openwork

OpenWork is an open-source desktop application that lets you run AI coding agents on your own computer. The README positions it as the open-source alternative to Claude Cowork and Codex, two commercial desktop products in the same category. The actual AI agent that does the work underneath is a separate project called OpenCode; OpenWork is a polished interface and orchestration layer around it. Everything OpenCode can do is available through OpenWork, with the option to fall back to the OpenCode command-line tool whenever you want.

The stated philosophy is local-first but cloud-ready. You install OpenWork on your laptop, click once, and start sending prompts to an agent that runs on your own machine, against a project folder you pick. If you later want to connect to a remote server, or share a session with teammates, that is an explicit opt-in step rather than the default. The README pitches OpenWork as a way to package agentic workflows so a team can run the same repeatable, productized process again and again.

The feature list includes a host mode where OpenCode runs locally and a client mode that connects to a remote OpenCode server by URL. You can create chat sessions and send prompts. A live stream over Server-Sent Events shows real-time progress. An execution-plan view renders the agent's todo list as a timeline. A permissions panel surfaces requests from the agent for privileged actions, with allow-once, allow-always, or deny. Templates store common workflows locally, and a Skills manager handles the OpenCode plugins in a .opencode/skills folder.

The project is built with Tauri, which means a Rust shell wrapping a webview, with the user interface written in TypeScript. Getting it running for development needs Node.js with pnpm, the Rust toolchain, Bun 1.3.9 or newer, Xcode command-line tools on macOS, and WebKitGTK 4.1 development packages on Linux. Pre-built downloads exist for macOS and Linux. Windows access is currently only available through the paid support plan. A separate npm package called openwork-orchestrator provides a command-line host that runs the same backend without the desktop UI.

The repository is also the source of a commercial offering. The README links to an enterprise plan with SSO, SLA support, long-term support versions, and feature prioritisation, plus a hosted OpenWork Cloud workers product. By default, host mode binds only to 127.0.0.1, and model reasoning is hidden in the UI. The full README is longer than what was shown.