explaingit

spinabot/brigade

Analysis updated 2026-08-13

2,604TypeScriptAudience · developerComplexity · 3/5LicenseSetup · moderate

TLDR

A self-hosted crew of AI agents you run on your own machine, sharing memory, delegating tasks, and reachable from chat apps like WhatsApp and Slack.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((Brigade))
    What it does
      Crew of AI agents
      Shared long term memory
      Task delegation between agents
    Tech stack
      TypeScript
      Node.js
      Optional Convex database
    Use cases
      Personal AI assistant crew
      Automate tasks across apps
      Chat with agents from messaging apps
    Audience
      Developers
      Vibe coders
      Self hosters

Code map

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filefunction / class

What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Run a self-hosted crew of AI agents that share memory and delegate tasks

USE CASE 2

Chat with your AI agents from WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, or Discord

USE CASE 3

Connect agents to over a thousand apps like Gmail, Notion, and GitHub

USE CASE 4

Have an agent read and edit Word, Excel, and PDF documents for you

What is it built with?

TypeScriptNode.jsConvexMCP

How does it compare?

spinabot/brigadegoogle-gemini/live-api-web-consoletutti-os/tutti
Stars2,6042,5582,550
LanguageTypeScriptTypeScriptTypeScript
Last pushed2026-06-21
MaintenanceMaintained
Setup difficultymoderateeasyeasy
Complexity3/52/52/5
Audiencedeveloperdevelopervibe coder

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 30min

Runs from a single install script but needs API keys or a subscription login for at least one model provider.

Use freely for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you keep the copyright notice.

In plain English

Brigade is a self-hosted crew of AI agents that you run on your own machine or server, meant to act as a kind of personal intelligence you fully control. Instead of one chatbot, you get multiple agents with their own workspaces and credentials that share a long-term memory system called Tideline, so something one agent learns can be used by the others. Agents can delegate tasks to each other, switch between different AI models mid-task without losing context, and connect into the apps and services you already use. You install it with a single terminal command on macOS or Linux, and it starts as a fast chat interface in your terminal. From there you can build out isolated agents with their own personas, a skill system, a scheduler for recurring jobs, sub-agents that fan out work, and an org chart structure that decides which agents can talk to which. Everything is stored under a single folder on your machine, and deleting that folder removes everything Brigade has stored. You are not locked into one AI provider. Brigade supports Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, OpenRouter, Groq, Cerebras, xAI, DeepSeek, Mistral, and local models through Ollama, or any compatible endpoint, and you can switch models during a conversation. It can run as an always-on background service with a crash supervisor and scheduled jobs, and you can reach your crew of agents not just from the terminal but from WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord, iMessage, and other messaging channels. It also connects to over a thousand external apps like Gmail, Notion, and GitHub through a built in tool, and it can read documents like PDFs, Word, and Excel files and also create or edit them. For storage, Brigade defaults to a simple filesystem setup, but it can optionally use a self-hosted database called Convex with encryption at rest. Your API keys and data are meant to stay on your own machine rather than being sent to a third party, and there is no telemetry. The project is released under the MIT license. The full README is longer than what was shown.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Install Brigade from https://github.com/spinabot/brigade and set up my first AI agent crew
Prompt 2
Using Brigade, explain how Tideline shares memory between agents
Prompt 3
Show me how to connect Brigade to WhatsApp so I can chat with my agent crew from my phone
Prompt 4
Configure Brigade to switch between Claude and a local Ollama model mid-conversation

Frequently asked questions

What is brigade?

A self-hosted crew of AI agents you run on your own machine, sharing memory, delegating tasks, and reachable from chat apps like WhatsApp and Slack.

What language is brigade written in?

Mainly TypeScript. The stack also includes TypeScript, Node.js, Convex.

What license does brigade use?

Use freely for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you keep the copyright notice.

How hard is brigade to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated moderate, with roughly 30min to a first successful run.

Who is brigade for?

Mainly developer.

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