Devin FoleyandPaperclip
12bb7e1976
## Thinking Path
> - Paperclip is the open source app people use to manage AI agents for
work
> - Closed issues' git worktrees pile up on disk because they can only
be removed once the remote reproduces them exactly
> - #17238 adds restore points: encrypted saves of the unpushed and
uncommitted parts of a worktree, so the worktree itself can be removed
> - Those saves live in file storage and must be deleted on a schedule,
and promptly when their issue or company is deleted
> - This pull request adds the table that tracks restore points and a
deadline-driven retention worker, with nothing creating restore points
yet
> - The benefit is a reviewable lifecycle foundation before capture is
wired into expiration
## Linked Issues or Issue Description
Refs #17238 (restore point library). Bug report described in-PR (bug
report template).
**What happened?**
Closed issues' worktrees accumulate without bound. For example, one
instance's last 111 git cache expiration checks removed nothing, because
each worktree held unpushed commits or uncommitted files. Restore points
(#17238) will let those worktrees be removed safely. That needs a
durable record of every stored restore point and a retention policy for
deleting them.
**Expected behavior**
- A restore point is kept while its work can still resume.
- It is deleted a fixed time after its issue tree closes.
- It is deleted promptly when its issue or company is deleted.
**Steps to reproduce**
Not applicable on its own: this adds the lifecycle that the capture
integration will use.
**Paperclip version or commit:** `master` at def4726bea.
**Deployment mode:** any.
**Agent adapter(s) involved:** not adapter-specific (core).
## What Changed
**New table `execution_workspace_restore_points`** (migration `0372`,
schema `packages/db/src/schema/execution_workspace_restore_points.ts`):
- **Columns:** storage key, sha256, size, generation, source issue,
`status`, closing time, review/deletion time (`delete_after`), a
`review_generation` counter and last error.
- **Statuses:** `pending`, `active`, `expiring`, `superseded`,
`delete_requested`, `deleted`.
- **No foreign keys:** a row outlives the deletion of its workspace,
issue or company long enough to remove the stored object.
- **Indexes:**
- the storage key is unique;
- live generations are unique per workspace;
- an index on status and deadline serves the worker, and a partial index
on active rows' source issue serves the trigger.
**Issue tree trigger** (same migration):
`paperclip_restore_point_tree_changed` runs after an issue's `status` or
`parent_id` changes, and after an issue is deleted. It walks up from the
issue and from its old and new parents (at most 64 levels). For every
active restore point whose source issue is in that set, it makes the row
due now (keeping an earlier due time) and increments
`review_generation`. This happens in the same transaction, so a child's
deletion or move still reaches its former parent's tree.
**New `server/src/services/git-restore-point-ledger.ts`:**
- **`gitRestorePointRetentionService(db, { storage, retentionDays,
beforeExpire })`.** Each `tick` handles only due work, in batches of 50:
- **Review:** an active restore point is checked when its `delete_after`
time arrives. The due check compares against the later of the worker's
clock and the database clock, so a row the trigger just marked is never
skipped. At review:
- **Tree still open:** clear `delete_after`. The trigger marks it due
again on the next relevant issue change, so open trees cause no
recurring checks.
- **Tree `done` or `cancelled`:** expire
`PAPERCLIP_GIT_RESTORE_POINT_RETENTION_DAYS` (default `90`, minimum `1`)
after the tree's latest close. Expiry moves the row to `expiring`, then
runs an optional `beforeExpire` hook, which the capture integration will
use to mark the workspace no longer restorable. Only then does it
request deletion. An `expiring` row's object is never deleted: after a
restart, or if the hook fails, the hook is retried (after 15 minutes
when it failed).
- **Source issue gone:** delete.
- **Concurrency:** a review result is written only if
`review_generation` is unchanged since the worker read the row. If the
trigger fired in between (for example, the tree closed or reopened), the
write is skipped and the row stays due for the next run. Expiry and
orphan deletion claim the row under the same check before the expiry
hook runs.
- **Abandoned captures:** a `pending` row older than one hour is
deleted.
- **Deletion:** `superseded` and `delete_requested` rows have their
object removed. They become `deleted` only once `headObject` reports the
object gone. Failures, including a local unlink error the provider
swallows, are recorded in `last_error` and retried after 15 minutes.
- **`nextDeadlineAt`** returns the earliest real deadline, or `null`
when nothing is due.
- **`requestRestorePointDeletion(tx, { sourceIssueId } | { companyId
})`** registers a delivery-work notification and marks the matching
`pending`/`active` rows `delete_requested` in the caller's transaction.
**Deletion hooks:**
- `issueService.remove` and `deleteCompany` call
`requestRestorePointDeletion` in their transactions, so a deleted
issue's or company's objects are removed promptly.
- Child issues cannot be deleted with their parent (the parent link
restricts deletion), so each issue removal goes through this hook.
**Scheduling** follows `rules/sleep-aware-background-work.mdc`:
- `registerGitRestorePointWork` registers a `git-restore-points` queue
with the shared delivery-work coordinator.
- The worker keeps no in-memory inputs. Due work is recorded in the
table, by the trigger or by deletion requests. Each run handles it and
schedules only `nextDeadlineAt`, so a failed run loses nothing and is
retried by the coordinator.
- It runs at startup, at real deadlines, and when terminal-workspace
notifications settle after issue changes, but only while restore points
exist. With nothing due, it schedules nothing. A full batch continues
immediately. There is no timer.
**Config and docs:**
- `server/src/config.ts` adds
`PAPERCLIP_GIT_RESTORE_POINT_RETENTION_DAYS`.
- `doc/recoverable-disk-cleanup.md` gains a "Git workspace restore
points" section; `doc/DEVELOPING.md` documents the variable.
- `drizzle-kit generate` pruned `meta/0367_snapshot.json`, following the
repository's snapshot-retention convention.
- No code comments were added.
## Verification
- `pnpm exec vitest run src/__tests__/git-restore-point-ledger.test.ts`
(in `server/`): 26 passed against embedded Postgres, stable across
repeated runs. The cases:
- **Review outcomes:** an open tree clears its deadline and schedules
nothing; a closed tree is scheduled 90 days after its close; a
long-closed tree expires and is deleted; a missing source issue is
deleted.
- **Expiry durability:** a failing hook keeps the row `expiring` with
its object until a retry succeeds; an `expiring` row left by a restart
resumes the hook before deletion; an `expiring` row's object is never
deleted while its hook fails.
- **Trigger:** the last open child closing, a child being deleted, a
child moving to another parent, and the source issue's own status change
all mark the restore point due. Unrelated issues, inactive rows and
already-due rows are untouched. End to end, an open tree's restore point
waits without a deadline, then is scheduled 90 days after its tree
closes.
- **Races:** closing the tree, or reopening it, between the worker's
read and write leaves the row due, and the next run resolves it
correctly. A reopened tree's restore point is not deleted.
- **No rescanning:** 60 retained restore points with future review times
are not evaluated. A backlog of 60 due ones is processed as 50, then 10,
then nothing.
- **Captures and deletion:** abandoned pending rows are deleted while
recent ones are kept; superseded rows are deleted; an object still
present after deletion is not marked deleted; a failed deletion is
retried only after its 15-minute deadline.
- **Deadlines:** the next deadline is correct for each obligation, and
`null` when idle.
- **Deletion hooks:** `issueService.remove` marks only that issue's
restore points, and `deleteCompany` marks all of the company's; the
worker then deletes their objects.
- **Worker:** schedules nothing when idle, and only the next deadline
otherwise; wakes on issue changes only while restore points exist.
- **Mutation checks:** each of these fails at least one case:
- removing the issue hook or the company hook;
- making the trigger ignore former parents;
- removing the worker's generation check or the trigger's generation
bump;
- letting storage cleanup delete `expiring` rows, or not resuming the
hook;
- ignoring open trees;
- removing the deletion verification;
- evaluating rows that are not due;
- dropping the retry deadline.
- `pnpm exec vitest run company-deletion issue-delete issues-service
delivery-work issue-tree` (in `server/`): 190 passed.
- **CI note:** one earlier `Typecheck + Release Registry` run was
cancelled when the GitHub runner received a shutdown signal; it is not a
code failure.
- `pnpm exec vitest run` (in `packages/db`): 211 passed. One run had a
single failure in `issue-comment-derived-attribution-migration.test.ts`,
an older migration's test unrelated to this change. It passed alone and
on the full re-run.
- `pnpm exec vitest run
src/__tests__/git-restore-point-ledger-config.test.ts`: 5 passed.
- `pnpm run check:migrations` (in `packages/db`): numbering and safety
checks pass.
- `pnpm run typecheck` (in `server/`): pass.
## Risks
- **No behavior change today:** nothing creates restore points yet. The
worker runs once at startup, finds no rows and schedules nothing. The
capture integration follows in a separate PR.
- **Trigger cost:** every issue status change, parent change or deletion
now runs a short ancestor walk, plus an `UPDATE` on the new table that
matches only active restore points through a partial index. With no
restore points, the `UPDATE` matches nothing.
- **Missed wakes:** if a wake is ever missed, for example because the
process exits after commit, the due row stays in the table. The worker's
startup run or next deadline processes it.
- **Deletion paths:** issue and company deletion each gain one `UPDATE`
on the new table inside their existing transactions.
- **Migration:** `0372_mature_the_initiative.sql` creates one empty
table, its indexes, and the trigger function with two triggers on
`issues`; nothing is rewritten.
- **Rollback:** revert. The table can stay, since nothing else reads it.
## Model Used
- Claude Opus 5.5 (`claude-opus-5-5`), 1M context, through Claude Code
with tool use (shell, file edits, tests, read-only measurements on live
instances).
## Checklist
- [x] I have included a thinking path that traces from project context
to this change
- [x] I have specified the model used (with version and capability
details)
- [x] I have checked ROADMAP.md and confirmed this PR does not duplicate
planned core work
- [x] I have searched GitHub for duplicate or related PRs and linked
them above
- [x] I have either (a) linked existing issues with `Fixes: #` / `Closes
#` / `Refs #` OR (b) described the issue in-PR following the relevant
issue template
- [x] I have not referenced internal/instance-local Paperclip issues or
links (only public GitHub `#NNN` / `github.com/paperclipai/paperclip`
URLs)
- [x] My branch name describes the change (e.g. `docs/...`, `fix/...`)
and contains no internal Paperclip ticket id or instance-derived details
- [x] I have run tests locally and they pass
- [x] I have added or updated tests where applicable
- [x] I have updated relevant documentation to reflect my changes
- [x] I have considered and documented any risks above
- [ ] All Paperclip CI gates are green
- [ ] Greptile is 5/5 with no open P2s, recommendations, or follow-ups
- [ ] I will address all Greptile and reviewer comments before
requesting merge
---------
Co-authored-by: Paperclip <noreply@paperclip.ing>
Quickstart · Docs · GitHub · Discord · Twitter · Website
Sign up for the Paperclip Cloud waitlist →
Paperclip is the app people use to manage AI agents for work.
Open-source orchestration for teams of AI agents.
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 work and costs from one dashboard. Choose models and harnesses per agent while keeping your team's tasks, skills, permissions, and history in one place.
It looks like a task manager. Under the hood: 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. |
| Works with |
 OpenClaw |
 Claude Code |
 Codex |
 Cursor + Cloud |
 Gemini CLI |
 OpenCode |
 Pi |
 Hermes + Gateway |
 Grok Build |
 Kimi Code |
If it can receive a heartbeat, it's hired.
Custom processes, HTTP endpoints, and external adapter packages extend the roster. See the adapter overview for setup and capabilities.
Paperclip is right for you if
- ✅ You want to build autonomous AI organizations
- ✅ 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
The four pillars
Four things have to work for an organization of AI agents to actually produce: the tasks, the org, the training, and the infrastructure. Paperclip is built around exactly those four pillars.
| Pillar | Built for | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Agentic Task Manager — Declare intent. Agents work. You verify the output. | Everyone, daily | Tasks, approvals & review gates · proactive agent coworkers · auditable routines & workflows · verify from diffs, screenshots & tests |
| Org Chart for Agents — Roles, permissions & boundaries for humans and agents. | Managers | Mixed human + agent org chart · responsibilities, delegation, specialization · governance: who can do what · scoped secrets & company boundaries · connection permissions & responsible-user identities |
| Agent Employee Training — Design, train & evaluate your AI employees. | Enablers | Skill Studio & shared org-wide skills · evals & saved test runs · active learning loops & quality metrics · performance reviews for agents · saved test inputs · skill version history & restore · reusable team templates |
| Agentic OS — The infrastructure that makes the work run. | IT & platform | Cross-provider runtime: any model, any agent · sandboxing, integrations & MCP servers · SSO, GRC, RBAC & cost controls · data privacy, internal trace collection, compounding data value · personal & shared app connections · run history & opt-in tracing |
Features
🔌 Bring Your Own AgentAny agent, any runtime, one org chart. If it can receive a heartbeat, it's hired. |
🎯 Goal AlignmentLink tasks and projects to your organization goals. Agents receive the goal context behind their work. |
💓 HeartbeatsAgents wake for assigned work, follow-up messages, or configured schedules. Delegation flows up and down the org chart. |
💰 Cost ControlCompany, agent, and project budgets. Track reported spend, get threshold alerts, and pause work at configured limits. |
🏢 Multi-OrganizationOne deployment, many organizations. Separate tasks, agents, permissions, and activity histories for each. |
🎫 Task ThreadsKeep conversations, plans, blockers, files, and run history attached to the work. Assign tasks to agents or people. |
🛡️ GovernanceConfigure review and approval stages, approve hires, and pause, reassign, or stop work when needed. |
📊 Org ChartHierarchies, roles, reporting lines. Your agents have a boss, a title, and a job description. |
📱 Mobile ReadyMonitor and manage your autonomous businesses from anywhere. |
🔗 Apps & ConnectionsConnect services such as GitHub, Notion, and Railway, or your own MCP server. Set gateway actions to Allowed, Ask first, or Off. |
👥 Shared Agents, Personal AccountsChoose who can use a connection and which agents can access it. Managed GitHub operations can use the account of the person directing the work. |
🧠 Skills & Skill StudioInstall or write shared skills, test them with saved inputs, inspect results, and restore earlier versions. |
📅 Scheduled RoutinesRun recurring work on a schedule or trigger it through an API or webhook. Each run has a task, an owner, and a history. |
📎 Artifacts & FeedbackFind the files and documents agents produce. Preview supported formats and leave comments on specific passages in documents. |
📦 Ready-Made TeamsPreview and install teams with roles, skills, projects, and routines. Choose their runtimes and make the setup your own. |
Experimental Agent Chat and chat/email connectors add conversations with agents in Paperclip and through configured services such as Slack, Discord, Telegram, and AgentMail. Enable the relevant instance settings to try them.
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. | ✅ Spend tracking, budget alerts, and automatic pauses help you control the cost of ongoing work. |
| ❌ You have recurring jobs (customer support, social, reports) and have to remember to manually kick them off. | ✅ Routines create assigned tasks on a schedule, with outputs and run history you can inspect. |
| ❌ 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 task checkout. | A single assignee and execution locks prevent competing runs from claiming the same task. |
| Persistent work context. | Tasks, comments, and documents stay in Paperclip. Supporting adapters resume saved sessions across runs. |
| 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. |
| Accountable connections. | Human access, agent eligibility, and gateway action permissions are separate controls. Approve a call once or save a revocable rule. |
| Goal-aware execution. | Linked tasks and projects carry goal ancestry so agents see the "why," not just a title. |
| Portable company templates. | Export/import orgs, agents, and skills with secret scrubbing and collision handling. |
| Organization boundaries. | Company-scoped access checks keep each organization's work, agents, and activity separate within one deployment. |
What's Under the Hood
Paperclip is a full control plane, not a wrapper. Before you build any of this yourself, know that it already exists:
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ PAPERCLIP SERVER │
│ │
│ ┌───────────┐ ┌───────────┐ ┌───────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │
│ │Identity & │ │ Work & │ │ Heartbeat │ │Governance │ │
│ │ Access │ │ Tasks │ │ Execution │ │& Approvals│ │
│ └───────────┘ └───────────┘ └───────────┘ └───────────┘ │
│ │
│ ┌───────────┐ ┌───────────┐ ┌───────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │
│ │ Org Chart │ │Workspaces │ │ Plugins │ │ Budget │ │
│ │ & Agents │ │ & Runtime │ │ │ │ & Costs │ │
│ └───────────┘ └───────────┘ └───────────┘ └───────────┘ │
│ │
│ ┌───────────┐ ┌───────────┐ ┌───────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │
│ │ Routines │ │ Secrets & │ │ Activity │ │ Company │ │
│ │& Schedules│ │ Storage │ │ & Events │ │Portability│ │
│ └───────────┘ └───────────┘ └───────────┘ └───────────┘ │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
▲ ▲ ▲ ▲
┌─────┴─────┐ ┌─────┴─────┐ ┌─────┴─────┐ ┌─────┴─────┐
│ Claude │ │ Codex │ │ CLI │ │ HTTP/web │
│ Code │ │ │ │ agents │ │ bots │
└───────────┘ └───────────┘ └───────────┘ └───────────┘
The Systems
|
Identity & Access — Two deployment modes (trusted local or authenticated), human roles and permissions, agent API keys, short-lived run JWTs, company memberships, and invite flows. Responsible-user attribution follows work through delegation and supported managed connections. |
Org Chart & Agents — Agents have roles, titles, reporting lines, permissions, and budgets. Adapter examples match the diagram: Claude Code, Codex, CLI agents such as Cursor/Gemini/bash, HTTP/webhook bots such as OpenClaw, and external adapter plugins. If it can receive a heartbeat, it's hired. |
|
Work & Task System — Issues carry company/project/goal/parent links, atomic checkout with execution locks, first-class blocker dependencies, comments, documents, attachments, work products, labels, and inbox state. Search across work, review document revisions, and leave anchored feedback. |
Heartbeat Execution — DB-backed wakeup queue with coalescing, budget checks, workspace resolution, secret injection, skill loading, and adapter invocation. Runs produce logs, usage records, and adapter-specific session state. Bounded recovery handles supported failures and surfaces cases that need human action. |
|
Workspaces & Runtime — Project repositories and workspaces, optional isolated execution workspaces (git worktrees, operator branches), and runtime services (dev servers, preview URLs). Sandbox providers extend execution beyond the local host; availability depends on the configured environment and adapter. |
Governance & Approvals — Board approval workflows, execution policies with review/approval stages, decision tracking, budget hard-stops, and agent pause/resume/terminate. Configured task reviews govern completion; connection action approvals govern calls through the tool gateway. |
|
Budget & Cost Control — Token and cost tracking by company, agent, project, goal, issue, provider, and model. Scoped budget policies with warning thresholds and hard stops. Enforcement uses recorded spend; usage reporting and in-flight work can delay a stop. |
Routines & Schedules — Recurring tasks with cron, webhook, and API triggers. Concurrency and catch-up policies. Each routine execution creates a tracked issue and wakes the assigned agent — no manual kick-offs needed. |
|
Plugins — Instance-wide plugin system with out-of-process workers, capability-gated host services, job scheduling, tool exposure, and UI contributions. Extend Paperclip without forking it. |
Secrets & Storage — Company secrets and per-person secret values, encrypted credential storage, local or S3-compatible file storage, attachments, and work products. Secret references supply credentials to authorized runs without copying values into ordinary agent configuration. |
|
Activity & Events — Mutating actions, heartbeat state changes, cost events, approvals, comments, and work products are recorded as durable activity so operators can audit what happened and why. |
Company Portability — Preview, export, and import organization packages with agents, skills, and optional projects, routines, tasks, and attachments. Referenced secret values are omitted; review packages before sharing because plain environment values and local paths can remain. Packages share an operating setup; full-instance recovery uses backups. |
What Paperclip is not
| Not just a chatbot. | Conversations stay attached to tasks, plans, decisions, and outputs. Experimental Agent Chat can hand work off to assigned tasks. |
| 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 just a workflow builder. | Routines operate within an organization, with roles, goals, budgets, and governance. |
| Not a prompt manager. | Agents bring their own prompts, models, and runtimes. Paperclip manages the organization they work in. |
| Not limited to one agent. | Start with one agent and grow into a team with shared skills, delegation, and review. |
| Not only for code review. | Coding and PR review fit alongside research, operations, content, and other work. |
Quickstart
Open source. Self-hosted. No Paperclip account required. Follow the guided quickstart to set up your first agent.
Just ask your agent to install Paperclip
Share the installation guide with your agent.
Or install it yourself
With Node.js 24.11 or newer installed:
npx paperclipai@latest onboard --yes
The CLI runs from npm's cache; your instance configuration and data persist locally.
See the installation guide for managed installs, pinned versions, canary and git-ref installs, updates, rollback, service management, and uninstalling.
For an isolated manual test instance that is already initialized with a CEO
agent, use test-drive. It stays in the foreground, never installs a service
or creates a first task, and opens the browser only after setup succeeds:
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=... npx paperclipai test-drive
OPENAI_API_KEY=... npx paperclipai test-drive --harness codex
OPENROUTER_API_KEY=... npx paperclipai test-drive \
--harness opencode \
--model openrouter/anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5
Each run without --data-dir gets a unique, retained temporary directory; its
absolute path is printed at startup. Pass --data-dir to reuse one, or
--no-browser to leave the initialized instance unopened. When invoked from a
linked Git worktree, test-drive also enables task execution in that worktree.
See the test-drive guide for credential and
reuse behavior.
Troubleshooting: private npm registry
.npmrcIf this fails with an
E404forpaperclipai(or similar) and you use a private npm registry (for example GitHub Packages) via a global~/.npmrc,npxmay be resolvingpaperclipaiagainst that private registry instead of the public npm registry.Diagnostic:
npm config get registryWorkaround (cross-platform; force the public npm registry for this command):
npx --registry https://registry.npmjs.org paperclipai@latest onboard --yes
That quickstart path now defaults to trusted local loopback mode for the fastest first run. To start in authenticated/private mode instead, choose a bind preset explicitly:
npx paperclipai@latest onboard --yes --bind lan
# or:
npx paperclipai@latest onboard --yes --bind tailnet
If you already have Paperclip configured, rerunning onboard keeps the existing config in place. Use npx paperclipai configure to edit settings.
Or manually:
git clone https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip.git
cd paperclip
pnpm install
pnpm dev
This starts the UI and API at http://localhost:3100. An embedded PostgreSQL database is created automatically — no setup required.
Requirements: Node.js 24.11+, pnpm 9.15+
Local Claude and Codex subscription sign-in also needs Python 3 and the corresponding provider CLI on the Paperclip host. The Docker image includes them.
Source development also builds the native Paperclip Runner when enabled (the self-hosted default). Install a Rust toolchain, or set PAPERCLIP_RUNNER_BINARY to a compatible prebuilt runner.
FAQ
Q: Is this project maintained or just slop?
A: Paperclip is maintained by the Paperclip team. We've merged over 2,700 pull requests.
Q: What does a typical setup look like?
A: 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.
For remote access, use authenticated mode with a private-network bind such as Tailscale, or deploy the persistent server with Docker. See deployment modes and the Docker guide.
Q: Can I run multiple companies?
A: Yes. A single deployment can host multiple organizations with company-scoped data and access checks.
Q: How is Paperclip different from agents like OpenClaw or Claude Code?
A: Paperclip uses those agents. It orchestrates them into a company — with org charts, budgets, goals, governance, and accountability.
Q: Why should I use Paperclip instead of just pointing my OpenClaw to Asana or Trello?
A: 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)
Q: Do agents run continuously?
A: Agents wake for assigned work and follow-up messages. Optional timer heartbeats let them check for work periodically; routines create recurring tasks on their own schedules. You can also connect externally running agents such as OpenClaw. A mention alone does not assign work or wake another agent.
Development
pnpm dev # Full dev (API + UI, watch mode)
pnpm dev:once # Full dev without file watching
pnpm dev:server # Server only
pnpm dev:mobile # Serve prebuilt UI on :3101 for phones/tablets (proxies /api → :3100)
pnpm dev:both # Run `pnpm dev` and `pnpm dev:mobile` together
pnpm build # Build all
pnpm typecheck # Type checking
pnpm test # Cheap default test run (Vitest only)
pnpm test:watch # Vitest watch mode
pnpm test:e2e # Playwright browser suite
pnpm db:generate # Generate DB migration
pnpm db:migrate # Apply migrations
pnpm test does not run Playwright. Browser suites stay separate and are typically run only when working on those flows or in CI.
See 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, Skill Studio & Skills Store
- ✅ Scheduled Routines
- ✅ Better Budgeting
- ✅ Agent Reviews and Approvals
- ✅ Multiple Human Users
- ✅ Cloud / Sandbox agents (e2b, Cloudflare, Daytona, Modal, Novita, self-hosted Kubernetes)
- ✅ Artifacts & Work Products
- ✅ Deep Planning (planning mode, revisioned plans, plan approvals)
- ✅ Enforced Outcomes (watchdogs, recovery actions, review gates)
- ✅ MCP Tool Gateway & Apps (governed tool access)
- ✅ Secrets Manager with per-agent access
- ✅ Activity log & action attribution
- ✅ Self-healing runs & automatic recovery
- ✅ Agent evals & feedback
- ✅ Connected Apps
- ✅ Personal & Shared AI Accounts
- ✅ Shared Agents Use Personal GitHub Identities
- ✅ Skill Version History & Restore
- ✅ Document Comments & Revision History
- ✅ Company-Wide Search
- ✅ Multi-Model & Multi-Harness Teams
- 🟡 Memory / Knowledge
- ⚪ MAXIMIZER MODE
- ⚪ Work Queues
- ⚪ Self-Organization
- ⚪ Automatic Organizational Learning
- 🟡 Agent Chat
- 🟡 Cloud deployments
- ⚪ Desktop App
- ⚪ Bring-your-own-ticket-system (Asana / Linear / Jira as on-ramps)
This is the short roadmap preview. See the full roadmap in ROADMAP.md.
Community & Plugins
Find Plugins and more at awesome-paperclip
Observability
Paperclip ships with opt-in OpenTelemetry auto-instrumentation for the server (traces only). It activates when OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT is set and supports grpc, http/protobuf, and http/json via the standard OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL env var. @opentelemetry/api is a normal server dependency; the SDK, auto-instrumentation, and exporter packages are optional peer dependencies — install them only if you want tracing. See doc/observability.md for install commands and the full env-var reference.
Paperclip also ships with opt-in Sentry error monitoring for the server and the browser. Set SENTRY_DSN_FRONTEND to activate it for the browser and SENTRY_DSN_BACKEND to activate it for the server — each variable is optional, and the legacy SENTRY_DSN variable still works as a fallback for either component. The supported server SDK version is @sentry/node@10.71.0; it is an optional peer dependency for the server, so install it only if you want error monitoring. The browser SDK, @sentry/browser, is pinned to the same exact version. See doc/observability.md for the install command, the privacy settings, and the full default capture set.
Telemetry
Paperclip collects anonymous usage telemetry to help us understand how the product is used and improve it. No personal information, issue content, prompts, file paths, or secrets are ever collected. Private repository references are hashed with a per-install salt before being sent.
Contributors changing emitted telemetry events should follow the Telemetry Data Contract. For proposed first-party events that are not in the generated contract yet, follow Telemetry Workflow.
Telemetry is enabled by default and can be disabled with any of the following:
| Method | How |
|---|---|
| Environment variable | PAPERCLIP_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=1 |
| Standard convention | DO_NOT_TRACK=1 |
| CI environments | Automatically disabled when CI=true |
| Config file | Set telemetry.enabled: false in your Paperclip config |
Contributing
We welcome contributions. See the contributing guide for details.
Community
- Discord — Join the community
- Twitter / X — Follow updates and announcements
- GitHub Issues — bugs and feature requests
- GitHub Discussions — ideas and RFC
License
MIT © 2026 Paperclip Labs, Inc
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Open source under MIT. Built for people who want to get work done, not babysit agents.