I want to keep what we build together.If I tell an assistant how I work, what matters to me, or something I haven’t told anyone else, those memories shouldn’t belong to whichever company ships the best model this month.
the personal assistant
that’s actually yours.
Your life. Your memory. Your assistant.
A local-first, open-source personal assistant on your local machine. Reach it from anywhere over a private connection. It is built for security and privacy.
Everyone should owntheir own agent.
That’s why I’m building herOS.An assistant on a machine I control, with a memory I can read and change - so switching models never means explaining my life again.
Some days I want widgets. Other days, one button.Blocks let me compose interface and logic into something that fits how I live. A calendar and a few saved places could become my own weekend planner.
My desk, my phone, the same assistant - and it’s mine.The Base app keeps my assistant and its memory, and GO clients reach it from my other devices. As local models improve, I want to need less from cloud providers.
One day, an assistant for each of us.Each person in a family with their own memories and their own boundaries - useful things shared, private things private.
A day with herOS.
Illustrative example.
PERSONALKeep the morning
Keep the morning
for yourself.
“What’s going on today? Also, what did you do while I was asleep?”
herOS
Morning. While you slept, I merged two PRs, answered three review comments, and nothing on your calendar moved. Today is light - a design call at 14:00, groceries at 18:00. The morning stays yours: write until 10:30, then take the long walk.
WORKWhat needs
What needs
my decision?
herOS
Six packages and two rebases resolved themselves overnight. One thing needs you: the rename PR - CI is green, the review came back 9/10, and your approval ships it.
“Ship it. Keep the rest off my desk today.”
herOS
Shipped. I’ll hold the other twelve updates until tomorrow’s review.
HOMELunch, without
Lunch, without
thinking about it.
“Something quick for lunch - I still have those mushrooms.”
herOS
Mushroom-egg rice bowl, about 12 minutes. Eggs run out Thursday, so they’re on tonight’s grocery list. Eating by 13:15 leaves a calm half hour before your 14:00 call.
OUT & ABOUTOut and back
Out and back
in one trip.
herOS
The parcel needs signing for, and the pharmacy shuts at six. Both fit in one walk at 16:30, 22 minutes on foot.
“After the school run instead.”
herOS
Moved to 16:45, still ahead of closing. Rain starts around five - I’ll remind you about the good coat.
FAMILY
What’s for dinner?
“What should we eat tonight, given this week’s plan and what we have?”
herOS
Roasted vegetable bowls - the chickpeas and carrots are already in. School pickup runs fifteen minutes late today, so dinner moves to 19:15. I’ve reshaped the rest of the week’s list.
HOBBYPractice the song
Practice the song
you keep putting off.
herOS
You’ve shelved “Neon” three times this week, and you have fifteen free minutes before dinner. Guitar?
“Only if we start with the F-chord changes.”
herOS
F-chord changes at 60 bpm first - that switch took four tries last time - then one full run-through.
FUNChoose what
Choose what
happens next.
“Be my game master tonight. Let me choose where the story goes.”
herOS
The lantern you left by the forest path is still warm. The note inside is written in your own hand: “The boathouse. Come alone.” Knock · Explore · Invent another path
Your life.Your memory.Your assistant.
Make it yours. Keep it yours.
Make it anything.
Make it yours.
We’re building an assistant that composes the interface around your conversation, picking an existing Block or building one on the fly. Keep fixed widgets, go fully fluid, or land anywhere in between, with none of the fixed screens you know from an OS or an app. It’s a new layer over the data from the web, apps, and services you already use.
MONDAY / YOUR WORKSPACE
3 BlocksToday’s work
Finish the
website.
09:00-11:00 · No meetings
Project pulse
- Code reviewReady
- Design feedback2 notes
- Next milestoneThursday
Review the two design notes before approving the next build.
Only interrupt me when
a decision needs me.
“Bring my tasks, code reviews, and calendar into one control center.”
A SPACE FOR HOME
This week at home
- School pickup15:30
- Time outside16:00
- Dinner together18:30
Something everyone likes.
Choose a sample meal to reshape the grocery list.
“Make a home screen for our week. Keep everyone’s private notes separate.”
AN AI COMPANION, YOUR WAY
Someone to make up stories with.
Choose an AI character and how you want it to talk with you.
“Give me a warm, playful companion and a space that feels like me.”
Just ask.
Try a request. This is a local demo, not a live agent.
“Hide every panel. I’ll ask when I need something.”
Illustrative example. Interactive concept previews · Sample data, no connected services.
Everything is
a Block.
The Blocks System covers everything about your agent - the UI, its personality, memory, logic, tools, and interfaces. Blocks make each part replaceable, and you can change them while herOS runs.
Describe it.
“Make a weekend planner with my calendar, saved places, and a budget slider.”
It learns your taste.
Every preference you set - shorter replies, a tool you trust, or a layout you keep going back to - carries into the next thing it builds. The interface ends up designed for you, by you.
Borrow a good eye.
You shouldn’t need to be a designer to have something that looks good and feels great. Your agent starts from a Block someone else made well, restyles it in your own colors, and keeps what fits you.
What’s available, and what’s the vision?
The small security and continuity Kernel stays fixed. “Everything is a Block” describes the replaceable product experience. Block tools, lifecycle, interactive cards, and portable business logic have implemented foundations. Custom agent-authored panels currently use a contained desktop host; arbitrary custom UI on every GO device and a public sharing marketplace are part of the vision shown here. Native client releases and some voice features remain in development.
One Base.
Several ways in.
Your assistant runs on your local machine, in the Base desktop app. Over your secured private network, connect to it from your GO app, on any device, from anywhere. It stays on your machine, but works anywhere you go.
Your BaseMemory · Tasks · BlocksOn your local machine
GO / Desktop
GO / Mobile
GO / Tablet
GO / Browser
Leave Base running at home.
Your Base keeps running when a client closes. Connect another device to the same assistant, memory, and tasks through a paired private connection. Use your own Tailscale private network when you’re away from home.
The same Blocks on every screen,
at home or on the go.
Base delivers verified UI Blocks as WebAssembly (WASM) capsules. GO uses one shared renderer across web and native hosts, with layouts that adapt to the screen.
Your memory stays
with your Base.
GO connects to it without keeping a separate copy of your chat history. You choose which hosted models and services receive data.
A computer for your agent.
Inside your computer.
Your agent works in a separate, resource-managed Linux workspace. It reaches your host files and services only when you grant access.
Read the code.
Make it your own.
herOS is fully open source under the Apache 2.0 license. Inspect it, change it, or contribute a Block.
Explore the sourceYour Base must be running and reachable. Optional hosted models and connected services use the cloud. Device capabilities and availability vary.
A closer look at Base, GO, and WASM
Base owns the agent and authoritative state. Multiple GO clients present that same world; they don’t each run a separate agent. The portable WASM artifacts describe verified UI Blocks - the complete GO application is a shared web/native client, not a WASM binary. Custom panels and native voice do not yet have full cross-device parity.
Give it real power.
Keep your machine yours.
An assistant that can only talk is safe and useless.
One that can run commands on your computer is useful and frightening.
So we split it into three parts that cannot reach into each other.
- You hold the keysThe Host Bridge is the part you run. It installs, starts, stops, updates and recovers everything, and it decides what of your machine the assistant can use: only the folders and files you share, and only as much CPU, memory, GPU and storage as you give it. Neither the assistant nor its workspace ever gets a general key to your computer.
- The trusted planeThe assistant itself - the conversation, its rules, and the services that decide what becomes permanent - runs from a sealed, read-only image, and the model gets no shell there. It can’t rewrite itself: updates are built and checked outside it, and one that fails is rolled back to the last good version.
- The agent’s own computerRisky work happens in a separate Linux workspace. The agent is admin there: it can install packages, build, and run tools and helpers. It has no network of its own, none of your credentials, and no way into the trusted plane or into any folder you haven’t shared. If it breaks, it is replaced, and only the work you chose to keep comes back.
- One door to the outsideWhen the agent needs something beyond your machine - your email, your calendar, another service - the request goes through Loadout, the one gateway that holds your connected accounts, runs the action, and keeps a record. Your passwords and keys never enter the model’s prompts, context, or logs.
- It asks before anything permanentWork that can be undone just happens. Before a step herOS recognizes as permanent - deleting files, discarding changes, wiping data - you get a card that names the risk. Past chats, memory, and earlier answers are context, never your yes.
- If it breaks, it stopsWhen something is missing or wrong, herOS stops instead of falling back to something weaker. The workspace offers one socket that only the trusted plane sends work into, with no route back. If that socket is gone, or your machine can’t provide the isolation, commands are refused rather than run on your computer.
- You win a tieIn a versioned shared folder, if you and the agent change the same file, your edit wins. The agent’s change is held back to redo or drop, and every accepted write keeps the version it replaced. In any shared folder, an automatic rollback never overwrites something newer that you wrote.
- Undo never erasesYou should always be able to go back. Going back adds a new step instead of deleting what happened, so the record stays complete, and a restore never quietly repeats something already done outside, like sending a message twice.
Still being built
- Watching the agent work, pausing it, and taking over its screen are designed but not built yet.
- The agent’s desktop, derived from Linux, is a prototype and has not shipped.
- Tasks in the agent’s workspace share one space, so they are not isolated from each other.
- A folder you share directly is written in place: you get checkpoints and a data-loss warning, but not the per-write protection of a versioned folder.
- Signing in to websites on your behalf through Loadout is planned; until it ships, those actions stay unavailable rather than falling back to a direct login.
- The packaged app that runs without Docker is designed but not built yet, and the separated core refuses a production start until disk limits can be enforced, so today it runs only in development mode.
- Nothing here protects against someone with administrator access to your machine.
What would you
make for yourself?
We’re building toward software you can ask for and change.
herOS is open source. You can help build it.
The horizon in motion
Horizon motion
Tide · Working when duration is unknown
Illustrative motion study.
A few questions.
What to know before making it yours.
What is herOS?
herOS is an open-source personal assistant that runs on your local machine. It keeps your assistant’s memory and tasks in one Base, with GO clients for reaching it from other devices.
What does local-first mean for my privacy?
Your Base holds your assistant’s memory and state on your local machine. If you choose hosted models or connected services, the information needed for those requests can leave your machine. Local-first does not mean every interaction is offline.
Can I access my assistant away from home?
Yes, through a paired private connection to your Base, including your own Tailscale network. Your Base needs to stay running and reachable. Remote access does not require a separate assistant on each device.
What can I customize with Blocks?
Blocks shape the interface, interactions, response preferences, tools, and workflows. You can change supported Blocks while herOS is running. The security core stays fixed, and custom agent-authored panels currently use a contained desktop host; arbitrary custom interfaces are not yet available on every device.
Can I choose my own AI model?
herOS is designed to let you change supported model providers without rebuilding your assistant’s memory. Hosted models need their own access and may have separate costs. Local model options depend on runtime support and your hardware.
Which devices can use herOS?
The client architecture covers desktop, browser, iOS, and Android, with layouts for phones and tablets. The previews on this page illustrate those experiences. Native releases, custom panels, and voice features still have platform-specific development and release gates.
Is herOS open source, and can I download it?
herOS is fully open source under the Apache 2.0 license. You can inspect the code and follow development on GitHub. Published desktop installers are not available yet; the download section will show them when they are ready.
Try herOS now.
Desktop installers are not published yet.
Which version?
Find your chip in About This Mac, or check your system’s processor details.