Your AI-powered work assistant — runs in your terminal
Brain dump naturally.
AI organizes everything.
You keep working.
Your AI-powered second brain. Brain dump tasks, notes, and ideas in natural language — Claude organizes everything into plain markdown files. Free and open source.
Try it — type a question
Productivity tools became productivity theater.
Notes in one app, tasks in another, ideas lost in chat threads. You spend more time organizing than doing. Context scatters across conversations, and nothing captures what actually matters. The friction isn’t just tool-switching — it’s that your best thinking has no home.
“If your productivity system requires a course to learn it, it’s already failed.”
That’s why we built work-os — a conversational layer that captures everything you tell it and organizes it into structured markdown — tasks, notes, knowledge — so nothing slips through the cracks.
WHY SWITCH
Productivity without the overhead
Task Input
Organization
Daily Planning
Maintenance
Data Storage
HOW IT WORKS
Three steps to zero context switching
Ask
Type your question in plain English. No syntax, no commands to memorize.
AI Acts
Claude scans your tasks, notes, and knowledge to build a complete picture.
You Review
Get actionable results in seconds. Take the next step instantly.
USE CASES
Adapts to any role
These are examples — work-os adapts to whatever workflows and priorities you have.
Prioritize work, track context, stay on top of escalations
$ What are my priorities today?
3 P0 tasks due today — payment failure follow-up is most urgent
$ Add context to the payment failure task
Updated Tasks/support/payment-failure.md with your notes
$ Show me everything tagged #escalation
4 tasks tagged #escalation — 2 resolved, 2 in progress
Extend with your favorite tools
Bring your own API tokens. Click any tool to see the setup guide.
FAQ
Common questions
Is work-os free?+
Yes — work-os is free and open-source. You'll need a Claude AI account to power the AI: either Claude Max ($100/mo, unlimited) or a pay-per-use API key.
Is my data safe?+
work-os runs locally in your terminal. Your files stay on your machine as plain markdown. AI queries go to Anthropic's API — nothing else leaves your computer.
Can I connect it to other tools?+
work-os works standalone as a second brain. If you want to connect external tools, you can add MCP integrations by providing your own API tokens (e.g., Slack, Jira, Zendesk). work-os doesn't ship with pre-configured integrations — you bring your own connections.
Do I need to be technical?+
Just basic terminal comfort — copy-paste a few commands. Setup takes about 3 minutes, and Claude guides you through the rest.
How is this different from ChatGPT?+
ChatGPT conversations disappear. work-os saves everything as structured markdown files on your machine — tasks, notes, knowledge — building a persistent second brain that grows with you.
What is MCP?+
Model Context Protocol — an open standard for connecting AI to external tools. If you want to extend work-os with your own integrations, MCP makes it possible. It's optional, not required.
SECURITY
Private by design
Runs locally
Terminal-based, nothing hosted. Your workflow stays on your machine.
Your files, your machine
Plain markdown files — no proprietary cloud, no vendor lock-in.
Open source
Inspect every line of code. Fork it, modify it, own it.
Anthropic API only
AI queries go to Anthropic. Nothing else leaves your machine.
GET STARTED
Up and running in 3 minutes
Get Claude Code
Claude Code is an AI tool that runs in your terminal. You need an account to use it.
Install Claude Code
Open your terminal (Mac: search "Terminal", Windows: use WSL or PowerShell) and paste this command.
This installs Claude Code on your computer so you can run it from anywhere.
Set Up work-os
Still in your terminal, paste these commands one at a time.
Claude Code will open. Type: "Help me set up work-os"
It will ask about your role and configure everything for you.
COMMUNITY
Join the community
Share workflows, trade ideas, and ship faster with AI-native tools.
Built by Ahmad Elswify