2026-10-12 18:55 UTC

AgenticOS’s maintainers claim their released self-hosted control plane unifies configurable agents, scheduled execution, pre-call budget checks, action approvals, and audit records on Docker and Postgres, potentially replacing bespoke company-level agent governance infrastructure.

state: seedheat: lowuncertainty: highknownscott: lowagent-harnesses agent-orchestration agent-governancevstorm-co

What is this?

The supplied case identifies AgenticOS with vstorm-co and describes a Show HN announcement for an open-source, self-hosted control plane to build, run, and govern company AI agents. Its maintainers reportedly claim configurable agents, scheduled execution, pre-call budget checks, action approvals, and audit records on Docker and Postgres. None of the supplied web snippets directly covers this project: they describe other governance products and control-plane arguments, including a separate Leah AgenticOS from ContractPodAi. Consequently, these results do not verify the project's release, implementation, or ability to replace bespoke governance infrastructure.

Why it matters to Scott

The claimed bundle repeats capabilities already represented in Scott’s Paperclip page and positions held in Deterministic agent control plane and Autonomy Budget; the radar also tracks related budget-and-approval infrastructure in charter-durable-agent-control-plane, though no supplied hit tracks AgenticOS itself. The supplied material does not verify independent enforcement, operational maturity, or replacement economics, so it establishes neither a reason to change Scott’s build-versus-buy decisions nor a consequential new endorsement of his governance architecture.
dev:technology.paperclipdev:concept.deterministic-agent-control-planeip:concept.autonomy-budgetip:framework.don-t-buy-software-build-airadar:charter-durable-agent-control-planeradar:tokenops-whole-run-budgetradar:concept.agent-governance
queries asked of Scott's wikis
  • agent harness build versus buy shared control plane
  • runtime policy enforcement versus prompt guardrails
  • agent budgets pre-call cost checks scheduled execution
  • human approval gates tool permissions audit trails
  • self-hosted agent orchestration Docker Postgres

Measured heat

now 0 pts/hpeak 0 pts/hcomments 0/hpeers p50momentum: steady2 platformsage 667h
points/hour across evidence · reading as of 2026-10-13 05:35:48.225472+11:00 · deterministic, not a model opinion

How the heat travelled

09-14 23:22 (minted)⭐ origin echo-reconstructedAgenticOS presents itself as an open-source, self-hosted place to build, run, and govern company agents, with configurable skills and contex
vstorm-co on github (echo) · attributed from hn.story.49705577 · published time unknown
—
09-14 23:16first on hacker news · published · lag ?Show HN: An open-source control plane for your company's AI agents
outageroom
—
09-14 23:16amplified on hacker news 👑hn.story.49705577
outageroom
peak 3 · 0 comments · 27% of case engagement
09-16 15:27amplified on hacker newshn.story.49728525
tomislavs
peak 2 · 0 comments · 18% of case engagement
09-19 16:37amplified on hacker newshn.story.49767956
scubagraham
peak 2 · 0 comments · 18% of case engagement
09-20 19:07amplified on hacker newshn.story.49778923
mmeyerlein
peak 1 · 1 comments · 18% of case engagement
09-22 13:12amplified on hacker newshn.story.49800747
offaxis
peak 1 · 0 comments · 10% of case engagement
09-24 17:22amplified on hacker newshn.story.49833885
mangatgoyal
peak 1 · 0 comments · 10% of case engagement
09-14 23:20our radar first saw it · lag ?discovery anchor: hn.story.49705577—
pace: p43 vs 1037 stories at the 336h mark (now 667h old) — ahead of anthropic-meta-lawsuit (1.2x), behind legion-elixir-lua-agent-sandbox (0.9x)

Evidence (7) — ⭐ canonical anchor

sourceobjectauthorscorecomments
🟧 hnShow HN: An open-source control plane for your company's AI agents
Retrieved article excerpt

Open article · Retrieved 2026-09-14T23:21:51.228307+00:00

[Amigo, the AgenticOS pet](https://github.com/vstorm-co/agenticos/blob/main/docs/assets/amigo.svg)

# AgenticOS

**One place to build, run and govern your company's AI agents.**  
Self-hosted and open source — on your Postgres, in your Docker, under your
domain.  
The OS in the name is a claim we make good on: [seven functions, seven mechanisms](https://github.com/vstorm-co/agenticos#the-best-agentic-os-you-can-run-yourself).

[Quick start](https://github.com/vstorm-co/agenticos#-quick-start) ·
[Screens](https://github.com/vstorm-co/agenticos#what-it-looks-like) ·
[Presentation](https://vstorm-co.github.io/agenticos/presentation/) ·
[Docs](https://github.com/vstorm-co/agenticos/blob/main/docs/index.md) ·
[Why an OS](https://github.com/vstorm-co/agenticos#the-best-agentic-os-you-can-run-yourself) ·
[Comparison](https://github.com/vstorm-co/agenticos#compared-with-the-alternatives)

[CI](https://github.com/vstorm-co/agenticos/actions/workflows/ci.yml)
[Release](https://github.com/vstorm-co/agenticos/releases)
[Coverage](https://github.com/vstorm-co/agenticos/blob/main/docs/testing.md)
[Licence](https://github.com/vstorm-co/agenticos/blob/main/LICENSE)
[Pydantic AI](https://ai.pydantic.dev)
[Stars](https://github.com/vstorm-co/agenticos/stargazers)

**English** ·
[Polski](https://github.com/vstorm-co/agenticos/blob/main/README.pl.md) ·
[Deutsch](https://github.com/vstorm-co/agenticos/blob/main/README.de.md) ·
[Español](https://github.com/vstorm-co/agenticos/blob/main/README.es.md)

---

A company ends up with agents in five places and cannot answer four questions:
**what do we run, what did it cost, what did it touch, and who said it could.**
AgenticOS is one place to build them and one set of books for all of them.

**The harness, as a product**: skills, context files — `AGENTS.md` as a page —
MCP at registry scale, automations on a schedule or a trigger, and a budget that
stops a run *before* the model call.

Below: a spreadsheet dropped into the chat, one sentence asking for charts. The
agent writes the code, runs it in a locked box, and answers.

chat-live-demo-master.mp4

[
](https://private-user-images.githubusercontent.com/111304236/644352901-9a8e0f44-781c-4f93-990d-b5b7094cc8fc.mp4?jwt=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpc3MiOiJnaXRodWIuY29tIiwiYXVkIjoicmF3LmdpdGh1YnVzZXJjb250ZW50LmNvbSIsImtleSI6ImtleTUiLCJleHAiOjE3ODk0Mjg0MTAsIm5iZiI6MTc4OTQyODExMCwicGF0aCI6Ii8xMTEzMDQyMzYvNjQ0MzUyOTAxLTlhOGUwZjQ0LTc4MWMtNGY5My05OTBkLWI1YjcwOTRjYzhmYy5tcDQ_WC1BbXotQWxnb3JpdGhtPUFXUzQtSE1BQy1TSEEyNTYmWC1BbXotQ3JlZGVudGlhbD1BS0lBVkNPRFlMU0E1M1BRSzRaQSUyRjIwMjYwOTE0JTJGdXMtZWFzdC0xJTJGczMlMkZhd3M0X3JlcXVlc3QmWC1BbXotRGF0ZT0yMDI2MDkxNFQyMzIxNTBaJlgtQW16LUV4cGlyZXM9MzAwJlgtQW16LVNpZ25hdHVyZT0yYmUzYTkwYWVlNGY2OGVjYjE0MGZhN2UzZDljZTdmNzFkZTc3YTEzZGVkNTU5NGUwMjk2MmQ3MjUxOTY1M2VjJlgtQW16LVNpZ25lZEhlYWRlcnM9aG9zdCZyZXNwb25zZS1jb250ZW50LXR5cGU9dmlkZW8lMkZtcDQifQ.ako9pNlR4ALBqxdVsQB1zB3Xg_hC5ZG5oDYjviVPP_s)

And the same console on the desktop, with company: the optional
[desktop app](https://github.com/vstorm-co/agenticos#on-the-desktop-if-you-like), its pet, and a shortcut that screenshots
straight into a new chat.

pet.mp4

[
](https://private-user-images.githubusercontent.com/111304236/648156041-b82867ae-3543-406e-a552-e3a8b61f1d10.mp4?jwt=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpc3MiOiJnaXRodWIuY29tIiwiYXVkIjoicmF3LmdpdGh1YnVzZXJjb250ZW50LmNvbSIsImtleSI6ImtleTUiLCJleHAiOjE3ODk0Mjg0MTAsIm5iZiI6MTc4OTQyODExMCwicGF0aCI6Ii8xMTEzMDQyMzYvNjQ4MTU2MDQxLWI4Mjg2N2FlLTM1NDMtNDA2ZS1hNTUyLWUzYThiNjFmMWQxMC5tcDQ_WC1BbXotQWxnb3JpdGhtPUFXUzQtSE1BQy1TSEEyNTYmWC1BbXotQ3JlZGVudGlhbD1BS0lBVkNPRFlMU0E1M1BRSzRaQSUyRjIwMjYwOTE0JTJGdXMtZWFzdC0xJTJGczMlMkZhd3M0X3JlcXVlc3QmWC1BbXotRGF0ZT0yMDI2MDkxNFQyMzIxNTBaJlgtQW16LUV4cGlyZXM9MzAwJlgtQW16LVNpZ25hdHVyZT0yMDY5Zjc0MDQ4Zjc0NjNmMmJmYTY3NWJjYWIxM2ZmNDliZjkzODJhZjlkZWYyYTQxM2QzNTgxNGIzYWM1OGI0JlgtQW16LVNpZ25lZEhlYWRlcnM9aG9zdCZyZXNwb25zZS1jb250ZW50LXR5cGU9dmlkZW8lMkZtcDQifQ.UHchBXkRdPt5nYXJQ6bVzjfX69AegC2ck4uiydzKlps)

Not a reader? [**The whole thing in twenty slides**](https://vstorm-co.github.io/agenticos/presentation/) — what the problem is, what a spec holds, where it answers, and what it refuses.

## ⚡ Quick start

One command, and Docker is all it needs. It downloads one compose file, pulls the
published images, asks four questions, and hands back a console with a working
agent in it. Nothing leaves your machine.

```
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vstorm-co/agenticos/main/scripts/quickstart.sh | bash
```

**macOS**

Docker Desktop or [OrbStack](https://orbstack.dev). Nothing else.


**Linux**

```
curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh
sudo apt install docker-compose-plugin
```


**Windows**

Through WSL2. In an administrator PowerShell:

```
wsl --install
```

Then Docker Desktop with WSL2 integration on, and run the installer inside the
Ubuntu shell it gives you.

### What it asks

|  |  |
| --- | --- |
| **Which model** | OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, OpenRouter — or *decide later*, which creates everything and lets you paste a key in the console |
| **Your key** | Typed hidden, stored encrypted in your own database, never printed back |
| **Your login and organization name** | Defaults are fine for a look around |
| **One switch** | Mirror the public MCP registry so all 5,802 tool servers are searchable by name |

Add `--check` to only find out what is missing, `--dry-run` to see every command
it would run without running one, or drive it unattended:

```
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vstorm-co/agenticos/main/scripts/quickstart.sh | bash -s -- \
  --yes --provider anthropic --api-key sk-ant-... --org "Acme"
```

### Or type the three commands yourself

The installer is a wrapper around these, and there is no step it takes that you
cannot take by hand:

```
mkdir agenticos && cd agenticos
curl -fsSLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vstorm-co/agenticos/main/docker-compose.yml
docker compose up -d                                          # postgres (pgvector), redis, api, prefect, console
docker compose exec -T -e BOOTSTRAP_API_KEY=sk-... app \
  agenticos cmd bootstrap                                    # an org, an owner, a key, a model, a published agent
open http://localhost:3000                                   # sign in as [email protected] / admin123
```

The images are `ghcr.io/vstorm-co/agenticos-backend` and `agenticos-frontend`,
published for amd64 and arm64 by every release; `AGENTICOS_VERSION=x.y.z` in a
`.env` beside the file pins one. There is no `.env` to write first: every
compose variable has a default. To change the code, `git clone` and `make dev`
instead - a clone builds the same images from the tree.

If something does not come up, `docker compose exec app agenticos cmd doctor`
answers the only question that matters — can this deployment actually run an
agent — and [docs/install.md](https://github.com/vstorm-co/agenticos/blob/main/docs/install.md) has the rest.

## What you get

- 🧰 **The harness, as configuration.** Retrieval over your documents, a real browser,
  Python in a sandbox with files and a shell, charts, images, delegation —
  switched on per agent, not wired into code.
- 📄 **Context files.** `AGENTS.md` and `CLAUDE.md` as a page: standing
  instructions written once, attached to every agent that needs them.
- 🎓 **Skills.** A procedure written once in plain language, loaded when the
  agent decides it is relevant. Edit it; live on the next answer, no release.
- 🔌 **MCP, at registry scale.** **5,802 servers** in the catalogue, searchable
  by name — 99 of them checked by hand with their OAuth wired. Or any URL.
- 📚 **Documents read properly.** Pick the PDF reader per collection, or for one
  file: PyMuPDF built in, LlamaParse where the tables carry the meaning,
  self-hosted LiteParse OCR for scans. Plus how it is split, and OCR language.
- ⏰ **Automations.** Schedules and event triggers — the 07:00 triage, the Monday
  summary. Same limits and same record as anything a person asked for.
- 📡 **One runner, eight surfaces.** Web chat, a hosted page, a widget, the HTTP
  API, a raw WebSocket, Slack, Telegram, Mattermost. Published once.
- 🖥️ **A browser is all it needs; a desktop app if you want one.** The console is
  a web app. The [desktop app](https://github.com/vstorm-co/agenticos/blob/main/docs/desktop.md) is the same console in a window of
  its own - plus a pet on the desktop and a shortcut that screenshots straight into
  a new chat. An add-on, never a requirement.
- 🛡️ **Governed.** Budgets that stop a run before the model request, approval on
  anything side-effecting, an audit trail, tenant isolation in the schema.
- 📊 **A dashboard each person arranges.** 35 cards — runs, spend, service
  health, answer quality, sandbox capacity — each gated on what that reader may
  see. A finance lead and an engineer keep different ones on one deployment.

**Code defines, configuration composes.** A business team assembles agents in a
browser and never opens Python; engineers extend what there is to assemble, and
configuration can only ever reach what code registered. The ceiling is the
registry, not a config file — and it is Apache-2.0, on your hardware.

## What it looks like

### Inside one agent

An agent is a **spec**: instructions, a model, the capabilities it may reach,
the knowledge bound to it, a budget, and where it answers. Nothing ships until
**Publish**, and every publish is a version.

[Defining an agent: instructions, model, and the version that is live](https://github.com/vstorm-co/agenticos/blob/main/docs/assets/screens/dark/builder-build.webp)

|  |  |
| --- | --- |
| **Toolbox** — What the agent may do, as switches — your documents, a browser, Python, charts, delegation. Each one can require a person's approval first. This is the **AI harness**, assembled in a form. [Toolbox](https://github.com/vstorm-co/agenticos/blob/main/docs/assets/screens/dark/builder-toolbox.webp) | **Visual map** — The agent as a graph: what reaches it, what it reaches for. A dashed box is something nobody attached. [Visual map](https://github.com/vstorm-co/agenticos/blob/main/docs/assets/screens/dark/builder-visual-map.webp) |
| **Limits** — A monthly cap per agent, checked *before* each model call rather than added up after — plus a step limit, for the loop that is cheap and never stops. [Limits](https://github.com/vstorm-co/agenticos/blob/main/docs/assets/screens/dark/builder-limits.webp) | **History** — Every version it has had, still readable. Rolling back is a click. [History](https://github.com/vstorm-co/agenticos/blob/main/docs/assets/screens/dark/builder-history.webp) |

These four are dark only — the light half has not been captured.

### The first screen

**Dashboard** — 35 cards, laid out by whoever is reading: runs, spend, service
health, answer quality, sync freshness, sandbox capacity. Each one gated on what
that person is allowed to see, so a finance lead and an engineer keep different
dashboards on the same deployment.

The dashboard: 35 arrangeable cards

### Running forty of them

|  |  |
| --- | --- |
| **Agents** — Every agent you run, with the version that is live and who may use it.   Agents | **Templates** — Start from one built for your industry; you get a draft to adjust and publish.   Templates |
| **One answer, opened up** — Every answer recorded: the question, what it looked at, every tool call, the duration, the cost to a fraction of a cent.   One answer, opened up | **How your documents are read** — Three PDF readers — PyMuPDF, LiteParse, LlamaParse — plus chunking and OCR. Per collection, overridable on the next file. A scanned price list and a contract do not want the same one.   How your documents are read |
| **Context** — Standing facts — product names, policy, house tone — in one place instead of forty prompts.   Context | **It asks before it acts** — Anything that sends, files or refunds waits for a person, with the intended action written out. Decided exactly once.   
outageroom30
🟧 echo.github ⭐AgenticOS presents itself as an open-source, self-hosted place to build, run, and govern company agents, with configurable skills and contexvstorm-co——
🟧 hnShow HN: Blue – open-source governance for coding agentstomislavs20
🟧 hnAI agent governance patterns as executable decision tables (MIT license)scubagraham20
🟧 hnShow HN: Agentic OS: one Rust Linux binary, one SQLite and sandbox per actormmeyerlein11
🟧 hnValues, conditions, intent: People should declare them, not the modeloffaxis10
🟧 hnShow HN: Busbar self-hosted execution boundary for Agentic Appsmangatgoyal10

Interpretation history

Decision trace