Introduction
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What is Octos?
Octos is an open-source AI agent platform that turns any LLM into a multi-channel, multi-user intelligent assistant. You deploy a single Rust binary, connect your LLM API keys and messaging channels (Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Email, WeChat, and more), and Octos handles everything else β conversation routing, tool execution, memory, provider failover, and multi-tenant isolation.
Think of it as the backend operating system for AI agents. Instead of building a chatbot from scratch for each use case, you configure Octos profiles β each with their own system prompt, model, tools, and channels β and manage them all through a web dashboard or REST API. A small team can run hundreds of specialized AI agents on a single machine.
Octos is built for people who need more than a personal assistant: teams deploying AI for customer support across WhatsApp and Telegram, developers building AI-powered products on top of a REST API, researchers orchestrating multi-step research pipelines with different LLMs at each stage, or families sharing a single AI setup with per-person customization.
Operating Modes
Octos operates in two primary modes:
- Chat mode (
octos chat): Interactive multi-turn conversation with tools, or single-message execution via--message. - Gateway mode (
octos gateway): Persistent daemon serving multiple messaging channels simultaneously.
Key Concepts
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| Agent | AI that executes tasks using tools |
| Tool | A capability (shell, file ops, search, messaging) |
| Provider | LLM API service (Anthropic, OpenAI, etc.) |
| Channel | Messaging platform (CLI, Telegram, Slack, etc.) |
| Session | Conversation history per channel and chat ID |
| Sandbox | Isolated execution environment (bwrap, macOS sandbox-exec, Docker) |
| Tool Policy | Allow/deny rules controlling which tools are available |
| Skill | Reusable instruction template (SKILL.md) |
| Bootstrap | Context files loaded into system prompt (AGENTS.md, SOUL.md, etc.) |