Open Duet

Open Duet is an open-source, self-hosted workspace for AI coworkers, published on GitHub by Anil-matcha under the Apache License 2.0. Each named agent has a job, instructions, memory, its own workspace, a schedule and a human approval step before risky actions. Users chat with agents in a browser, a desktop app or Telegram, and keep data and credentials on their own machine or server. The project lists its status as active development.

What It Is

Open Duet is a self-hosted agent workspace. An agent can be a researcher, a support triager, a reporting assistant or a developer; coding is one use, not the focus. Agents run on an engine you already have signed in: Claude, Codex, any Agent Client Protocol CLI, or an OpenAI-compatible endpoint. The README positions it as an open alternative to paid products such as Claude Duet and ChatGPT agent, and states it is not yet a feature-for-feature replacement.

How Agents Work

• Agents carry a title, instructions, engine and model, workspace folder and approval mode, and can be exported and imported as files.
• Each agent keeps notes (MEMORY.md plus topic notes) that load into its conversations, with recall across conversations and undo.
• Routines run prompts on cron, weekday, interval, one-off or webhook schedules, with run history, missed-run tracking and in-app notifications.
• Risky actions show a card and wait for Allow or Deny. Modes include ask-first, accept-edits and plan, plus saved rules and a decision log.
• An agent can optionally get an isolated Docker container so commands and file edits never run on your machine (experimental).
• If an engine hits a usage limit, a turn can fall back to another engine.

Setup Path

The desktop app runs from a source checkout with Node.js 22+ and uv, using a local SQLite database and OS secret storage for its encryption key. Unsigned installers are built for tagged releases. For always-on use, a server-hosted mode offers python -m app.server, a Docker image and compose file, nginx and Caddy overlays, and doctor, backup and restore commands. PostgreSQL is the default database, with SQLite experimental.

Current Status and Limitations

Desktop and server modes are marked experimental. Authentication is single-owner. Agent-to-agent delegation, rooms, teams and most connectors are planned rather than built. An optional legacy flow runs Telegram and web tasks in hosted Boat sandboxes.