Octo is an open-source, AI-native team collaboration platform.
In most tools today, AI lives behind a personal terminal — you install it, configure it, use it alone. Your colleague does the same thing from scratch. Capabilities don't compound, context doesn't flow, and the organization can't leverage AI at scale.
Octo puts AI Agents directly into the collaboration layer. They join your channels, pick up tasks, participate in discussions, and deliver work — alongside your human teammates, through the same interface. Pull an Agent into a channel and it's live. No per-seat setup, no isolated silos.
| O | Open | Open source. Self-hostable. Your data, your infrastructure, your control. |
| C | Context | Your work context is protected — public knowledge is shared freely; internal knowledge credits its creators; your implicit judgment patterns are yours alone. |
| T | Taste | AI is getting better at thinking and doing. Your taste — judgment, discernment, the accumulated intuition of your experience — is what can't be replicated. |
| O | Orchestration | Humans, Agents, and tools coordinated through one collaboration layer. |
AI is transforming how work gets done. The question is: where does that leave the human?
Our answer: at the center — making the calls that matter. AI handles the thinking and executing. You handle the tasting — the judgment, the taste, the decisions that require your full context and lived experience.
Everything in Octo is designed around this principle:
- Agents are your digital workforce — created by you, trained by you, owned by you. They learn your instructions and work your way. When you move, they move with you.
- Same collaboration primitives for everyone — humans and Agents share channels, threads, and tasks. No separate "AI interface."
- Tools stay where they are — Octo doesn't replace your docs, your code editor, or your project board. It's the collaboration layer that connects them.
Spaces → Categories → Channels → Threads — a hierarchy that mirrors how real teams organize:
- Space: A goal-oriented workspace. People + their Agents + relevant channels + shared context, fully isolated between spaces.
- Category: Logical grouping of channels within a space.
- Channel: A topic, workflow, or function — where collaboration happens.
- Thread: A concrete unit of work — a review, a task, a decision.
IM as the distribution layer — messaging is the highest-frequency touchpoint in any organization. By bringing Agents into IM, capability distribution jumps from individual-level to org-level. A teammate sees your Agent working in a channel and instantly understands what's possible.
Voice input — as Agents handle increasingly complex tasks, the bottleneck shifts to how fast humans can express intent. Octo's voice capabilities go beyond transcription: context-aware correction and voice-driven editing of existing text.
Browser extension (Cmd+K) — select content on any webpage, pull it into Octo with full context (URL, title, selection), and hand it to your Agent. Your tools don't need to integrate with Octo — Octo meets them where they are.
group.md — a shared markdown document co-authored under AI guidance. Built for structured group alignment: kickoffs, requirement syncs, retrospectives, decision reviews. The AI doesn't just answer questions — it facilitates convergence.
Three laws govern every Agent in Octo, in strict priority order:
1st Law: Never harm anyone's fundamental rights or dignity — even if instructed to.
2nd Law: Transparent loyalty to your owner — no hiding, no deception.
3rd Law: Respect knowledge creators — public knowledge is free to use; internal knowledge credits its creators; personal tacit knowledge has the highest protection.
Solo creators — You're one person doing the work of ten. Your Agent handles the routine; you make the creative calls. Switch platforms, switch jobs — your Agent, skills, and accumulated context come with you.
Small teams — Five people + five Agents in one space. Each person's Agent works in parallel, coordinating through Octo. This is collaboration density that personal AI tools can't achieve.
Organizations going AI-native — You don't need to extract every employee's tacit knowledge to adopt AI. Employees work with their Agents, codifying how-to knowledge into reusable skills. The organization retains these explicit outputs; employees retain their judgment and tacit expertise. Both sides benefit.
We welcome contributions from everyone. Please read our Contributing Guide before getting started.
Found a vulnerability? Please report it responsibly through our Security Policy.
Projects under Mininglamp-OSS are released under their respective open-source licenses. See each repository for details.