This project addresses the complexity of orchestrating multiple AI agents to run autonomous businesses, targeting users who need to coordinate diverse AI teams towards common goals. Paperclip provides a structured, company-like framework, enabling efficient management, cost control, and auditability for AI-driven operations, thereby facilitating the creation of "zero-human" companies.

How It Works

Paperclip functions as a Node.js server and React UI, abstracting AI agents into an organizational structure with roles, reporting lines, and goals. Its core approach leverages "heartbeats" for scheduled agent activity and event-driven triggers, ensuring persistent agent state and atomic task execution with budget enforcement. This design allows agents to operate autonomously while maintaining alignment with company objectives and providing robust governance.

Quick Start & Requirements

• Primary install/run command: npx paperclipai onboard --yes or clone the repository, cd paperclip, pnpm install, pnpm dev.
• Non-default prerequisites: Node.js 20+, pnpm 9.15+. An embedded PostgreSQL database is automatically managed for local setups.
• Links: Quickstart, Docs, GitHub, Discord.

Highlighted Details

• Bring Your Own Agent: Supports any AI agent or runtime capable of sending a heartbeat, integrating seamlessly into the organizational chart.
• Atomic Execution & Cost Control: Task checkout and budget enforcement are atomic, preventing double-work and runaway token spend, with per-agent monthly budgets.
• Persistent Agent State: Agents maintain their task context across scheduled heartbeats, avoiding the need to restart from scratch.
• Goal-Aware Execution: Tasks inherit full goal ancestry, ensuring agents consistently understand the "why" behind their work.
• Multi-Company Support: A single deployment can manage numerous companies with complete data isolation and separate audit trails.
• Portable Company Templates: Future "Clipmart" feature will allow downloading and importing pre-built company architectures, including org structures and agent configurations.

Maintenance & Community

The project is active with a community Discord server, GitHub Issues for bugs/features, and GitHub Discussions for ideas. A roadmap includes features like Clipmart (company templates) and a Plugin System. Contributions are welcomed via a dedicated guide.

Licensing & Compatibility

Paperclip is released under the MIT license, permitting broad use, modification, and distribution, including for commercial purposes, with standard attribution requirements.

Limitations & Caveats

Paperclip is designed for coordinating multiple agents and is not a chatbot, agent framework, workflow builder, or prompt manager. Features like "Clipmart" are marked as "COMING SOON." While it provides an audit log and ticket system, specific advanced ticketing functionalities are noted as being on the roadmap.