Opifer in ten minutes
You need Node.js 22 and pnpm. Nothing else: the database is embedded, Docker is optional.
1. Install
git clone https://github.com/NextEpochs/opifer.git
cd opifer
pnpm install && pnpm build # about two minutes on a laptop
pnpm o4r init --company "My company"
o4r init writes the configuration in ~/.opifer, starts the embedded PostgreSQL, applies the migrations and creates your company. Give it a model:
- Anthropic:
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=… - OpenAI with a key:
export OPENAI_API_KEY=… - OpenAI with your ChatGPT subscription:
pnpm o4r login chatgpt(a browser opens; no key needed) - A local model:
pnpm o4r init --local-url http://127.0.0.1:11434/v1(Ollama, LM Studio, vLLM…)
Then:
pnpm o4r up --detach
pnpm o4r doctor # every check green?
Open http://127.0.0.1:4700.
2. Look around with a company already at work
pnpm o4r demo
This creates a demo company with four agents, a goal, two projects, tasks in every state, memories, skills, two routines, a workflow connection, a webhook and a subscription — no model is called. Pick it in Settings, then walk through Home, Inbox, Team, Work, Learning and Connections.
3. Your first agent and your first task
In Team, drag a role from the palette onto You: that is a hire. Give it a name and a job description in plain words ("Researcher. Reads, compares, summarises; every number comes with its source.").
In Work, press New task: a title, what to do, what done means, who does it. The agent wakes up at once. If it needs to run a command that asks for approval, the card appears in your Inbox (and on your phone, if Telegram is connected): approve or deny with one click. When the agent delivers, the result waits for your verification: Verify and close closes it; Request changes sends it back with a note.
Talk to any agent in Chat. Ask "how are things in the company?": the agent reads the company status and can hand out work to its reports.
4. Money, permissions, learning
Money shows where every euro goes and lets you set caps (company, agent, project, task). When a cap is reached the agent stops before the next call and asks you.
Each agent's drawer in Team has its permissions per tool (Auto / Ask / Off). Dangerous commands (deleting folders, sudo, force push) always ask.
After every finished task a background review keeps what is worth keeping: memories and skills, in Learning. A repeated job costs less the second time. A skill that proves itself is proposed for the whole company, and you decide.
5. Routines and connections
In Work → Routines give an agent a recurring job: every day at 9, Monday at 9, every two hours, a cron expression. Run as a task lets the agent delegate to its reports and get reviewed. Every due time runs at most once, even after a crash.
In Connections add an MCP server or a workflow (n8n, Zapier, Make) as tools; create a webhook so an automation can open tasks; subscribe a URL to the company's events (signed); connect the Telegram bot of the company to talk to the agents from your phone and approve with one tap.
6. When something goes wrong
- Stop everything: the red button in the sidebar (or
pnpm o4r stop). Every agent stops, routines pause, no model is called until you resume. pnpm o4r doctorsays what is missing.- Every step is in the audit (Home → Activity) and in the costs.
- Export your company from Settings (configuration and work, never secret values) and import it elsewhere.
Command line
pnpm o4r status # is it running?
pnpm o4r chat Philip # talk from the terminal
pnpm o4r task create "Compare three CRMs" --agent Nora
pnpm o4r approvals # what waits for you
pnpm o4r routine create "Weekly digest" --agent Philip --every "monday 9" --as-task --prompt "…"
pnpm o4r export # opifer-<company>.json
pnpm o4r stop / pnpm o4r resume # emergency stop
pnpm o4r down # stop the server
Everything the interface does, the API does: http://127.0.0.1:4700/v1/… (see the README).
This page is rendered from docs/quickstart.md in the repository. Fix it there.