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Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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<p align="center">
<!-- TODO: replace with banner image -->
<img src="doc/assets/header.png" alt="Paperclip" width="720" />
</p>
<h3 align="center">The control plane for autonomous AI companies.</h3>
<p align="center">
Open-source orchestration to manage teams of AI agents.<br/>
Hire AI employees, set goals, automate jobs — your business runs itself.
</p>
<p align="center">
<a href="#quickstart"><strong>Quickstart</strong></a> &middot;
<a href="https://paperclip.dev/docs"><strong>Docs</strong></a> &middot;
<a href="https://github.com/paperclip-dev/paperclip"><strong>GitHub</strong></a> &middot;
<a href="https://discord.gg/paperclip"><strong>Discord</strong></a>
</p>
<p align="center">
<a href="https://github.com/paperclip-dev/paperclip/blob/master/LICENSE"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/license-MIT-blue" alt="MIT License" /></a>
<a href="https://github.com/paperclip-dev/paperclip/stargazers"><img src="https://img.shields.io/github/stars/paperclip-dev/paperclip?style=flat" alt="Stars" /></a>
<a href="https://discord.gg/paperclip"><img src="https://img.shields.io/discord/000000000?label=discord" alt="Discord" /></a>
</p>
<br/>
<!-- TODO: replace with demo video / gif -->
<p align="center">
<code>[demo video placeholder]</code>
</p>
<br/>
## What is Paperclip?
### **If OpenClaw is an _employee_, Paperclip is the _company_**
Paperclip is a Node.js server and React UI that orchestrates a team of AI agents to run a business. Bring your own agents, assign goals, and track your agents' work and costs from one dashboard.
It looks like a task manager — but under the hood it has org charts, budgets, governance, goal alignment, and agent coordination.
**Three steps to an autonomous company:**
| | Step | Example |
| ------ | --------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **01** | Define the goal | _"Build the #1 AI note-taking app to $1M MRR."_ |
| **02** | Hire the team | CEO, CTO, engineers, designers, marketers — any bot, any provider. |
| **03** | Approve and run | Review strategy. Set budgets. Hit go. Monitor from the dashboard. |
<br/>
> **COMING SOON: Clipmart** — Download and run entire companies with one click. Browse pre-built company templates — full org structures, agent configs, and skills — and import them into your Paperclip instance in seconds.
<br/>
<table>
<tr>
<td align="center"><strong>Works<br/>with</strong></td>
<td align="center"><img src="doc/assets/logos/openclaw.svg" width="32" alt="OpenClaw" /><br/><sub>OpenClaw</sub></td>
<td align="center"><img src="doc/assets/logos/claude.svg" width="32" alt="Claude" /><br/><sub>Claude Code</sub></td>
<td align="center"><img src="doc/assets/logos/codex.svg" width="32" alt="Codex" /><br/><sub>Codex</sub></td>
<td align="center"><img src="doc/assets/logos/cursor.svg" width="32" alt="Cursor" /><br/><sub>Cursor</sub></td>
<td align="center"><img src="doc/assets/logos/bash.svg" width="32" alt="Bash" /><br/><sub>Bash</sub></td>
<td align="center"><img src="doc/assets/logos/http.svg" width="32" alt="HTTP" /><br/><sub>HTTP</sub></td>
</tr>
</table>
_If it can receive a heartbeat, it's hired._
<br/>
## Paperclip is right for you if
- You want to build autonomous AI companies
- You coordinate many different agents (OpenClaw, Codex, Claude, Cursor) toward a common goal
- You have 20 simultaneous Claude Code terminals open and lose track of what everyone is doing
- You want agents running autonomously 24/7, but still want to audit work and chime in when needed
- You want to monitor costs and enforce budgets
- You want a process for managing agents that feels like using a task manager
- You want to manage your autonomous businesses from your phone
<br/>
## Features
### Bring Your Own Agent
Your Claude, Cursor, Codex, and OpenClaw — organized under one org structure, pointed at one goal. If it can receive a heartbeat, it's hired.
### Goal Alignment
Every piece of work traces back to the company mission. Your agents know _what_ to do and _why_.
```
Company Mission → Project Goal → Agent Goal → Task
```
### Heartbeats
Agents wake up on a schedule, check their work, and act. Delegation flows up and down the org chart. Ticket assignments wake agents. Cross-team requests delegate to the best agent for the job.
### Cost Control
Every agent gets a monthly budget. When they hit it, they stop. No runaway costs. No surprise bills. Track costs per agent, per task, per project, per goal.
### Multi-Company
One deployment. Many companies. Run one AI company or fifty with complete data isolation. One control plane for your entire portfolio.
### Ticket System
Every conversation traced. Every decision explained. Structured tickets with clear owners, full tool-call tracing, and an immutable audit log. Nothing happens in the dark.
### Governance
You're the board. Approve hires. Approve strategy. Override anything. Agents can't hire new agents or execute strategies without your sign-off. Pause, resume, reassign, terminate — at any time.
<br/>
## What Paperclip is not
| | |
| ---------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Not a chatbot.** | Agents have jobs, not chat windows. |
| **Not an agent framework.** | We don't tell you how to build agents. We tell you how to run a company made of them. |
| **Not a workflow builder.** | No drag-and-drop pipelines. Paperclip models companies — with org charts, goals, budgets, and governance. |
| **Not a prompt manager.** | Agents bring their own prompts, models, and runtimes. Paperclip manages the organization they work in. |
| **Not a single-agent tool.** | This is for teams. If you have one agent, you probably don't need Paperclip. If you have twenty — you definitely do. |
<br/>
## Quickstart
Open source. Self-hosted. No Paperclip account required.
```bash
npx paperclip onboard
```
Or manually:
```bash
git clone https://github.com/paperclip-dev/paperclip.git
cd paperclip
pnpm install
pnpm dev
```
This starts the API server at `http://localhost:3100` and the UI at `http://localhost:5173`. An embedded PostgreSQL database is created automatically — no setup required.
### With Docker
```bash
docker compose up --build
```
> **Requirements:** Node.js 20+, pnpm 9.15+
<br/>
## Architecture
```
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ You (the board) │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Paperclip (control plane) │
│ │
│ Dashboard · Org Chart · Tasks · Goals · Budgets │
│ Approvals · Activity Log · Cost Tracking │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Adapters │
│ │
│ Claude · OpenClaw · Codex · Cursor · HTTP │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
```
Paperclip is the **control plane**, not the execution plane. Agents run wherever they run and phone home. Adapters connect Paperclip to any execution environment.
**Stack:** TypeScript &middot; Express &middot; React 19 &middot; PostgreSQL &middot; Drizzle ORM &middot; TailwindCSS
<br/>
## FAQ
**How is Paperclip different from agents like OpenClaw or Claude Code?**
Paperclip _uses_ those agents. It orchestrates them into a company — with org charts, budgets, goals, governance, and accountability.
**Can I use my existing agents?**
Yes. Paperclip is unopinionated about agent runtimes. Your agents can be Claude Code sessions, OpenClaw bots, Python scripts, shell commands, HTTP webhooks — anything that can receive a heartbeat signal. Adapters connect Paperclip to whatever execution environment you use.
**What happens when an agent hits its budget limit?**
The agent auto-pauses and new tasks are blocked. You get a soft warning at 80%. As the board, you can override the limit at any time.
**Do agents run continuously?**
By default, agents run on scheduled heartbeats and event-based triggers (task assignment, @-mentions). You can also hook in continuous agents like OpenClaw.
**Can I run multiple companies?**
Yes. A single deployment can run dozens of companies with complete data isolation. Useful for separate ventures, testing strategies in parallel, or templating org configs for reuse.
**What does a typical setup look like?**
Locally, a single Node.js process manages an embedded Postgres and local file storage. For production, point it at your own Postgres and deploy however you like. Configure projects, agents, and goals — the agents take care of the rest.
<br/>
## Comparison
| | Paperclip | Agent frameworks (LangChain, CrewAI) | Single-agent tools (Claude Code, Cursor) |
| -------------------------- | --------- | ------------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------- |
| Multi-agent orchestration | Yes | Partial | No |
| Org structure & hierarchy | Yes | No | No |
| Cost control & budgets | Yes | No | No |
| Goal alignment | Yes | No | No |
| Governance & approvals | Yes | No | No |
| Multi-company | Yes | No | No |
| Agent-agnostic | Yes | Framework-locked | Single provider |
| Ticket-based work tracking | Yes | No | No |
<br/>
## Development
```bash
pnpm dev # Full dev (API + UI)
pnpm dev:server # Server only
pnpm dev:ui # UI only
pnpm build # Build all
pnpm typecheck # Type checking
pnpm test:run # Run tests
pnpm db:generate # Generate DB migration
pnpm db:migrate # Apply migrations
```
See [doc/DEVELOPING.md](doc/DEVELOPING.md) for the full development guide.
<br/>
## Contributing
We welcome contributions. See the [contributing guide](CONTRIBUTING.md) for details.
<!-- TODO: add CONTRIBUTING.md -->
<br/>
## Community
- [Discord](https://discord.gg/paperclip) — chat, questions, show & tell
- [GitHub Issues](https://github.com/paperclip-dev/paperclip/issues) — bugs and feature requests
- [GitHub Discussions](https://github.com/paperclip-dev/paperclip/discussions) — ideas and RFC
<br/>
## License
MIT &copy; 2026 Paperclip
<br/>
---
<p align="center">
<sub>Open source under MIT. Built for people who want to run companies, not babysit agents.</sub>
</p>