **Not an agent framework.** | We don't tell you how to build agents. We tell you how to run a company made of them. | +| **Not a workflow builder.** | No drag-and-drop pipelines. Paperclip models companies — with org charts, goals, budgets, and governance. | +| **Not a prompt manager.** | Agents bring their own prompts, models, and runtimes. Paperclip manages the organization they work in. | +| **Not a single-agent tool.** | This is for teams. If you have one agent, you probably don't need Paperclip. If you have twenty — you definitely do. | +| **Not a code review tool.** | Paperclip orchestrates work, not pull requests. Bring your own review process. | + +
+ +## Quickstart + +Open source. Self-hosted. No Paperclip account required. + +```bash +npx paperclipai onboard --yes +``` + +Or manually: + +```bash +git clone https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip.git +cd paperclip +pnpm install +pnpm dev +``` + +This starts the API server at `http://localhost:3100`. An embedded PostgreSQL database is created automatically — no setup required. + +> **Requirements:** Node.js 20+, pnpm 9.15+ + +
+ +## FAQ + +**What does a typical setup look like?** +Locally, a single Node.js process manages an embedded Postgres and local file storage. For production, point it at your own Postgres and deploy however you like. Configure projects, agents, and goals — the agents take care of the rest. + +If you're a solo-entreprenuer you can use Tailscale to access Paperclip on the go. Then later you can deploy to e.g. Vercel when you need it. + +**Can I run multiple companies?** +Yes. A single deployment can run an unlimited number of companies with complete data isolation. + +**How is Paperclip different from agents like OpenClaw or Claude Code?** +Paperclip _uses_ those agents. It orchestrates them into a company — with org charts, budgets, goals, governance, and accountability. + +**Why should I use Paperclip instead of just pointing my OpenClaw to Asana or Trello?** +Agent orchestration has subtleties in how you coordinate who has work checked out, how to maintain sessions, monitoring costs, establishing governance - Paperclip does this for you. + +(Bring-your-own-ticket-system is on the Roadmap) + +**Do agents run continuously?** +By default, agents run on scheduled heartbeats and event-based triggers (task assignment, @-mentions). You can also hook in continuous agents like OpenClaw. You bring your agent and Paperclip coordinates. + +
+ +## Development + +```bash +pnpm dev # Full dev (API + UI, watch mode) +pnpm dev:once # Full dev without file watching +pnpm dev:server # Server only +pnpm build # Build all +pnpm typecheck # Type checking +pnpm test:run # Run tests +pnpm db:generate # Generate DB migration +pnpm db:migrate # Apply migrations +``` + +See [doc/DEVELOPING.md](https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip/blob/master/doc/DEVELOPING.md) for the full development guide. + +
+ +## Roadmap + +- ✅ Plugin system (e.g. add a knowledge base, custom tracing, queues, etc) +- ✅ Get OpenClaw / claw-style agent employees +- ✅ companies.sh - import and export entire organizations +- ✅ Easy AGENTS.md configurations +- ✅ Skills Manager +- ✅ Scheduled Routines +- ✅ Better Budgeting +- ⚪ Artifacts & Deployments +- ⚪ CEO Chat +- ⚪ MAXIMIZER MODE +- ⚪ Multiple Human Users +- ⚪ Cloud / Sandbox agents (e.g. Cursor / e2b agents) +- ⚪ Cloud deployments +- ⚪ Desktop App + +
+ +## Community & Plugins + +Find Plugins and more at [awesome-paperclip](https://github.com/gsxdsm/awesome-paperclip) + +## Contributing + +We welcome contributions. See the [contributing guide](https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md) for details. + +
+ +## Community + +- [Discord](https://discord.gg/m4HZY7xNG3) — Join the community +- [GitHub Issues](https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip/issues) — bugs and feature requests +- [GitHub Discussions](https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip/discussions) — ideas and RFC + +
+ +## License + +MIT © 2026 Paperclip + +## Star History + +[![Star History Chart](https://api.star-history.com/image?repos=paperclipai/paperclip&type=date&legend=top-left)](https://www.star-history.com/?repos=paperclipai%2Fpaperclip&type=date&legend=top-left) + +
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+ Open source under MIT. Built for people who want to run companies, not babysit agents. +