FounderOS

A personal operating system for a one-person company: a command center that runs your business as a set of AI-assisted departments.

Built for whoever is holding the whole thing together: a freelancer, a solopreneur, a solo founder, or a small team where one person still runs point. You set the direction, AI agents cover the departments, and any employees you do have plug into the same board.

FounderOS puts unified comms, a client funnel, social growth, finances, Optimal Engine (your markdown knowledge base, searchable), and a roster of named agents on one screen. Every page reads from one local SQLite database; every integration is an honest connector that reports not configured until you give it a key.

Want to build your own, live, with guidance? That's what the cohort is for: founderos.sh

v3: FounderOS on GladOS

v3 is the GladOS codebase with FounderOS on top: every GladOS screen, the FounderOS Agents board and Social pages (founderos/), and a demo company so a fresh clone shows a working business instead of an empty one.

Version	Stack	Where
v3 (this)	Next.js 14 + SQLite, GladOS	main
v2	Go + SvelteKit on BusinessOS	tag v2-businessos
v1	Next.js 14 + SQLite	tag v1-nextjs

Quick start

Requires Node 22 or newer.

npm install
npm run dev                    # http://localhost:4100

That's it. FounderOS opens on demo mode: a fictional company (twenty-two agents, their tasks and run history, a 24-journey funnel, brand deals, social accounts, campaigns, an Optimal Engine store of 180 pages) built into demo-data/ on first start and refreshed when it is a week old. Nothing in it is real, and it never touches data/.

When you are ready for your own business, open Settings and turn Filming mode off (Filming is GladOS's name for the demo data). FounderOS then reads data/, which starts blank: six departments, and everything else yours to add through the UI or by wiring a connector. Set GLADOS_DEFAULT_MODE=real to start every fresh install blank instead.

No login on first run: with no password set, FounderOS listens on 127.0.0.1 only, so nothing off this machine can reach it. Open Settings → Security and set an operator password whenever you want to reach it from another device; from then on every page and API route asks for it.

npm run dev compiles each page on first visit, so switching pages there is slow by design. To review or time the app as it really runs, use the preview:

npm run preview                # build into .next-preview, then serve it
npm run preview -- --no-build  # restart on the last preview build
node scripts/nav-timing.mjs --base http://127.0.0.1:4100   # page-switch timings

The preview has its own build folder, so a next dev on the same checkout is untouched. Code changes need a new npm run preview. Live sources (Attio, Stripe, Zernio and the rest) are read through a short cache that the server fills once at start; set GLADOS_WARM=0 to skip that warm-up.

What's inside

Area	Pages
Command	/ home · /wizard · /inbox (Comms)
Revenue	/funnel · /brand-deals · /clients · /finances · /trading
Growth	/social · /adpilot · /creative-engine · /analytics · /lab (Content Lab) · /lead-magnets
Workforce	/agents (/org org chart via ⌘K) · /chats · /tasks · /workflows · /skills · /compute
Knowledge	/brain (Optimal Engine) · /database (brain files) · /knowledge · /drift
System	/setup (Settings) · /integrations · /usage · /blueprint (compiled system graph) · /roadmap

• Connectors (lib/connectors/): email (IMAP), Slack, Notion, Attio, WhatsApp, Stripe/PayPal, Beehiiv, ManyChat, Zernio, Foreplay, the knowledge engine, a local-stack probe, and an LLM gateway. Each returns a ConnectorStatus and never fakes "connected".
• Agents (lib/agents/): a runtime with a registry, runs, broadcasts and chat tools. The Agents page is the FounderOS board (founderos/): the roster, run activity, task lanes and the Conductor, read from a Paperclip board when one is configured and from the demo company in demo mode.
• Optimal Engine (lib/brain.ts): the /brain page searches a markdown folder through the gbrain CLI, with a plain-text fallback when the CLI is absent.
• Demo company (lib/demo/): the seed behind demo mode, the same company founderos.sh shows.
• Blueprint (lib/blueprint/): compiles the real registries (agents, connectors, skills, stores) into a graph so the map can never drift from the system.

Wiring Optimal Engine

bun install -g github:garrytan/gbrain    # not the npm package of the same name
gbrain init --pglite --no-embedding
gbrain import ~/path/to/your/notes --no-embed

Set GBRAIN_BIN to the absolute binary path and GBRAIN_STORE to your notes folder in .env.local. The embedded database is single-writer: run the CLI (as FounderOS does) or a long-lived gbrain serve, not both at once.

Security

There are no accounts, just one operator password, managed in Settings → Security (set, change, remove, sign out every other device).

• The password is stored as a scrypt hash in .env.local on the host (GLADOS_PASSWORD_HASH) next to a random GLADOS_SESSION_SECRET that the httpOnly session cookie carries. Neither is ever in git. Changing the password rotates the secret, which signs out every other device.
• No password = this machine only. npm run dev / npm start bind to 127.0.0.1 and refuse any other GLADOS_HOST until a password exists. The gate (middleware.ts) also answers 503 to any non-loopback Host in that state, so running next dev by hand does not open it either.
• Password set = login everywhere. Set GLADOS_HOST to the interface you want (a Tailscale IP is the sane choice; 0.0.0.0 if you know why) and restart. Mutating cross-origin requests are refused regardless of session.
• Forgot it: delete the GLADOS_PASSWORD_HASH line from .env.local, restart, and set a new one from the machine it runs on (or through ssh -L 4100:localhost:4100 <host>).

Development

npm test          # vitest: includes a smoke test that renders every page and API route
npm run typecheck
npm run build

Licence

MIT. See LICENSE.