Kaidera OS

Open-source local control plane for AI worker teams, powered by Cortex.

Documentation | Contribute | Commercial edition | Enterprise

Kaidera OS connects project workspaces, external AI harnesses, and Cortex so teams of AI workers can plan, execute, review, and resume real work without losing project context. It runs locally, keeps project boundaries explicit, and gives operators one surface for workers, handoffs, run state, approvals, and durable evidence.

This repository is the AGPL community source. It contains no commercial trial, license activation, Manifold client, or built-in BYOK model-provider integration. AI work runs through separately installed and authenticated Claude Code, Codex, or PI command-line harnesses. Kaidera OS discovers each harness's current models and model-specific effort levels dynamically.

What It Does

• Registers independent projects, workspaces, worker roles, and operating rules.
• Turns objectives into scoped handoffs with ownership and acceptance criteria.
• Runs external harnesses through one orchestration and run-state layer.
• Preserves decisions, messages, artifacts, and work products in Cortex.
• Applies human review and approval gates before consequential actions.
• Recovers interrupted work from durable state instead of starting over.
• Shows a project-specific Cortex graph for inspecting connected work and memory.

Architecture

flowchart LR
    Operator[Operator and reviewers] --> Console[Kaidera OS console]
    Console --> Orchestrator[Worker orchestration]
    Orchestrator --> Harnesses[Claude Code, Codex, or PI]
    Harnesses <--> Workspace[Project workspaces]
    Orchestrator <--> Cortex[Cortex API]
    Cortex <--> Memory[(Postgres and pgvector)]

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Cortex is a permanent component name. It is the shared project memory and coordination layer, not a product label. See How Kaidera OS works for the full lifecycle.

Install

Docker, Python 3.11 or newer, and at least one supported external CLI harness are recommended. The installer reports missing prerequisites before changing the system. A missing AI harness disables AI execution without crashing the app.

Homebrew

brew install kaidera-ai/kaidera/kaidera-os
kaidera-os install
kaidera-os start

npm

npm install --global @kaidera/kaidera-os
kaidera-os install

curl

BASE=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Kaidera-AI/homebrew-kaidera/main
curl -fsSL "$BASE/install.sh" | bash

Release launchers download the community archive from this repository and verify its SHA-256 before extraction. The supported commercial macOS installer is distributed separately from kaidera.ai.

Develop From Source

git clone https://github.com/Kaidera-AI/kaidera-os.git
cd kaidera-os
./install.sh

For development, install Node.js 22 and run the full checks before submitting a material change:

make qa

The source tree starts with no customer project, generated worker identity, credential, chat history, or local Cortex state. First-run configuration creates local state on the operator's machine.

Repository Map

Path	Purpose
.agents/api/	Cortex API, memory, graph, and coordination services
local-cortex/console/	Kaidera OS backend, operator surface, and tests
local-cortex/console/spa/	React operator interface
redistributable/	Public schemas, examples, and startup tooling
scripts/fitness/	Privacy, naming, source-boundary, and package gates

Contribute

Bug reports, focused fixes, tests, documentation, accessibility improvements, and portable runtime enhancements are welcome. Start with CONTRIBUTING.md, then open an issue or pull request.

Contributions must preserve the community source boundary and must never include credentials, customer payloads, private paths, or copied chat history. Maintainers can use the community maintainer guide for review, merge, release, and synchronization practices. Security reports follow SECURITY.md.

Commercial and Enterprise

The supported commercial edition adds a packaged macOS installer, nine-day trial, Kaidera-issued licensing, governed Manifold access, and support. It is distributed from kaidera.ai, not from this source repository. Contact sales@kaidera.ai.

Kaidera AI provides enterprise identity, governed workspaces, operational controls, and implementation support around Kaidera OS and Cortex.

License

Kaidera OS community source is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 only. It is provided without warranty or liability. Contributions are accepted under the same license. Kaidera names and logos are not granted for use by the software license; see NOTICE.