OpenRig

A harness wraps a model. A rig wraps your harnesses. Define your agent team in YAML, boot it with one command. Claude Code and Codex in the same rig, managed as one system.

OpenRig is open-source software for building and running your own network of agents. It turns AI coding agents from a pile of terminal sessions into a persistent, organized team. Talk to a lead agent about the outcome you want; it can coordinate specialists across teams and bring you results and decisions that need your attention. Start with a repository and one useful change, then keep the team's work and context at the same addresses.

It's the open-source system behind my AI civilization experiments.

Guide: Getting started · Stuck? Help · Questions: Q&A · Updates and demos: @_feralmachine on X

See it running

Start here: the guided first-use path: install, launch a two-agent team in your repository, and get one reviewed change.

Not setting this up today? Get the next walkthrough and occasional OpenRig updates → https://openrig.dev/follow

Install and first run

Requires Node.js 22 or 24 and tmux, on macOS or Linux. On a Mac with Apple silicon, use Node.js 22 (compatibility history). Native Windows is not supported yet, and WSL2 has not been tested. Launching a rig writes provider hooks and workspace trust settings. Before running the commands below, read what OpenRig changes on your machine and back up the relevant files.

npm install -g @openrig/cli
rig setup --dry-run

To install with Bun instead, run bun add -g @openrig/cli. OpenRig still runs on Node.js, so install Node.js 22 as well. Bun may block this package's postinstall script, in which case the Node.js and SQLite check described under what OpenRig changes on your machine does not run at install time.

Choose the working account you already have: Claude Code, Codex, or both. Reuse an explicit choice; no second subscription is required. rig setup --dry-run previews the broader setup, but applying rig setup checks both harnesses and cmux. It is optional for the selected-provider path.

Before launching, your agent asks once: “Allow your agents to run OpenRig commands without repeated permission prompts?” Yes — recommended / No — keep prompts. This covers every rig command, including starting/stopping agents and configuration, at personal project scope unless you explicitly choose user-wide sessions. It is not global YOLO or permission to invent work. On Yes, the agent adds and verifies native rules; No or no answer leaves settings unchanged. An existing explicit choice is reused. Say “Undo the OpenRig command allowances added by this setup” to remove only its additions.

Check tmux -V and only your selected CLI/login: claude --version plus claude auth status, or codex --version plus codex login status. If needed, sign in once with claude auth login or codex login; do not install or log in to an unused provider.

Team	Starter	Models
Two Codex agents	first-project	Both gpt-6-astra (unchanged)
Two Claude agents	first-project-claude	Configured native Claude default
Claude owner + Codex checker	first-project-mixed	Claude default + gpt-6-astra

All three use the same owner/checker roles and task. Show the selected runtime, configured model and command before launch; confirm the account supports the model instead of silently falling back. The kernel starts automatically and selects from available authenticated providers independently of these two project agents. A missing unused provider is not a setup requirement.

cd /path/to/your/repository
starter=first-project  # or first-project-claude or first-project-mixed
rig specs preview "$starter" --kind rig
rig up "$starter" --cwd . --plan
rig up "$starter" --cwd .
rig tui --shared

The kernel provides separate operational support and the shared dashboard. To detach without stopping the dashboard, press Ctrl-b then d; rig tui --shared returns to that view. Plain rig tui opens an independent view. Closing a viewing terminal does not mean you should relaunch the team.

Check project-seat readiness with rig ps --nodes --rig "$starter" and resolve any authentication, trust or permission prompt before assigning work. Then give the owner one bounded outcome from your repository:

rig send "dev-owner@$starter" 'Implement <one useful change>. Track the task in the queue and return its ID. Keep it local, verify the behavior, ask dev-check in this rig to check the exact candidate, and record the result and how I can try it.'
rig queue list --destination "dev-owner@$starter" --limit 1000

Sending a message does not itself create a queue item; the owner records the task. Read the final artifact and the review of its exact candidate, then return to the same owner for the next change. The guided first-use path covers readiness, a useful task, a reviewed result, Herdr/cmux terminals and recovery.

Not setting this up today? Get the next walkthrough and occasional OpenRig updates → https://openrig.dev/follow

Community

• Questions: Discussions › Q&A
• Bugs and feature requests: open an issue
• Contributing: CONTRIBUTING.md · Code of Conduct · Security policy · Getting help
• Videos: youtube.com/@openrig
• Releases: GitHub Releases and npm @openrig/cli

We aim to acknowledge issues and pull requests within one day; see CONTRIBUTING.md for review targets.

What OpenRig changes on your machine

OpenRig writes instance state, provider integration and workspace files as part of setup and operation. These include trust settings and executable hooks. The summary below follows this source revision; check rig --version when using a published package, since repository guidance can be ahead of npm.

When	What changes and why
npm installation	Installs the CLI, bundled components and dependencies under your npm prefix (with Bun, under Bun's global directory). OpenRig's postinstall checks the Node.js version and that the SQLite module loads; Bun may block this script. It does not run daemon or provider setup.
rig setup	Attempts missing tools and writes an OpenRig block in ~/.tmux.conf for mouse support and scrollback. On macOS it can install cmux and enable its automation socket control in ~/.config/cmux/settings.json. --full adds workstation tools. --dry-run shows setup's plan without applying it.
Daemon startup	Creates/updates instance state under OPENRIG_HOME (normally ~/.openrig), including its database and managed plugin resources. Seeds the openrig-skills discovery skill in ~/.claude/skills and ~/.agents/skills, subject to existing version ownership. With runtime.codex.hooks_enabled enabled (the default), writes Codex hook configuration and trust records as described below—even before a rig launches.
Rig/seat launch and attachment	Creates tmux sessions, supplies seat identity and daemon connection environment, and projects selected guidance, skills, plugins and runtime resources into the workspace. Managed startup pre-trusts the workspace. Claude context collection can also be provisioned for attached sessions and refreshed during monitoring.
Explicit permission configuration	The built-in bootstrap does not add rig command allow rules. Agent-guided setup recommends Yes and requires your actual answer before the agent adds rules at your chosen scope. No/no answer preserves settings; existing choices and stricter rules remain relevant. Broader access is separate.

The provider files are separate from instance state. Here ~ means the daemon user's home; changing OPENRIG_HOME alone does not isolate provider configuration.

• Claude Code: managed startup writes workspace trust and onboarding completion to ~/.claude.json. In the workspace, .claude/settings.local.json receives the context collector's statusLine command and selected activity hooks; helper scripts live under .openrig/. Selected settings/MCP resources can also change that settings file and .mcp.json. The shared settings resource sets permissions.defaultMode to acceptEdits and enables Exa/Context7 MCP entries; selected MCP resources configure those external services. Built-in bootstrap no longer writes a command allowlist to ~/.claude/settings.json or removes older allowances. The trust writer uses the daemon home, so a custom CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR is not a general relocation of these writes.
• Codex: writes the daemon's CODEX_HOME/config.toml (normally ~/.codex/config.toml). Startup enables hooks, adds the OpenRig activity relay commands and pre-writes trust hashes for those commands. Seat startup adds trust_level = "trusted" for the workspace; selected config resources can add MCP settings. Recognized update notices can be skipped during launch, recording the skipped version in Codex's cache; this is not an update install.

Activity relays send event type/subtype, seat/runtime identity, timestamps and native session identity to the configured OpenRig daemon's /api/activity/hooks endpoint, using its activity token. That payload excludes prompt text and tool arguments. Claude's collector writes context/token usage, session/transcript-path metadata and available rate-limit data to the instance's state/context-usage and state/provider-usage. Provider and selected MCP connections have their own data flows. Daemon plugin initialization also checks the OpenRig plugin release endpoint on GitHub.

Managed launches supply HOME, CODEX_HOME and OPENRIG_* identity/connection variables. Claude uses --permission-mode acceptEdits and defaults to the classic renderer for terminal scrollback. Codex uses -s workspace-write unless a named profile governs its sandbox; the default does not force an approval-policy flag. Fresh Codex launches also add writable access to the workspace's .git and the pod's shared queue-state directory with --add-dir; the shared root comes from OPENRIG_SHARED_DOCS_ROOT or ~/.openrig/shared-docs. YOLO is off by default. An explicitly selected full-bypass policy selects Claude's --dangerously-skip-permissions or Codex's -s danger-full-access -a never. The legacy environment-only OPENRIG_YOLO=1 path still selects only Codex's sandbox; a resolved policy overrides that environment setting.

Permission mode controls native execution permissions; work posture is separate project guidance. Use rig policy permissions list|show|current|apply for rig policy configuration (the four rig policy aliases remain compatible). Use rig seat set-permissions <seat> --mode <mode> --reason <text> for an audited future-launch choice: floor, full_bypass, or inherit to clear the seat override. Additional Claude modes such as auto require support from the exact managed Claude executable at the seat's working directory; selection and launch each check it. Unsupported or changed contexts refuse without a fallback. This does not relaunch the seat or change its current native process, history, rules or hooks. rig seat status separates the desired selection from the last launch arguments; neither proves native enforcement. See the permission guide.

Managed hook blocks target OpenRig's entries and retain unrelated hooks, but trust entries, selected resource keys and Claude's existing status-line command can be replaced. Some writers recover unreadable settings as empty objects; this is not a complete preservation or rollback guarantee. Back up relevant files before first use. Daemon/bootstrap writes are automatic and do not each have an interactive preview; rig setup --dry-run does not preview every later startup effect.

What It Does

OpenRig is a multi-agent harness — it manages the system that coding agents form when you run them together. Not the agents themselves, but the team they create: which sessions are running, how they relate, how to recover after a reboot, and how to stop it from becoming terminal sprawl.

• Define topologies in YAML (RigSpec) with pods, edges, and continuity policies
• Boot everything with rig up — tmux sessions, harnesses, startup files, readiness checks
• See rigs, pods, and seats in the TUI topology table and graph; inspect projects, specs, feeds, and instance health
• Discover existing Claude Code and Codex sessions in tmux and adopt them into a managed rig
• Snapshot the topology with rig down --snapshot, restore by name with rig up <name>
• Communicate across agents with rig send, rig broadcast, and rig chatroom
• Protect a seat where you type by hand: rig seat set-typing-guard <seat> --enabled true --reason <text> holds automatic messages and wakes instead of typing them into that seat (off by default; see rig seat set-typing-guard --help)
• Connect Slack through an app you create in your own workspace; the experimental rig slack manifest prints that app's manifest (setup guide)
• Evolve running topologies with rig grow, rig shrink, rig launch, rig remove

Every agent runs in a tmux session you can attach to, inspect, and work with directly.

Starter Rigs

Use first-project, first-project-claude, or first-project-mixed for the same focused first-use path on your selected providers. product-team is an optional larger product-development example:

rig specs preview product-team --kind rig
rig up product-team

Use it when you want a larger product squad: two orchestrators, implementation, QA, design, and two independent reviewers.

For a smaller starter, use conveyor:

rig specs preview conveyor --kind rig
rig up conveyor

conveyor is a four-seat starter mixing Claude Code and Codex. It shows a handoff path through intake, planning, build, and review; first-project remains the smaller two-seat starting point.

Also ships: implementation-pair, adversarial-review, research-team, and secrets-manager (HashiCorp Vault managed by a specialist agent).

Browse the library:

rig specs ls

How It Works

OpenRig is a local daemon + CLI + terminal UI + MCP server, built on tmux. The older React web UI remains in maintenance mode with best-effort support.

CLI / TUI / MCP
      |
Hono HTTP daemon
      |
  Domain services
      |
  SQLite + tmux + runtime adapters

• CLI: Commands for both humans and agents to launch teams, inspect state, send messages, track owned work, and manage context.
• TUI: Topology explorer, table and graph views, seat details, Specs, Projects, Terminals, Feed, and System. Navigate with the keyboard, mouse, or command bar.
• MCP: Tools so agents can manage their own topology (rig_up, rig_ps, rig_send, rig_chatroom_send, etc.)
• Runtimes: Native Claude Code and Codex sessions, terminal nodes, and Pi and Oh My Pi via RPC runners.

Terminal UI and Workspaces

The TUI shows the team's coordination state; herdr and cmux show the actual agent terminals alongside it. Use rig tui commands to list the TUI's command-bar navigation, or try the interactive TUI tour.

Captured from the interactive TUI demo using fictional project data.

With herdr installed and connected, open the starter's terminals together:

rig terminal open first-project --provider herdr

For cmux, use --provider cmux. In the TUI, a rig's detail view has a term ▸ rig <name> link that opens every running seat of that rig in the default terminal provider; with herdr that is up to 16 seats per tab, in a workspace named after the rig. The underlying sessions remain accessible through tmux. See the terminal workspace guide for setup and returning to an existing view.

Key Concepts

• RigSpec: Declarative multi-agent harness definition in YAML. Pods, members, edges, continuity policies, culture file.
• AgentSpec: Reusable agent blueprint with skills, guidance, hooks, profiles, and startup contracts.
• Seat: A stable role and address in a rig, such as dev-owner@first-project. The conversation occupying it can change while its identity and authored context remain.
• Pod: A group of related seats with shared guidance and context. Each agent still has its own context window.
• Discovery: rig discover fingerprints existing tmux sessions. rig adopt brings them under management.
• Snapshot/Restore: rig down --snapshot captures full state. rig up <name> restores from latest snapshot. Restore reports per-node outcomes (resumed, fresh, or failed).
• RigBundle: Portable archive with vendored AgentSpecs and SHA-256 integrity. Share topologies across machines.
• Culture: CULTURE.md sets coordination norms for the group. Research rigs get exploratory culture. Implementation rigs get conservative, trust-but-verify culture.

Agent-Managed Software

A rig can package actual software alongside the agents that manage it. The shipped example is secrets-manager: a HashiCorp Vault instance operated by a specialist agent.

rig up secrets-manager
rig env status secrets-manager
rig send vault-specialist@secrets-manager "Check Vault health and report status." --verify

Requires Docker for service-backed rigs.

Upgrading an existing instance

For an existing installation, follow the upgrade procedure and the 0.5.14 release notes. Preserve live seats during the upgrade; rig down is not an upgrade step. Upgrading to 0.6.0 also requires Node.js 22 or 24: see Moving off Node 20 and the 0.6.0 release notes.

Moving off Node 20

OpenRig 0.6.0 supports Node.js 22 and 24 only. Its SQLite binding (better-sqlite3 13) requires Node 22 or newer. Node 20 is no longer supported; the install check refuses it with an explanation.

If you run OpenRig on Node 20, switch Node first, then reinstall the CLI under the new Node (a version manager keeps a separate global package set for each Node):

nvm install 22          # or 24; fnm or your package manager work the same way
npm install -g @openrig/cli
rig --version

Your existing OpenRig data stays where it is. The daemon reopens the same database under the new binding and applies any pending migrations in place. Restart the daemon under the new Node by following the upgrade procedure above.

Crossing the 0.5.9 layout boundary

The migration below still applies when upgrading from a pre-0.5.9 instance.

0.5.9 makes $OPENRIG_HOME/context the addressable context library, writes Claude telemetry to state/context-usage (and provider telemetry to state/provider-usage), and installs the default System World at context/system/system-world.yaml. Existing instances cross this boundary by an Agent-Operated Migration from the shipped openrig-upgrade skill. The target runtime reads canonical-first with legacy-fallback while new writes use the canonical roots; a custom context-library root stays stable during activation. This is not a directory rename to do while an old collector writes.

# SKILL_DIR is the installed openrig-upgrade skill directory.
node "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/migrate-telemetry-state-0.5.9.mjs" --help
node "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/migrate-telemetry-state-0.5.9.mjs" --home "$OPENRIG_HOME"
node "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/migrate-telemetry-state-0.5.9.mjs" --home "$OPENRIG_HOME" --apply-state --preimage /safe/path/layout-0.5.9-before

# Activate the exact target runtime separately. After every bounded legacy tail is followed by newer paired samples at both new state roots:
node "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/migrate-telemetry-state-0.5.9.mjs" --home "$OPENRIG_HOME" --verify --preimage /safe/path/layout-0.5.9-before > /safe/path/layout-0.5.9-verify.json

# Run the separately invoked non-destructive finalizer only with that exact receipt:
node "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/migrate-telemetry-state-0.5.9.mjs" --home "$OPENRIG_HOME" --apply-library --preimage /safe/path/layout-0.5.9-before --verification /safe/path/layout-0.5.9-verify.json

# Restore only helper-owned preparation/finalizer effects if the observed upgrade must be reversed:
node "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/migrate-telemetry-state-0.5.9.mjs" --home "$OPENRIG_HOME" --rollback /safe/path/layout-0.5.9-before

--help prints the phase grammar without inventorying the instance. No phase flag intentionally runs the read-only plan; unknown options fail nonzero before plan or mutation.

Every phase emits JSON. Stop on any issue or incomplete receipt and follow its next action; do not continue from copied legacy telemetry or retry a partial mutation blindly. Preparation leaves legacy state and collector settings in place. Verification accepts exact tail bytes only when that same seat has newer paired context and provider samples under state/; finalization revalidates the accepted tails, copies the library without overwrite, and switches config last. The helper never removes the legacy telemetry or library. Retirement follows separate stable runtime, writer, reader, and recovery proof. Daemon, database, seat, plugin, and release lifecycle actions remain agent-owned.

Requirements

• Node.js 22 or 24 (the supported versions in this release). Node 20 is no longer supported. Node 26 and other versions are untested. On a Mac with Apple silicon, use Node.js 22: see the compatibility history.
• tmux
• macOS or Linux. Native Windows is not supported yet, and WSL2 has not been tested

Optional:

• herdr or cmux for terminal workspaces showing the agents together
• Docker for service-backed rigs and managed apps

Setup and Troubleshooting

• rig setup attempts core machine preparation: tmux, cmux, Claude Code, Codex, and tmux defaults. It reports what it tried and what actually succeeded. If something fails, it gives the local agent enough context to finish the job.
• rig setup --full attempts a broader operator workstation setup (jq, gh) on top of core.
• rig doctor inspects current system health and helps diagnose problems after setup. Use it when something stops working or after machine changes.

Both commands support --json for agent-driven workflows.

Before setup or managed launch, review what OpenRig changes on your machine, including provider trust, hooks and selected runtime resources.

Already-running adopted sessions may need restart before they pick up newly written runtime config.

For agents: First ask which available provider(s) the user wants, reusing an explicit choice. Recommend the working account they already have and follow the selected-provider guide above. Offer core setup (rig setup) or the fuller workstation path (rig setup --full) only when they want those additional tools. Inspect the result with --json and use rig doctor to finish any remaining machine-specific issues. When OpenRig itself misbehaves, read docs/reference/help.md (installed agents can run rig context get help; the same text is at openrig.dev/help/agents): it covers the next step, known problems, and how to reach the team if you're still stuck.

Comparison with Claude Managed Agents

OpenRig is open source and self-hosted, with Claude Code and Codex in the same team. You operate it on your own infrastructure; the selected providers' model usage costs still apply.

Full comparison

Links

• Website: openrig.dev
• Docs: openrig.dev/docs (documentation index for agents)
• Blog: openrig.dev/blog · Why I Built OpenRig
• Open Specification: openrig.dev/specs
• Videos: youtube.com/@openrig
• X: @_feralmachine
• Follow the project: openrig.dev/follow

Star History

License

Apache 2.0