Overview
Assistant is a self-hostable engine for assistants that work with your files and tools — profiles, custom tools, skills and APIs, with builder and deployment conventions.
Developer preview · MIT · v0.6.37 (8 October 2026)
Build your assistant, not its infrastructure.
Assistant is a self-hostable engine for assistants that work with your files and tools — not just your questions. Build an application with profiles, custom tools, skills and your own domain rules, and reuse shared agent execution, persistence, HTTP APIs and model-provider integrations. Operate the runtime yourself, on your machine or your own server.
A finished native product is a separate future goal on the same engine; macOS product work is currently parked.
Who owns what
| Role | Responsibility |
|---|---|
| Platform maintainers | The shared engine, extension and API interfaces, tested examples, documentation — and the platform gaps that adoption surfaces. |
| Application builders | Profiles, custom tools, skills, authored ontology and metrics, source mappings, deterministic domain safeguards, and representative tests. |
| Deployment teams | Installation, runtime placement, identity and accounts, credentials, permissions, data paths, networking, budgets, observability, backups and recovery. |
One team may fill multiple roles. The project provides the engine, documented conventions and worked examples — not a managed identity, hosting or fleet service.
Engine capabilities
| What | How |
|---|---|
| Chat & History | Session history, streaming responses and configurable memory/search. |
| Application Content | Package PROFILE.md, custom TOOL.md tools and SKILL.md skills; retain authored domain rules and ontology. |
| Web Research | Search the web, scrape pages, crawl documentation. Ask a question and get an answer with sources. |
| Files | Read, write, edit files in your workspace. Version history for every change. |
| Skills | Load specialized skill packs for specific tasks — browser automation, code review, debugging, and more. |
| Subagents | Create specialized mini-assistants that work on tasks in parallel. |
| App Builder | Build simple database apps with structured data and hybrid search. |
| Browser Automation | Control a browser to fill forms, take screenshots, test web apps, or automate logins. |
| MCP Integration | Connect any Model Context Protocol server to add custom tools. |
| Native Experiment | Existing Zig + Native SDK macOS client (native-sdk-experiment/); not a finished distributed product or proof of remote-instance interoperability. |
Availability depends on deployment policy, credentials and optional dependencies. The legacy built-in email, contacts and todos families and their APIs have been removed (breaking change); existing data is retained unread, not migrated or deleted. Generic structured apps and optional starter templates remain — ConnectKit stays a general integration seam, and there is no first-party mail replacement.
Start here
- Quickstart — install from source with uv, or run the published container.
- Deployment guide — topologies, isolation status, authentication, backups and known gaps.
- Docker deployment — the multi-user trusted deployment recipe.
- Builder & deployer guide — packaging conventions and the adoption checklist.
- Synthetic Jen reference — an executable local example, not a production deployment.
What this is not
- Not a managed identity, hosting or fleet service.
- Not hostile-tenant isolation in one shared server — see the isolation status.
- Not a finished native macOS distribution — the client is an experiment.
- Not a security certification: no SOC 2, ISO 27001 or HIPAA/BAA support. Do not put regulated data in it yet.
Source of truth for this page: Assistant · open-assistants-lab/assistant