Nicky LeachandPaperclip
493e229d93
## Thinking Path > - Paperclip manages AI agents and their task execution. > - Runner checks qualified native programs before it starts a provider. > - Installation checks and command opening can hash the same program again. > - A new sidecar process repeats this work on a later warm task. > - This pull request stores the computed digest in a private filesystem cache. > - Every cache hit still checks the independently selected trusted digest and current file metadata. > - An unchanged program can start without another full native file read. ## Linked Issues or Issue Description **What existing behavior does this improve?** Repeated **qualified ACPX** native executable admission in Runner. Claude, ACPX-Codex, and Grok use this verifier in both Core-owned and plugin-backed launches. The ordinary native Codex app-server launcher is a different path and is not changed. A retained provider that opens no new native command has no saved hash work here. The measured Claude task path does not require a comment backlog. **Current behavior** Installation verification and final command opening each read and hash the native executable. The qualified Linux x64 Claude file is 241,667,256 bytes. A new verification and command lease reads 483,334,512 native bytes. Another Node process repeats both reads. **Proposed behavior** Store the actual computed SHA-256 digest by device, inode, size, nanosecond modification time, and nanosecond change time. Reuse it across Runner and sidecar processes. Compare each hit with the current build-owned digest. Hash the file on a miss or changed identity. This replaces the earlier Claude-only deferral design in this same PR. **Reason and benefit** The first verification and command lease reads the native file once. Later processes read none of its native bytes while its identity stays the same. Related: #16372 established qualified executable admission. This change is independent of other preparation PRs. It does not change provider pins or profile versions. ## What Changed - Add a shared filesystem digest cache under the absolute OS temporary root at `paperclip-runner-<uid>/executable-digests-v1`. - Use private directories and files, versioned hash-only filenames, bounded JSON entries, and atomic temporary-file replacement. Cache files contain a version and the computed digest. They contain no credentials or source paths. - Fall back to full hashing when the cache is missing, unreadable, malformed, or unusable. Keep current expected-digest selection outside the cache. - Keep cache data outside task homes. Neither `HOME` nor task cwd selects the path. The OS temporary-root selection honors absolute platform `TMPDIR`, `TMP`, or `TEMP` overrides. A relative root disables caching. Hosts must keep that root outside task workspaces. Temp cleanup causes a later rehash. - Keep the no-follow executable open, regular-file and size checks, execute permission, descriptor ownership, before/after identity checks, and preparation-to-launch identity comparison. Cache publication occurs before the final identity checks. - Use this path for standalone installation checks and final command opening. Remove the earlier pending-digest type and Claude-only launch helper. Runtime host and profile selection keep their original structure. - Test changed content, all fingerprint fields, symlinks, mode changes, inode replacement, mutation during lookup/publication, concurrent cache writers, wrong trusted pins, and cache failures. - Include a deliberate trust-boundary test: a process running as the same OS user can plant a matching cached digest for changed bytes. It opens a test descriptor and executes nothing. In plain language: Runner remembers the hash for the same file. It still checks which file it opened and which hash the build requires. The cache trusts the OS user who can write it. ## Verification From `packages/paperclip-runner`: - `../../node_modules/.bin/vitest run src/drivers/acpx/executable-digest-cache.test.ts src/drivers/acpx/installation-integrity.test.ts src/drivers/acpx/runtime-host.test.ts` — 177 passed, 6 platform-specific skips. - `../../node_modules/.bin/tsc -p tsconfig.json --noEmit` — passed. - `git diff --check` and the added-line secret, PII, private-address, and code-comment scan — passed. The offline comparison uses baseline `45a3a92e6dc52d20923b9aa34a22fee2ec5443f9` and treatment `c4356df12032448de90516ae329d8f939af10984`. Each sample starts a different Node process. Each normal sample runs the actual qualified installation verifier and opens a command lease. Seven samples per case follow one warmup. The cache is removed before each cold case. The next process reuses its entry. Baseline order alternates around the treatment pair. Command digest and package paths match in every pair. | Verifier plus command opening | Baseline | Cold cache | Later process hit | | --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | | Full native reads | 2 | 1 | 0 | | Native bytes read | 483,334,512 | 241,667,256 | 0 | | Local median, ms | 1041.26 | 602.70 | 130.17 | | Local range, ms | 994.20–1133.11 | 580.27–999.83 | 121.96–179.45 | | Median whole child process, ms | 1379.96 | 988.75 | 523.01 | Raw verifier-plus-open samples in ms: - Baseline: 1133.11, 1074.40, 1061.99, 1041.26, 994.20, 1036.12, 1037.70. - Cold: 647.13, 646.33, 999.83, 584.83, 580.27, 583.37, 602.70. - Later process hit: 179.45, 138.37, 134.39, 130.17, 121.96, 122.33, 126.68. Separate direct-opener fault probes use a disposable copy of that same native file: | Change | Native bytes read | Result | Local open, ms | | --- | ---: | --- | ---: | | First copied file | 241,667,256 | Accepted | 526.14 | | Next process, different HOME and task cwd | 0 | Accepted | 24.91 | | Changed timestamps | 241,667,256 | Accepted after hashing | 531.40 | | New inode, identical bytes | 241,667,256 | Accepted after hashing | 536.70 | | Corrupt byte, same size and exactly restored mtime | 241,667,256 | Rejected | Whole process: 841.36 | | Different independent trusted pin | 0 | Rejected | Whole process: 374.76 | The corruption probe keeps `mtimeNs` exactly equal before and after, at `1000000000000000000`. Its changed `ctimeNs` invalidates the entry. Cache expiry is not required. The changed-pin probe rejects the old actual digest without a native read. The cached image is `sha256:99ce80690a0c13328f41fd84156cc73e1ac562eaed3120fd41d04d7acdfb325d`. The Node binary is `/opt/paperclip/runner/libexec/node`, version `v24.20.0`. The artifact is Claude SDK `0.3.286`, with expected digest `sha256:fe503f65c6289d59c23e5b21ae44f03583f997dd33a2cbfc75ab4f96fb8fc73f`. The container used a read-only root, a disposable writable tmpfs, and disabled network. No provider process, model request, credential, or deployment was used. **These elapsed values are diagnostics from Linux x64 CPU emulation on an ARM64 Docker host. They are not production latency or TTFT estimates.** The exact byte counts, cross-process reuse, output equality, and invalidation results are the portable evidence. The saved phase 0 exports have no directly comparable native executable hashing span. Their broad `runner.transport.attach` spans include other work. A production comparison within 20% is therefore unavailable for this seam. The earlier local 919 ms control was also an emulation diagnostic; it is not a production baseline. The initial Docker attempt was denied access to the local socket by the sandbox. The same offline command then ran with local socket permission. An initial fault probe restored mtime through a `Date`, which did not prove exact nanosecond equality. Its raw report is retained as historical; the final probe sets and verifies an exact mtime before and after corruption. The prior Claude-only implementation and its checks and measurements remain historical evidence. They do not qualify this replacement. The superseded home-directory cache head had one browser recovery test timeout in its GitHub workflow. It expected a saved title after session recovery. The failure is retained. No browser code was changed; the current head reruns CI after moving the cache outside task homes. No full local CI suite was run, as requested. GitHub CI supplies full regression coverage. Current head `c4356df12032448de90516ae329d8f939af10984` passed the complete [GitHub workflow](https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip/actions/runs/41145223331), including all browser shards. Its latest checks have 56 successes and 2 intended skips, including both security scans started when the PR became ready. Standard Greptile reviewed this exact head at 5/5 with no open findings. Apex then reviewed the same head at 5/5 under the documented OS-user trust policy. It reported no new findings. There are no unresolved review threads. The PR is ready for review and remains unmerged. ## Risks - This deliberately weakens protection against the same OS user. That user can write the cache and can plant a chosen digest for a file fingerprint. A cache hit trusts that record; metadata identity is not a fresh content hash. The explicit fault test documents this accepted policy. - A read-only administrator-owned Runner can use this user-writable cache. The cache has no signature, secret, or daemon. It does not require a Launcher or ROM change. - Other users cannot use normal cache permissions to write these entries. Cache errors fall back to hashing. Removing the cache directory restores full hashing. Old fingerprints leave small unused entries until the cache is removed or OS temp cleanup evicts it. Temp eviction costs one later full hash. - A changed file normally rehashes. A digest that differs from the independent current pin still fails admission. Existing command, package, credential, process-lifetime, and final dispatch checks remain. - No schema, public protocol, package dependency, profile version, or provider pin changes. ## Model Used OpenAI Codex, GPT-6 family, with reasoning, code editing, test execution, and tool use. This session does not expose a more precise serving model ID or context-window capacity. ## Checklist - [x] I have included a thinking path that traces from project context to this change - [x] I have specified the model used with the details available to this session - [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 described the issue in-PR following the enhancement template - [x] I have not referenced internal or instance-local Paperclip issues or links - [x] My branch name describes the change and contains no internal ticket ID - [x] The targeted local tests pass; the full local suite was not run as requested - [x] I have added or updated tests where applicable - [x] I have updated relevant documentation - [x] I have considered and documented risks - [x] All Paperclip CI gates are green for the replacement head - [x] Standard Greptile is 5/5 with no open findings for the replacement head - [x] Apex is 5/5 on the current head with no unresolved findings - [x] I will address review findings before requesting merge --------- Co-authored-by: Paperclip <noreply@paperclip.ing>
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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, boxd, 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.