Desktop AI Agents
April 6, 2026 · View on GitHub
A curated list of on-device AI agent runners, harnesses, and tooling — agents whose control loop runs locally on your desktop, laptop, or workstation rather than on a hosted cloud platform.
The underlying model may be a hosted API (Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Mistral…) or a fully local engine (Ollama, llama.cpp, vLLM). What unifies this list is that the harness lives on your machine.
Last updated: 2026-04-06. This list is updated periodically as new projects emerge — expect refreshes on a rolling basis.
Scope
See SCOPE.md for the full inclusion/exclusion rules and grey-area guidance. In short:
In scope: CLI/TUI coding agents, sysadmin-style agents, tooling/orchestrators around agent CLIs, MCP servers, multi-agent frameworks that run locally, computer-use agents, desktop GUI agents, personal AI assistants, terminal assistants, harnesses, and desktop-agent protocols.
Out of scope: cloud-hosted agent platforms, IDE-first tools where the CLI is only a companion, pure inference engines (Ollama, llama.cpp, vLLM) without an agent loop, and frameworks that don't support tool use / MCP directly.
Badge Legend
Each entry is tagged with shields.io badges. Stars and last-commit update dynamically from GitHub.
| Badge | Meaning |
|---|---|
 | Built by the model vendor (OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, GitHub, Moonshot, xAI…) |
 | Independent / community project |
   | Primary interface |
   | Local-model support |
 | Supports MCP (Model Context Protocol) |
 | Supports tool use / function calling |
  | Primary use case |
Capability badges (Local/MCP/Tools) are best-effort — verify against upstream docs before relying on them.
Table of Contents
- 1. AI Coding Agents (CLI)
- 2. Tooling Around Agent CLIs
- 3. Multi-Agent Frameworks
- 4. Harnesses & Specifications
- 5. Computer-Use & Agent Operating Systems
- 6. Desktop GUIs & Cowork Clones
- 7. Personal AI Assistants
- 8. Terminal Assistants
- 9. Protocols
- 10. Wallets & Payments
- 11. Skill Collections
- 12. Voice & Speech Agents
- 13. Remote Access & Mobile UIs
- 14. Memory
- 15. Gateways & Proxies
- 16. Browser Extensions & Web Agents
- 17. Research Assistants
- Related Resource Lists
- Contributing
- Disclaimer
1. AI Coding Agents (CLI)
CLI agents designed to work inside a code repository. In scope: tool use, MCP support, local or cloud model support. Out of scope: GUI apps, pure inference engines, IDE-only tools where the CLI is just a companion.
First-party (vendor)
Codex
OpenAI's lightweight coding agent that runs in your terminal.
Copilot CLI
GitHub Copilot CLI — brings the Copilot coding agent directly to your terminal.
Kimi CLI
Moonshot's Kimi Code CLI — vendor coding agent for the Kimi model family.
Mistral Vibe
Minimal CLI coding agent by Mistral.
Third-party
aider
AI pair programming in your terminal. Works with most major models including local ones via Ollama / LiteLLM.
Cougar CLI
An AI programming agent for the command line.
crush
Glamourous agentic coding for all — Charm's Bubble Tea-powered TUI coding agent.
goose
Open-source, extensible AI agent that goes beyond code suggestions — install, execute, edit, and test with any LLM. Strong MCP support, straddles code and sysadmin use cases.
Grok CLI
Open-source autonomous agent powered by Grok.
Hermes Agent
"The agent that grows with you" — from Nous Research. Scope / in-repo vs sysadmin usage TBD.
OpenHands
OpenHands (formerly OpenDevin) — AI-driven development platform. Runs agents locally in a sandboxed environment, supports many model backends including local ones.
OpenCode
The open source coding agent — provider-agnostic TUI coding agent.
Open SWE
An open-source asynchronous coding agent from the LangChain team.
Pi Mono
AI agent toolkit: coding agent CLI, unified LLM API, TUI & web UI libraries, Slack bot, vLLM pods.
Trae Agent
LLM-based agent for general-purpose software engineering tasks, by ByteDance.
2. Tooling Around Agent CLIs
Tools that wrap, manage, orchestrate, or extend the CLI agents above.
Session & Task Managers
AgentsView
Local-first desktop and web app for browsing, searching, and analyzing AI agent coding sessions across Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, OpenCode, Copilot, and more.
AI Helpers
Developer productivity tools for Claude Code and other AI assistants.
CCManager
Coding Agent Session Manager for Claude Code / Gemini CLI / Codex CLI / Cursor Agent / Copilot CLI / Cline CLI / OpenCode / Kimi CLI.
Codex Switcher
Desktop application for managing multiple OpenAI Codex CLI accounts.
mux
A desktop app for isolated, parallel agentic development, from Coder.
Vibe Kanban
Kanban-style task manager for orchestrating Claude Code, Codex, and other coding agents — get more out of any agent CLI.
Orchestrators
AgentChattr
Free, local chat where AI coding agents can tag each other, talk, and coordinate alongside the human.
AgentFlow
Programmatically orchestrate thousands of agents and harnesses as a graph.
Agent Orchestrator
Agentic orchestrator for parallel coding agents — plans tasks, spawns agents, and handles CI fixes, merge conflicts, and code reviews.
Blackbox CLI
BLACKBOX CLI for running multi-agents locally with a Judge to select the best task implementation.
helix
Private Agent Fleet with Spec Coding — each agent gets its own GPU-accelerated desktop. Runs Claude, Codex, Gemini, and open models on a full private AI stack.
Tools & MCP Servers
AgentFS
A filesystem designed for agents, from the Turso team.
Chrome DevTools MCP
Chrome DevTools for coding agents — exposes browser debugging to agents via MCP.
DesktopCommanderMCP
MCP server giving Claude terminal control, filesystem search, and diff-file editing.
Skill Scanner
Security scanner for Agent Skills, from Cisco AI Defense.
Context & Data Access
Agent-Reach
Give your AI agent eyes on the internet — read and search Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, GitHub, Bilibili, XiaoHongShu from one CLI.
Agent Browser
Browser automation CLI for AI agents.
3. Multi-Agent Frameworks
On-device multi-agent orchestration.
Agency Agents
A complete AI agency at your fingertips — specialized expert agents with personalities, processes, and deliverables.
Agency Swarm
A reliable multi-agent orchestration framework.
Aurogen
The multi-agent evolution of OpenClaw.
hive
Multi-Agent Harness for Production AI.
Open Multi-Agent
TypeScript multi-agent framework — one runTeam() call from goal to result. Auto task decomposition, parallel execution, three dependencies, deploys anywhere Node.js runs.
ROMA
Recursive-Open-Meta-Agent — a meta-agent framework for building high-performance multi-agent systems.
Shannon
A production-oriented multi-agent orchestration framework.
wshobson/agents
Intelligent automation and multi-agent orchestration for Claude Code.
4. Harnesses & Specifications
Open formats, specs, and framework-level harnesses that cut across individual agent CLIs.
AGENTS.md
AGENTS.md — a simple, open format for guiding coding agents.
AgentSkills
Specification and documentation for Agent Skills.
gh-aw
GitHub Agentic Workflows — a gh extension for defining and running agentic workflows.
Oh My OpenAgent
omo — an agent harness (formerly oh-my-opencode).
OpenAgentsControl
Plan-first AI agent framework with approval-based execution, multi-language support, and built-in testing/review — built for OpenCode.
OpenAkita
Open-source AI assistant framework with skills and agent architecture.
OpenHarness
Open Agent Harness — research project from HKUDS.
stakpak/agent
Ship your code, on autopilot. An open source agent that lives on your machines 24/7 and keeps your apps running.
statelyai/agent
Create state-machine-powered LLM agents using XState.
5. Computer-Use & Agent Operating Systems
Agents that drive the whole OS / desktop — mouse, keyboard, windows, filesystem — rather than being confined to a repo.
Agent Desktop
Native desktop automation CLI for AI agents. Controls any app through OS accessibility trees with structured JSON output.
Agent-S
Open agentic framework that uses computers like a human.
AgentCPM-GUI
On-device GUI agent for operating Android apps, with reinforcement fine-tuning for efficient task execution.
Clawdcursor
AI desktop agent that sees your screen, controls your cursor, and completes tasks autonomously.
cua
Open-source infrastructure for computer-use agents — sandboxes, SDKs, and benchmarks for agents that control macOS/Linux/Windows desktops.
MobiAgent
An intelligent GUI agent for mobile phones.
MobileAgent
Mobile-Agent: a powerful GUI agent family for operating mobile devices.
Open Computer Use
State-of-the-art (82% OSWorld Verified) computer-using agent, fully open-source.
OpenFang
Open-source Agent Operating System.
OpenYak
Open-source desktop AI agent that handles your documents, files, and daily workflows — locally, with any model.
OpenRoom
Browser-based desktop where an AI agent operates every app through natural language.
surf
Computer-use AI agent powered by OpenAI that interacts with E2B's virtual desktop environment through natural language. Harness runs locally; the sandboxed desktop is E2B-hosted.
terminaI
Local-first alternative to Cowork-style computer assistants: real PTY terminal ops, explicit approvals, JSONL audit logs. Windows + Linux + macOS, model-agnostic.
UI-TARS-desktop
Open-source multimodal AI agent stack connecting cutting-edge AI models and agent infra, by ByteDance.
6. Desktop GUIs & Cowork Clones
Desktop GUI applications for running agents, including the rapidly growing crop of open-source Claude Cowork alternatives.
Amon Agent
Amon — your AI coworker running on your desktop.
ClawX
Desktop GUI for OpenClaw — turns CLI-based AI orchestration into a desktop experience.
CodePilot
Multi-model AI agent desktop client — connect any provider, extend with MCP & skills, control from your phone. Built with Electron + Next.js.
CoWork-OS
Self-hosted OS for personal AI agents. Security-first, multi-channel (WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, Slack, iMessage), multi-provider (Claude, GPT, Gemini, Ollama).
Deep Agents UI
Custom UI for LangChain's Deep Agents.
Deepseek-Cowork
Claude Cowork alternative — browser automation & AI assistant powered by DeepSeek.
eigent
Open-source Cowork desktop. Local and free alternative to Claude Cowork.
Hello Halo
7×24 desktop AI agent with visual interface, remote access, file management, and built-in AI browser.
kuse_cowork
Open-source alternative to Claude Cowork desktop app, by Kuse.
LemonAI
Full-stack open-source self-evolving general AI agent — a fully local alternative to platforms like Manus and Genspark.
magic
Fully autonomous AI-based software development assistant.
open-claude-cowork (Composio)
Open-source Claude Cowork with 500+ SaaS app integrations.
Open-Claude-Cowork (DevAgentForge)
Open-source Claude Cowork desktop AI assistant for programming, file management, and general tasks.
OpenCowork (AIDotNet)
Open-source Claude Cowork for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
OpenChamber
Desktop and web interface for the opencode AI agent.
OpenWork
Open-source alternative to Claude Cowork built for teams, powered by opencode.
skales
Local desktop AI agent for Windows/macOS/Linux with Agent Skills (SKILL.md), autonomous coding, multi-agent teams, desktop automation, 15+ AI providers. No Docker, no terminal.
witsy
Desktop AI assistant / universal MCP client.
workany
Desktop agent for any task.
7. Personal AI Assistants
General-purpose, always-on personal assistants that run on your machine.
clawlet
Ultra-lightweight, efficient personal AI assistant.
CoPaw
Personal AI assistant easy to install and deploy on your own machine. Supports multiple chat apps with extensible capabilities.
deepchat
Smart assistant that connects powerful AI to your personal world.
Everywhere
Context-aware AI desktop assistant that integrates multiple LLMs and MCP tools.
goclaw
Open-source AI assistant framework, a Go-flavored openclaw.
Inbox Zero
Open-source AI personal assistant for email — reach inbox zero fast. Domain-specific: email.
leon
Leon — your open-source personal assistant.
mimiclaw
Run OpenClaw on a $5 chip — hardware-oriented agent OS with no Linux/Node/Raspberry Pi dependency.
nullclaw
Fastest, smallest, fully autonomous AI assistant infrastructure, written in Zig.
OpenClaw
Your own personal AI assistant — any OS, any platform. 🦞
RoboClaw
Embodied AI assistant from MINT-SJTU. Outlier: embodied/robotics — parked here pending a dedicated section.
Sentient
A personal AI assistant for everyone.
youclaw
🦞 Personal AI assistant with memory, skills, and scheduled tasks.
zeroclaw
Fast, small, fully autonomous AI personal-assistant infrastructure — any OS, any platform.
8. Terminal Assistants
Shell-integrated AI helpers — less "agent in a repo", more "AI that lives in your terminal".
AIChat
All-in-one LLM CLI with Shell Assistant, Chat-REPL, RAG, and AI tools/agents. Supports OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, Ollama, Groq, and more.
shell-ai
A delightfully minimal, remarkably powerful AI shell assistant.
TmuxAI
AI-powered, non-intrusive terminal assistant that lives inside tmux.
9. Protocols
Open protocols and specifications for desktop agent interop.
AG-UI
AG-UI — the Agent-User Interaction Protocol. Bring agents into frontend applications.
10. Wallets & Payments
Capabilities for on-device agents that need to hold funds or transact.
AgentKit
"Every AI agent deserves a wallet." Coinbase's toolkit for giving agents on-chain wallet capabilities.
AgentKit (0xGasless)
Toolkit giving AI agents access to crypto wallets and on-chain functionality, powered by the 0xGasless SDK.
GOAT
The leading agentic finance toolkit for AI agents.
11. Skill Collections
Collections of portable agent "skills" — prompt/instruction packages designed to plug into multiple agent harnesses.
addyosmani/agent-skills
Production-grade engineering skills for AI coding agents.
Agent-Skills-for-Context-Engineering
Collection of Agent Skills for context engineering, multi-agent architectures, and production agent systems.
awesome-agent-skills
Claude Code Skills and 1000+ agent skills from official dev teams and the community — compatible with Codex, Antigravity, Gemini CLI, Cursor, and others.
superpowers
An agentic skills framework and software development methodology that works.
vercel-labs/agent-skills
Vercel's official collection of agent skills.
apify/agent-skills
Collection of Apify Agent Skills for web scraping and automation.
aws-agent-skills
AWS skills for agents.
awesome-agent-skills (libukai)
The Ultimate Guide to Agent Skills: quickstart, resources, features, and toolkit.
obsidian-skills
Agent skills for Obsidian — teach your agent to use Markdown, Bases, JSON Canvas, and the Obsidian CLI.
tech-leads-club/agent-skills
Secure, validated skill registry for professional AI coding agents — extends Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Antigravity, and more.
12. Voice & Speech Agents
Agents whose primary interaction modality is voice — speech-to-speech, voice companions, realtime voice agents.
LiveKit Agents
Framework for building realtime voice AI agents.
My Neuro
Create your own AI desktop companion with customizable characters and voice conversations (~1s response). Long-term memory, visual recognition, voice cloning, Live2D.
Speech-to-Speech
Build local voice agents with open-source models.
13. Remote Access & Mobile UIs
Bridges that let you drive a desktop agent from your phone, tablet, or another device — keeping the agent loop on your machine.
clsh
Access your terminal and your AI agent from any device — phone, tablet, desktop.
OpenCode Manager
Mobile-first web interface for opencode AI agents. Manage and code with multiple opencode agents from any device (phone, tablet, desktop). Git integration, file management, real-time chat, Docker deploy.
paseo
Manage agents remotely from your phone, desktop, and CLI.
14. Memory
Memory layers that give on-device agents persistent recall across sessions.
Beads
A memory upgrade for your coding agent.
Hindsight
Agent memory that learns over time.
Mem0
The memory layer for AI agents — persistent, personalized memory across sessions.
OpenViking
Open-source context database for AI agents (e.g. OpenClaw) — unifies memory, resources, and skills via a filesystem paradigm with hierarchical, self-evolving context delivery.
15. Gateways & Proxies
Proxies and aggregators that sit between desktop agents and the services/tools they call.
1MCP
Unified MCP server that aggregates multiple MCP servers into one.
AgentGateway
Next-generation agentic proxy for AI agents and MCP servers.
16. Browser Extensions & Web Agents
Browser-resident agents and toolkits for driving the browser from an on-device agent.
AgentQL
Suite of tools for connecting AI to the web — query language and Playwright integrations for precise element interaction and data extraction.
AIPex
AI browser-automation assistant, privacy-first. Alternative to Manus Browser Operator, Claude Chrome, and Agent Browser.
NativeMindExtension
NativeMind — fully private, open-source, on-device AI assistant that lives as a browser extension.
Browser Agent (Magnitude)
Open-source, vision-first browser agent.
OpenBrowser
Autonomous toolkit that lets AI agents browse the web.
17. Research Assistants
Agents focused on long-form research, deep diligence, and report generation.
Company Research Agent
Multi-agent company-research / due-diligence tool built on LangGraph and Tavily, using Gemini and GPT-class models on the backend.
Dexter
An autonomous agent for deep financial research.
Related Resource Lists
Other curated lists worth browsing alongside this one.
Awesome-AI
Curated list of awesome AI tools — broader in scope than this list.
Contributing
Suggestions and PRs are very welcome — especially to fill in missing badges (local-model support, MCP, vendor vs third-party). Open a PR or reach out: public@danielrosehill.com.
When adding a project, please include:
- Name + GitHub link
- Stars + last-commit badges (dynamic shields.io)
- Type badge: 1st-party or 3rd-party
- Interface badge: CLI / TUI / GUI
- Local-model support (Ollama / Yes / No)
- MCP + tool-use badges where applicable
- Use-case badge: Code / Sysadmin
- 1–2 sentence description, language, author link
Disclaimer
This list is non-exhaustive and best-effort. Inclusion is not an endorsement, exclusion is not a judgment. The on-device agent space is moving fast — expect gaps, staleness, and occasional mis-classification. Verify capability claims (especially local-model and MCP support) against upstream docs.
Maintained by Daniel Rosehill