Choosing a tool and understanding its boundaries

Limits

• OpenCorvus coordinates compatible models, tools, and executors; it does not make arbitrary third-party code compatible or safe.
• Persisted Tasks can be resumed, but no work executes while the owning runtime is offline.
• Results depend on model behavior, source access, installed capabilities, and the evidence available to the run.
• The project is in active development. Interfaces and packaged integrations may change between beta releases.

Open, yours, controlled, legible

Open source

MIT licensed, every line published. Self-host it, audit it, fork it.

Customizable

Swap models, narrow tools, tune permissions, install squads — no forking.

In your control

Runs on your machine. Tools are scoped per project; irreversible steps ask first.

Fully legible

Every tool call, argument and result stays in the transcript, readable line by line.

Compared with the nearest two

This positioning comparison is retained from the previous homepage, with its public-source links. Product capabilities can change; check current product documentation when choosing.

	WorkBuddy	DeepSeek Harness	OpenCorvus
Licence	Commercial, token packages	MIT	MIT
Runs	Cloud service	Locally	Your machine or your server
Starting point	One sentence to a finished output	Plugin kernel, compose it yourself	A whole harness working, then replace any layer
Capability unit	Experts and Expert Groups	Plugins	Versioned squads with a digest (121)
Getting in	Desktop client	One npx line to a web UI	Installer or source build

DeepSeek Harness is MIT licensed too, and records a run just as completely; its plugin kernel goes further than ours. The choice is whether you want to assemble a harness or start from one.

Common questions

How does this relate to Claude Code or Codex?

Different layer, and they work together. Those are coding sessions bound to one vendor’s models; OpenCorvus is the harness — model-agnostic, multi-agent, self-hosted. The desktop app can even discover Claude Code, Codex, Gemini Code, Copilot, and GLM Code already installed on your machine and open one in the current project directory.

I already use one of those. Do I need this?

Depends what is missing. If you want a better single coding conversation, stay where you are. If you want coordination across many owned tasks, version-pinned expert squads, one permission and evidence trail, and work that survives a restart — that is what this does.

Does my code leave my machine?

The runtime runs on your machine or your own server, with MIT-licensed, auditable source. Model requests go to your configured provider. A local model can process those requests locally, while browsers, web tools, Model Context Protocol (MCP) services and plugins may still access the network according to their configuration and permissions.

Which models are supported?

One bundled catalog resolves 87 providers and 2,579 models, local runtimes included. Switching is configuration, not a fork.

What exactly is an Expert Squad?

An inspectable capability package: roles, workflow, Skills, tools, selection guidance, version, and digest frozen together. A Task pins one exact revision and cannot silently switch it mid-life.

Is it built on another agent?

The harness and the desktop app are both written in this repository, with no third-party agent engine underneath — that is what makes every layer replaceable. It stands on plenty of open source: Bun, the AI SDK, Solid, Tauri.

How long is long-horizon, really?

As long as your runtime stays online. Work survives a restart because leases, an event log, and a reconciler own it, not because a process stayed alive. A completed, failed, or cancelled Task reopens on your next message, at a fresh execution occurrence, with the old history intact.

Does it change itself behind my back?

No. A revision is drafted, validated as a runnable package, and staged. It installs only after you confirm it in your own message, and the receipt you get back is how you restore the previous revision.

How long can it run unattended?

Only while your runtime is online. This is not a hosted service and it does not promise unbounded autonomy — output depends on the model, the reachable sources, and the available evidence.