Open Duet: Your Own Team of AI Coworkers, On Your Terms
Open Duet is an open-source workspace where you create named AI agents, give each a job and workspace, and bring them together to complete real tasks—all running on your own computer or server.
Open Duet is a free, open-source platform that lets small businesses build a team of AI coworkers that can schedule tasks, order stock, and handle email, all while keeping your data on your own server or desktop. Agents ask for your approval before acting, and you can set routines so work happens automatically without you needing to be present.
What Is Open Duet?
Open Duet is an open-source, self-hosted alternative to paid AI coworker products like Claude Duet, OpenAI Dots, Meta Muse, and Grok Bot, according to the project’s GitHub repository. It is a workspace for creating named AI agents—each with its own instructions, memory, routines, and an isolated computer—and your approval before they act.
The project’s README explains that you can create agents and teams, give each agent a name, role, engine, workspace, memory, and approval settings. A lead can delegate work to specialists or coordinate agents in shared rooms. The platform keeps conversations, memory, routines, and approvals in one place.
You can run Open Duet as a desktop app on your own computer, or host the server yourself on a Linux server. The hosted web app is a separate product. In all cases, you bring your own AI engine and provider account—Open Duet does not include a model or model subscription.
How Small Businesses Can Use Open Duet
A local boutique uses Open Duet to auto-track inventory, generate purchase orders, and draft customer replies, eliminating endless spreadsheets, phone calls, and manual drafting, according to the Launch AI Works Insights dossier. The AI agents keep context, ask for approval before acting, and run on a routine you set, freeing you to focus on the shop floor.
You can create routines for scheduled, webhook, or manual runs. Each routine reviews results and answers requests for approval; a routine never approves an action by itself, as stated in the repository’s documentation. This means you can set up weekly inventory checks or daily email summaries without worrying about the AI making unauthorized changes.
The platform also supports connecting services such as GitHub, Gmail, and Google Calendar through your own Composio key, then granting access to selected Claude or Codex agents. Changes wait for your approval. You can also add individual tools from the MCP Marketplace.
Key Features That Matter for Small Business Owners
Open Duet offers several features designed to make AI coworkers practical for real work. The Today view gathers approvals, questions, routine outcomes, engine failures, and due tasks in one place, and can show read-only Gmail and calendar items. This helps you see what needs your attention without logging into multiple apps.
You can use a task board and calendar to assign work, schedule one-time runs, and review conversations and attempts. Agents can save notes, recall relevant notes and conversations, and search their history. You can review and edit what they remember.
The platform also lets you choose how much freedom agents have: Ask first, Accept edits, Approve for me (for Claude, Codex, and Cursor), or Plan only. You can review tool activity and approval decisions in the app. A phone app is also available to chat, stop an answer, allow or deny a tool call, or create and edit agents and rooms.
What You Need to Get Started
To run Open Duet, you need Node.js 22 or newer, uv, and at least one AI engine available on the same computer, according to the repository’s quick start guide. For a CLI engine, you install it and sign in before opening Open Duet. You can also configure an API-based engine in Settings → Engines. Docker is only needed for the optional isolated agent computers.
The desktop app runs from a source checkout. On first launch, you choose an engine, workspace, and approval mode. Then you create an agent with a name, a clear job, and a workspace, and start a chat. The project is in active development, and desktop releases, self-hosting, agent computers, and newer team features are still evolving. The repository advises reviewing known limitations before relying on them for important work.
Installers are experimental and unsigned. The assisted update flow offers a SHA-256-verified installer for you to open; it does not install updates automatically. The release-to-release update path has not been verified end to end.
Cost and Data Control
Open Duet is free and open-source under the Apache-2.0 license. You bring your own AI provider account and pay that provider for model usage. The hosted preview lets you use your own Boat key for sandbox compute. Paid plans use compute operated by Suparagent, so you do not need to supply a Boat key. In both cases, you bring your AI provider account and pay that provider for model usage.
Because Open Duet is self-hosted, your data stays on your own computer or server. The repository notes that paid AI coworker products keep your agents, memory, and credentials on someone else’s servers. Open Duet gives individuals and small teams the same idea in a form they can inspect and run themselves, with visible approval steps and local control.
Takeaways
- Open Duet is a free, open-source platform that lets you run AI coworkers on your own server or desktop, keeping your data private.
- Agents can handle tasks like inventory tracking, purchase orders, and email drafting, but always ask for your approval before acting.
- You bring your own AI engine and pay only for model usage; there is no subscription fee for the platform itself.
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