work-buddy
The AI assistant for knowledge workers.
Take the tour
A walk through six dashboard views that do the heavy lifting day to day. The panels below are illustrations — they show how each view works, not exactly how it looks. Use the arrows or tabs to step through.
The agent surfaces what would help next. You call the shots.
Threads continuously watch your notes, calendar, and projects, and surface a proposed action whenever something needs a decision. Nothing runs until you approve it; you can always redirect or dismiss instead. work-buddy does the noticing, and every decision stays with you.
“I automate what you've okayed and go no further.”
Why it's different
YOUR context. YOUR workflows. YOUR agent.
Enjoy the organization without the upkeep — focus on what matters.
No fees · works with a Claude Code subscription · your data stays snugly on your machine.
- Lives on your machine.
Local Python service, local files, local Obsidian vault, local Chrome extension. Nothing leaves unless you choose.
- Reads from where you already work.
Tabs, files, vault edits, calendar — pulls context from your real tools, so you stop copy-pasting it into chat.
- Acts on your knowledge.
work-buddy is not a passive note-taking system. It operates on your data, processing backlogs, inbox triage, running-note organizing, weekly review, and contracts enforcement.
- Adapts to how you work.
Just describe the workflow you want — the way you'd explain it to a coworker — and your agent builds it. You stay in the driver's seat; it handles the wiring. Set it up today; it still runs the same way next year.
- Doesn't wait to be asked.
The agent sees what's happening across your work, anticipates what would help next, and proposes — you approve, redirect, or dismiss. Most assistants wait for prompts; this one offers.
Automation that preserves your autonomy.
Most AI tools force a binary choice: do everything yourself, or hand it over. work-buddy dissolves the choice. It automates exactly what you've declared safe to automate, surfaces decisions where judgment is needed, and abstains when uncertain. Human agency as a product feature, not a brake pedal.
What your agent does for you is yours.
Workflows, behavioral directions, your preferences — documents you own, the way notes in Obsidian are documents you own. Build a workflow once; it runs the same way next year.
Why pay frontier-model prices for grunt work?
Most agent frameworks route every step through an LLM. work-buddy interleaves deterministic code with LLM reasoning and only invokes the model when reasoning is actually required. Three benefits: cost (tokens not spent are dollars not spent), reproducibility (same code, same result, every time), debuggability (when code breaks, you get a stack trace; when prompts break, you get to guess).
Designed to keep your data, attention, and decisions in your hands.
We've made it our job to protect your sovereignty. Here's where it shows up.
Financial
No fees. Runs on your existing Claude Code subscription. Local-LLM routing for everything that doesn't need a frontier model. Costs dashboard tab.
Attention
A considerate teammate. Surfaces only what merits action. Knows when to act, and when to abstain.
Decision-making
Contracts layer, structural consent gates, refusal-as-verdict.
Data
Local-first storage. Obsidian-bridged vault is user-owned plain text. Nothing leaves unless you choose.
Context comes to you
No more pasting context into a chat box. work-buddy reads from where you already work — on your machine, on your terms.
Key integrations
Obsidian.md Connector
Deep vault access — tasks, journal, Day Planner, tag wrangling, and Smart Connections. The bridge between your knowledge and your agent.
Web Dashboard
System observability, notification center, thread chat, and tab management. Your command center in the browser.
Mobile Control
Telegram bot + Tailscale remote access. Approve consent requests, trigger workflows, and monitor your agent — all from your phone, anywhere.
Chrome Extension
Tab tracking, content extraction, and a full triage pipeline. Export what you're browsing directly into your workflow.
Thunderbird Add-on
Email integration — surface, triage, and act on what's in your inbox without leaving your workflow.
Hindsight Memory
Persistent personal memory across sessions. Semantic search, reflection, and pruning. Your agent remembers.
Get started
Open-source & forever free
MIT licensed. No paywalls, no premium tiers. Fork it, modify it, run it forever — the code is yours. No cloud dependency. No vendor lock-in. No corporate interests.
Kaden McKeen built work-buddy as a personal tool and decided to share it with the world — 100% free and open-source. If it helps you, please consider sponsoring to keep development going!
Sponsor on GitHub