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Snapshot 0 · 2026-11-04T12:47:28Z · Rust · Apache-2.0

GitHub description at capture

Your agent, across all your machines. A self-hosted, web-based AI agent: one server holds every conversation and works in a cloud sandbox or on your Macs, PCs and servers.

README at capture

<p align="center">
  <picture>
    <source media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)" srcset="docs/assets/brand/lockup-dark.svg">
    <img alt="Demi" src="docs/assets/brand/lockup-light.svg" height="72">
  </picture>
</p>

<p align="center">
  <strong>Your agent, across all your machines.<br>
  A web-based AI agent you host on your own server.</strong>
</p>

<p align="center">
  <a href="#license"><img alt="License" src="https://img.shields.io/badge/license-Apache%202.0%20%2B%20Demi%20License-blue"></a>
  <a href="https://github.com/demi-sh/demi/releases/latest"><img alt="Release" src="https://img.shields.io/github/v/release/demi-sh/demi"></a>
  <a href="https://github.com/demi-sh/demi/actions/workflows/ci.yml"><img alt="CI" src="https://github.com/demi-sh/demi/actions/workflows/ci.yml/badge.svg"></a>
</p>

<p align="center">
  <b>English</b> · <a href="README.de.md">Deutsch</a> · <a href="README.es.md">Español</a> · <a href="README.fr.md">Français</a> · <a href="README.pt-BR.md">Português</a> · <a href="README.zh-CN.md">简体中文</a> · <a href="README.zh-TW.md">繁體中文</a> · <a href="README.ja.md">日本語</a> · <a href="README.ko.md">한국어</a>
</p>

<p align="center">
  <img src="docs/assets/product.webp" alt="Demi in a browser: an agent builds a two-column layout for an iPhone app, with a comment and a side question on its reply and suggested replies under it, the app on a half-folded iPhone Duo in the side panel, and the same conversation on a phone." width="800">
</p>

Demi is a web-based AI agent you host on your own server. Open it in any
browser. Ask it a question or hand it a job: research, operating websites,
working with files, writing code, all in the same conversation.

Every conversation lives on your server, in one place for all your devices.
Your computers only run the work: the agent works in a cloud sandbox or
across your own machines, and tasks keep running when you close the tab.

<p align="center">
  <img src="docs/assets/concept.webp" alt="From a computer or a phone, you reach one Demi server, which holds every conversation and works through runners on your laptop, desktop, HomeLab and VPS, or in cloud sandboxes." width="800">
</p>

> [!NOTE]
> Demi is in early development. Expect breaking changes between releases.

## Quick start

You need the following:

- A Linux server you have root on, running one of these
  ([supported distributions](docs/delivery/installation.md#distributions)):
  - Ubuntu 22.04 or later, Debian 12 or later
  - Fedora, RHEL 10, Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux
  - Arch Linux
- A domain name, served over HTTPS in front of the server
  ([HTTPS setup](docs/delivery/installation.md#https)).

Run the command on the server. It installs Beta, the releases Demi
publishes; `--canary` installs Canary, which gets every build first:

```sh
# Beta
curl -fsSL https://demi.sh/install.sh | sudo bash
# Canary
curl -fsSL https://demi.sh/install.sh | sudo bash -s -- --canary
```

Or give a coding agent such as Claude Code or Codex this prompt:

```text
Install Demi on my server by following https://raw.githubusercontent.com/demi-sh/demi/main/docs/delivery/install-with-an-agent.md
```

The installer asks a few questions and sets Demi up. After it finishes:

1. Open your domain right away and create the admin account.
2. Go to **Settings › Providers** and sign in with a subscription or add an
   API key.
3. Start a conversation. It runs in your cloud sandbox.
4. To work on your own computer, choose **Add Device** from the conversation's
   host menu and run the command it shows on that computer.

See the [installation guide](docs/delivery/installation.md) for every option,
including installing without questions, and [upgrades](docs/delivery/upgrades.md)
for moving to a new release.

## Key features

Demi's features fall into four groups.

### Chat, work and code

- **One conversation for everything**: Ask a quick question or hand off a
  multi-step job in the same place. No modes to switch.
- **Coding**: Edit repositories, run builds and tests, and review every change
  as a diff.
- **Research**: Search the web and read pages, PDFs and documents.
- **Real browser**: Demi drives Chrome to sign in, fill in forms and download
  files. Watch it in the side panel and take over at any time.
- **Phone apps**: Demi drives iOS Simulators and Android Emulators to install,
  run and test an app, and records the screen. Watch them in the side panel and
  take over at any time.
- **Files and data**: Work with documents, spreadsheets and images, and get the
  results back as attachments.
- **Images, video and audio**: Make and edit images, and make videos, speech,
  music and sound effects through the model providers you add.
- **Share**: Share a conversation, or a single answer, as a read-only link.
- **Comments and questions**: Select words in a reply to comment on them or ask
  about them, without interrupting the task.
- **Search**: Find any message in every conversation, or in the one you are
  reading.

### Anywhere, on any machine

- **Works in any browser**: Desktop, tablet or phone, with nothing to install.
  Add it to your Home Screen, and it adapts to phones, tablets and foldables.
- **Nine languages**: English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Simplified
  Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
- **Always on**: Tasks keep running on the server after you close the tab.
- **Notifications**: Get notified on your phone and computers when a task
  finishes or needs you, even with Demi closed.
- **One place for every conversation**: The server stores conversations
  instead of scattering them across the machines the agent worked on. Start on
  your laptop and continue on your phone, live. Change AI providers and keep
  your history.
- **QR code and passkey sign-in**: Scan a code to sign in on your phone, or use
  Touch ID, Face ID or Windows Hello.
- **Private cloud sandbox**: Every user gets their own Linux sandbox on your
  server. It runs under gVisor, can't reach your server's services or your
  private network, and can't see other users' sandboxes.
- **Bring your own computers**: Connect macOS, Windows and Linux machines with
  a single command. No open ports needed.
- **Multi-machine tasks**: Use several machines in one conversation, for
  example to build on a Mac and test on Windows.
- **Switch machines mid-task**: Move a conversation between the cloud and your
  computers without starting over.
- **Files on every machine**: Browse the files of the sandbox and each of your
  computers, preview images, videos, audio, PDFs and Markdown, upload and
  download, and search file names and text.
- **Port forwarding**: Reach a port of one machine from another.

### Agent

- **Multi-agent**: Demi splits a large task across a team of agents that work
  in parallel, then combines their results.
- **Agent profiles**: Define specialist agents, such as a researcher or a
  reviewer, each with its own model, reasoning effort, instructions and
  commands.
- **Workflows**: Bundle a set of agent profiles with instructions for one kind
  of work. Keep workflows in a project's `.demi/workflows/`, pick one in the
  message box, and share them with your team through the repository.
- **Schedules**: Wake a conversation once, on a repeating cycle, at intervals,
  by cron, when a command's output changes or when a URL is called.
- **Conversations work together**: A conversation sends messages to another and
  reads other conversations' transcripts.
- **Skills**: Install skills to teach Demi new tasks.
- **Secure credentials**: Demi requests API keys and passwords through a
  secure form, and they never appear in the conversation.

### Models and teams

- **Use your subscriptions**: Sign in with Claude, ChatGPT or Grok Build
  accounts. Add several accounts per subscription, and Demi rotates between
  them as their usage limits run out.
- **Coding plans**: Use a coding plan's key, such as Kimi, GLM or MiniMax.
- **API keys**: Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, or any compatible endpoint.
- **Local models**: Let your server use a model that runs on your own
  computer, such as Ollama, through port forwarding.
- **Switch models any time**: Change the model or reasoning effort, even in the
  middle of a task.
- **Usage and cost**: See how much of each subscription's limits is used and
  when they reset, and what the work cost over the last hour, day or all time.
- **Multi-user**: Each user has their own sandbox, devices and
  conversations, on the admin's subscriptions or their own.
- **Admin tools**: Add users, manage roles, reset passwords and send phone
  sign-in codes.
- **One-line install and upgrades**: Set up a server with one command and
  upgrade it with another.

## An agent built on a shell

Demi is both the app and the agent.

It doesn't wrap Claude Code or Codex. Its own runtime drives every model, and a
Claude or ChatGPT subscription serves only the model.

Most agents give the model a long list of tools. Demi gives it one: a
shell. Everything else, from the browser to other machines to subagents, is a
`demi` command inside it:

```sh
T=$(demi browser tab new) && demi browser open $T http://localhost:5173 && demi browser screenshot $T | demi file view
demi host shell --host windows 'cargo test'
demi agent spawn --profile research --description "Compare pricing pages" < brief.md
```

The design has these benefits:

- **Composable**: Commands chain with pipes and `&&`, so the agent does in one
  step what usually takes several tool calls.
- **Lean prompts**: The model sees one line per command group and reads
  `--help` when it needs more. New capabilities don't bloat every request.
- **Same shell everywhere**: Every machine runs the same bash-compatible
  shell, written in Rust ([brush](https://github.com/reubeno/brush)), so a
  script that works in the cloud works on macOS and Windows too. The tools
  that change files are GNU's on every machine
  ([uutils](https://github.com/uutils/coreutils)), so the changes they make
  are recorded; every other program, such as `tar` or `python`, is the
  system's own and its changes are not recorded, and on Windows the other
  utilities are Git for Windows', which Demi's setup installs when it is
  missing.
- **Same for every model**: Every provider sees the same single tool, so
  switching models doesn't change what the agent can do.
- **Built for long jobs**: Commands keep running in the background and report
  back when they finish, so dev servers and test suites never block the
  conversation.

> [!NOTE]
> **Planned**: an OpenAPI for the Demi server, so your own programs can use
> its conversations, agents and cloud sandboxes for the agents you need.

## Architecture

The following diagram shows how the parts connect:

```text
  Browsers (computer, phone, tablet)
        │  HTTPS + WebSocket
        ▼
  ┌──────────────────────────┐   HTTPS   ┌────────────────────┐
  │ Demi server              │──────────▶│ Model providers    │
  │ users, conversations,    │           └────────────────────┘
  │ agents                   │
  └──────────────────────────┘
        ▲                ▲
        │ WebSocket      │ WebSocket
  ┌─────┴──────────┐  ┌──┴───────────────────────────┐
  │ Runner in your │  │ Runners on your computers    │
  │ cloud sandbox  │  │ and servers (macOS, Windows, │
  │ (gVisor)       │  │ Linux)                       │
  └────────────────┘  └──────────────────────────────┘
```

The design has these properties:

- **The server runs the agent, runners do the work**: Conversations, agents
  and settings live on the server. A small runner on each machine only handles
  files, commands and the browser. It connects out to the server, so it works
  behind NAT and firewalls.
- **One runner everywhere**: The cloud sandbox and your computers run the same
  runner, so every feature works on every machine.
- **Light on bandwidth**: Large outputs and files stay on the machine that made
  them. The browser loads them only when you open them.
- **Native**: The server, the runner and the agent's tools are written in Rust.
  The web app is built with Vue and TypeScript.

Read the [design docs](docs/README.md), starting with the
[overview](docs/overview.md).

## Comparison

How Demi differs from OpenHands, Orca, T3 Code, DeepSeek Harness, opencode,
Pi and herdr, feature by feature: [Demi compared](docs/comparison.md).

## Documentation

- [Design docs](docs/README.md): how every part of Demi works
- [Contributing](CONTRIBUTING.md): development setup, checks, and adding a
  provider
- [Security](SECURITY.md): reporting vulnerabilities and where data is stored

## License

Most of Demi is released under the [Apache License 2.0](LICENSE). Use these
parts for anything:

- The agent runtime.
- The model providers, and the library that sets them up from your
  configuration.
- The runner you install on your machines, and the library that drives it.
- The commands.
- The plugins, their SDK, and the host that runs them.
- The UI component library and its gallery.
- The protocols.
- The docs.

The server and the web app (`crates/backend*`, `crates/server`,
`crates/machine-manager` and `packages/web`) are released under the
[Demi License](LICENSE-DEMI), which is the Apache License 2.0 with additional
conditions:

- **Free to use**: Use, modify and run them, including at your company for
  your own team.
- **Free to support**: Charge for deploying, integrating or supporting Demi
  that others run themselves.
- **Not for resale as a service**: Don't offer them to others for a fee as a
  hosted or multi-tenant service, or as a product that is substantially Demi.
- **Keep the branding**: Don't remove or change the Demi name, logo or
  copyright notices in the web app.

For other uses, contact [support@demi.sh](mailto:support@demi.sh).