01What Is OpenMausBot and How Does It Work?

OpenMausBot is a free, open-source alternative to Grokbot. It lets you create a team of AI agents that work like teammates inside a chat app on your Mac.

Each agent has its own personality, job, model, and memory. You message them like contacts, and they go do the work—reading emails, doing research, or updating projects.

02Main Features: Models, Computers, and Apps

OpenMausBot runs on the AI subscriptions you already have. You can use Claude, Codex, or even Grok itself. No new account or waitlist is needed.

  • Model picker: Choose a different model for each agent, like Fable 5, Opa, Sonnet, Haiku, Codex, or Grok.
  • Computer use: Every agent gets its own cloud computer with a live screen preview. You can watch it fill forms or organize files.
  • Permission system: Agents ask before editing files or running commands. You tap allow or deny, like approving on your phone.
  • Connected apps: A one-click marketplace on Composio offers over 500 apps, including Gmail, Slack, Notion, and Linear.

The app is local first. Your conversations, keys, and event logs stay on your Mac in a folder.

03How to Set Up OpenMausBot on Your Mac

Getting OpenMausBot is simple. It is on GitHub and you can download the Mac app directly.

  1. Go to GitHub and download the OpenMausBot Mac app.
  2. Drag the app into your Applications folder.
  3. Open the app. The server is built in, so nothing extra is needed.
  4. Make sure you have at least one AI tool installed and logged in, like Claude Code, Codex, or the Grok tool.
  5. If you have one, it appears in the model picker automatically.
  6. Configure the CLI if needed. Using Claude Desktop can help you finish this quickly.

Windows support is coming next, then Linux.

04How to Use It: Creating Agents and Workflows

Using OpenMausBot is as easy as using WhatsApp. You click the plus sign to create a new agent.

Type what you want the agent to do, like “read my inbox every morning and draft replies.” Then the agent handles it.

  • Example: Set up an SEO content researcher agent. It pulls in your existing skills from Claude, like keyword research, without setting up APIs.
  • Team setup: Give each agent a different job and model. Your writing agent runs on the best writer; your research agent runs faster and cheaper.
  • Watch it work: Open the Computer panel to see the agent’s desktop. You can even click “open desktop” to take over the computer in your browser.

When an agent wants to do something risky, a card pops up for approval. You see exactly what it wants before it acts.

05Results and Comparisons with Grokbot

In testing, OpenMausBot works well but has rough edges. The formatting of its questions was not smooth, unlike Grokbot’s polished version.

However, Grokbot has a waitlist and token limits that hit fast. The host signed up for a free trial, and it ran out of tokens in about 20 minutes—even as a subscriber.

OpenMausBot has no waitlist and few restrictions. It also lets you change models per agent, which Grokbot does not.

Computer use is slow on both. Grokbot got stuck opening Google and saying hello. OpenMausBot is similar, but the feature is real and working.

Agent-to-agent communication is missing in OpenMausBot. Asking one agent to talk to another did not work. Grokbot supports tagging agents together.

06Tips, Limits, and Mistakes to Avoid

OpenMausBot is early, so expect some mess. It is open source, so you can edit the code if you want to change how approvals work.

You need at least one AI tool installed: Claude, Codex, or Grok. Otherwise, it will not work.

  • Limit: Agents work solo right now. No agent-to-agent teamwork yet.
  • Tip: Use your existing Claude skills. They carry over to agents, saving setup time.
  • Mistake to avoid: Approving things can be annoying, but deny risky actions unless you trust the agent.
  • Tip: Connect apps once, and every agent can use them. This makes agents actually useful.

Do not expect lightning speed. Computer use is slow today, but the shape is here and speed will come.

07Who It Is For and Why It Matters

OpenMausBot is for anyone who wants a team of AI agents without technical barriers. If you can message a friend on WhatsApp, you can run an agent.

It matters because it removes the waitlist and token walls that block most people from trying agent teams. You use the plans you already pay for.

It also fits into a bigger system. You can wire OpenMausBot into an agentic operating system where all agents share one memory in Obsidian.

This makes every new tool stronger instead of a separate island. The shape—agents with jobs, models, apps, and memory—is settling, so learning it once saves time.

The people who wait for things to slow down will be learning basics while others already have free tools running.

08How It Slots Into an Agentic Operating System

The host built OpenMausBot into an agentic operating system. This is a dashboard that wires all agents into one mission control.

Every agent shares the same Obsidian memory. Goals, journal, notes, and project files are all in one brain.

  • Shared memory: When a research agent pulls search console data, it lands where other agents can see it.
  • Workspace pattern: Anything an agent builds lands in a project folder. You can preview HTML pages or play videos from the dashboard.
  • Access anywhere: The system runs on a home Mac, and you can open the same dashboard from a laptop or phone via Tailscale.

Setting it up took about 30 minutes because the same pattern works for every agent. That is a real lesson: build around a system, not one app.