Brigade
A self-hosted personal AI crew of agents that share memory and talk through chat apps.
- Stars
- 11.4k
- Forks
- 79
- Licence
- MIT
- Language
- TypeScript
- Last update
- 5 days ago
- Type
- AI model / agent
What it is
Brigade is a self-hosted system for running a team of AI agents that share one long-term memory called Tideline. You can reach the crew from a terminal or messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, and Discord. It can use many AI model providers, including local Ollama models, and keeps your keys and data on your own machine.
- Chat with an AI agent from the terminal through a fast chat TUI
- Send documents, images, audio, or video to an agent and ask it to summarize or understand them
- Have an agent create or edit Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or PDF files
- Schedule recurring agent tasks with the built-in cron scheduler
- Connect the crew to services like Gmail, Slack, GitHub, or Notion through the Composio tool
Great for
- Developers who want to run their own multi-agent setup on a laptop or server
- People who want an AI assistant that keeps data on hardware they control
- Users who already have a Claude, ChatGPT, or Copilot subscription and want to avoid managing API keys
- Teams experimenting with agents that delegate tasks through an org chart
Not ideal for
- People who want a polished consumer app with no setup, since the README describes it as an ecosystem you host yourself
- Anyone unwilling to run a command-line install and manage a local directory under ~/.brigade/
- Users who need guaranteed security review, since the README makes strong claims but this analysis did not verify them
How to get it
- 1
Install with a package manager
You'll need: Node.js 22.12+ (or use the install script, which installs Node if needed)
Install via npm (if Node 22.12+ is already installed)
npm i -g @spinabot/brigademacOS / Linux install script
curl -fsSL https://brigade.spinabot.com/install.sh | sh - 2
Run it
- Install Brigade using one of the install commands above
- Run `brigade` in your terminal to start the chat TUI
- Sign in with a Claude, ChatGPT, or Copilot subscription, or reuse an existing Claude Code or Codex CLI login, or add an API key
- Try `brigade expose` if you want to share a local endpoint through the built-in relay options
- 3
Get the most out of it
- Use the org chart and Team Mode to split work across isolated agents with their own memory and credentials
- Connect messaging channels such as Telegram or WhatsApp to reach your crew from your phone
- Enable the MCP memory server (`brigade mcp`) to share Tideline memory with other MCP clients
- Switch to the optional self-hosted Convex backend if you need a database instead of the default filesystem mode
- Use the cron scheduler for recurring tasks
Downloads
Strengths
- Runs locally with keys stored on your machine, per the README
- Supports many model providers, including local Ollama, and lets you switch models mid-conversation
- Single data directory at ~/.brigade/ that is easy to inspect or delete
Trade-offs
- The README is long and marketing-heavy, so some claims about enterprise scale are not independently verified here
- Requires Node 22.12+ or the provided install script, and a permissions issue (EACCES) is mentioned for global npm installs
- Many features (channels, connectors, Convex backend) add setup complexity beyond basic chat
How it compares
| Project | Stars | Type | Level | Updated | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| brigade (this) | 11.4k | AI model / agent | intermediate | 5 days ago | Developers who want to run their own multi-agent setup on a laptop or server |
| crewAI | 60.4k | Library | intermediate | 4 days ago | Python developers prototyping multi-agent workflows |
| langgraph | 44.3k | Library | intermediate | 5 days ago | Python developers building multi-step AI agents that must survive failures or long waits |
| OpenHands | 92.5k | App | intermediate | 4 days ago | Developers who want coding agents running on a server while their laptop is off |
| hermes-agent | 260k | AI model / agent | intermediate | 4 days ago | Developers who want a personal agent they can host on their own server or machine |
| humanizer | 63.8k | AI model / agent | beginner | 9 days ago | Writers who draft with an AI and want the final text to sound more natural |
Stats synced from GitHub. The assessment above was drafted with AI from the project's README on 2026-10-29 and may miss recent changes — check the README before relying on a command. MIT licence: free to use, modify and distribute, including commercially, as long as you keep the copyright notice.