# Work

> Work is a free, open-source desktop app for getting work done with AI agents: your projects, a real browser, terminals and editors, and agents that reshape the app and build tools for you. It runs on your Mac, uses the AI accounts you already pay for, and keeps your work on your machine unless you choose to run your own server.

Work is the product; Catamorphic is the open-source framework it is built on. Both live in one repository: https://github.com/opencx-labs/catamorphic (Apache-2.0).

## What matters most

- **Open source and free, no strings attached.** Apache-2.0 license. No account, no subscription, no hosted service required. Nothing leaves your machine unless you send it.
- **It is a browser.** Work embeds a real Chromium browser: tabs, Chrome-style profiles, bookmarks (pinned tiles and lists, per project too), history, a password vault unlocked with Touch ID. You can use it as a clean browser and nothing more.
- **It uses your existing AI subscriptions.** Sign in with the Claude Code or Codex account you already have, or add API keys (Anthropic, OpenAI, OpenRouter). Providers charge you directly; Work adds nothing.
- **Completely local, or your own server.** The desktop app runs with an embedded database and local sandboxes; no cloud. When you want your work and agents available from your phone or while the Mac sleeps, run the stock server yourself (one Docker container, `apps/server`) and keep everything on hardware you control.
- **Completely customizable.** The sidebar, theme, shortcuts, tabs, notifications and terminal macros are plain files (`sidebar.js`, `theme.json`, settings). Ask the assistant to change them and it edits the files; the app updates live. Agents build apps and workflows inside a project that look and behave like built-in parts of the app.
- **Three ways to use it.** A coding workspace (worktrees, terminals, editors, diffs, pull requests, several coding harnesses side by side). A company brain (shared projects, roles and memberships, automations, apps, tuned agent roles, reachable from desktop, mobile PWA or any MCP client). Or just a nice, clean browser with an assistant a keystroke away.

## How it works

- A project is an ordinary folder and a git repository. Every agent turn that changes files becomes a checkpoint commit; you can inspect diffs or trust routine work to continue.
- Chats float over whatever you are doing (a page, a document, a terminal) and can be minimized to a dock. Agents see the workspace context you give them: the page, the file, the terminal.
- Agents can be Claude Code, Codex, or API models (multi-harness), with per-agent mode, memory, skills, instructions and effort. Connectors (MCP) attach to profiles and agents.
- Agents write durable workflows (TypeScript, run in sandboxes, resumable) and apps (small React screens built from Work's component kit). An app can read your own chats in a project after you allow it once; it never sees anyone else's.
- The mobile companion (a PWA) pairs with the desktop by QR code over your LAN, or connects to your server, so a chat can continue from your phone.
- Privacy: incognito chats stay on the device and are never mirrored; a project's private working files are separate from shared project source.

## Install

- Mac with Apple silicon, macOS 12 or newer. Preview channel: `brew install --cask opencx-labs/tap/work@alpha`, or download the signed DMG from https://github.com/opencx-labs/catamorphic/releases.
- Downloads and release notes: https://github.com/opencx-labs/catamorphic/releases

## Where to read more (source of truth)

- Repository: https://github.com/opencx-labs/catamorphic
- Overview, install, the three ways to use it, personal and company brains: https://github.com/opencx-labs/catamorphic/blob/main/README.md
- The desktop's design language and decision log (how the app is meant to feel, what changed and why): https://github.com/opencx-labs/catamorphic/blob/main/apps/desktop/DESIGN.md
- Architecture decision records, one file per decision: https://github.com/opencx-labs/catamorphic/tree/main/docs/decisions
- The self-hosted server (a company brain): https://github.com/opencx-labs/catamorphic/blob/main/apps/server/README.md
- Setting one up with an agent, end to end: https://github.com/opencx-labs/catamorphic/blob/main/skills/setup-catamorphic-server/SKILL.md (start with references/first-brain.md)
- Embedding the framework in your own product: https://github.com/opencx-labs/catamorphic/blob/main/INTEGRATION.md
- How agents are expected to work inside the repository itself: https://github.com/opencx-labs/catamorphic/blob/main/AGENTS.md and https://github.com/opencx-labs/catamorphic/blob/main/apps/desktop/AGENTS.md
- What is being worked on next: https://github.com/opencx-labs/catamorphic/blob/main/TODO.md
- The skills agents receive inside a project (how apps, workflows and sidebars are authored): https://github.com/opencx-labs/catamorphic/blob/main/packages/core/src/seeds.ts

## Pages on this site

- https://work.software/ (home, with a short film of the app in use)
- https://work.software/#brain (the company brain, and one message that sets one up with your agent)