OpenRig is an Apache-2.0, self-hosted control plane that turns ordinary Claude Code, Codex, and Pi terminal sessions into a persistent, named team defined in YAML.

**OpenRig's bet is that the missing layer is topology, not another agent: it makes the team itself the configurable, restartable artifact and treats a cross-harness team (Claude Code and Codex together) as the default rather than a feature.**

## What it is

A TypeScript daemon (a Hono HTTP server with SQLite) plus a `rig` CLI, a terminal UI, and an MCP server, built on tmux by Mike Schwarz's Esoteric Labs.
The unit is the rig: a `rig.yaml` (RigSpec) declaring pods, seats, edges, continuity policies, and a `CULTURE.md`, with reusable AgentSpec blueprints for individual agents.
The daemon boots each seat as an actual Claude Code or Codex tmux session with a stable address such as `dev-owner@first-project`, so the conversation can change while the seat keeps its name, role, and accumulated context.
Seats coordinate over the terminal itself (`rig send`, `rig broadcast`, `rig chatroom`, `rig capture`, `rig transcript`), pass owned work through `rig queue` (one owner and one state per item), and follow declared workflows and watchdogs.
Working state lives on disk as projects, missions, and slices with specs, progress, and proof; `rig down --snapshot` and `rig up <name>` snapshot and restore the team by name with a per-seat outcome, `rig discover` and `rig adopt` can absorb existing tmux sessions, and a RigBundle is a portable archive with SHA-256 integrity.
It ships no model and holds no API keys: it drives the Claude Code and Codex logins you already have.

## Status

Active and early: about 3,873 stars and 256 forks as of 2026-10-02, created 2026-04-01, 24 contributors, 124 open issues and pull requests, and v0.6.4 published 2026-10-02, with npm `@openrig/cli` at 0.6.4 after 54 versions since 2026-04-06.
**The adoption signal is thin where it matters: GitHub traction is respectable, but the Hacker News footprint is a pair of Show HN threads at 8 and 6 points plus a 2-point repost, and the documentation index still names release 0.5.14 while npm ships 0.6.4.**
The project describes itself as built by its own network of agent teams since March 2026, a self-reported claim that independent field reports do not yet corroborate.

## Strengths

- Cross-harness by default: Claude Code and Codex as peers in one rig, plus Pi and Oh My Pi through RPC runners, where much of the category pins to a single vendor.
- Persistent seats with snapshot and restore by name, reporting each seat as resumed, rebuilt, fresh, waiting on a decision or attention, or failed, which answers the which-tab-was-the-reviewer problem directly.
- Terminal-native coordination with no second API: agents message each other by typing into tmux panes, so anything a human can do in a session an agent can do.
- An agent-first CLI and MCP server (`rig_up`, `rig_ps`, `rig_send`, `rig_chatroom_send`) that lets the team manage its own topology.
- Local and self-hosted with no cloud dependency and no token markup, running on the subscriptions you already pay for.

## Cautions

- The human is still the reviewer: a Show HN commenter notes that unsupervised agents degrade quickly, and the design routes work and attention rather than removing the review step, which the author describes as operating with a hand near the wheel.
- No agent isolation: seats share the host network and filesystem through tmux, and the author confirmed in-thread that isolating agents is not solved yet, so it assumes a single trusted machine.
- Setup is invasive: it writes provider trust settings and executable hooks, edits `~/.tmux.conf`, `~/.claude.json`, `~/.codex/config.toml`, `.claude/settings.local.json`, and `.mcp.json`, and pre-trusts the workspace, with no complete preservation or rollback guarantee, so back up before first use.
- Platform limits: macOS or Linux with Node 22 or 24 and tmux; native Windows is unsupported and WSL2 is untested.
- Early and churning: 0.6.x with 39 releases in six months, documentation that lags the package, and a popularity story that leans on the author's own accounts.
- The permission model needs care: agents can run `rig` commands without repeated prompts if you accept the setup offer, and `--dangerously-interact` lets one seat answer another's permission prompt (off by default, recorded with a reason), which is the trust boundary a long-running fleet puts pressure on.

## Pricing

Free and open source under Apache-2.0.
No hosted tier, no token markup, and no OpenRig API keys; agents run on the Claude Code and Codex subscriptions you already have, so model usage is billed by those providers.

## Compared to

- [Omnara](../omnara/index.md): the other control plane that owns agent execution and state, with machine pools and dashboard, phone, CLI, API, and Slack supervision; choose Omnara for hosted execution and mobile reach, OpenRig for cross-harness teams of actual Claude Code and Codex sessions on your own machine.
- [Conductor](../conductor/index.md): the polished closed macOS GUI for parallel sessions; choose Conductor for a shallow, well-reviewed Mac workflow, OpenRig for a self-hosted daemon that defines, boots, and restores a named team.
- [Squad](../squad/index.md): a persistent agent team as versioned repo files inside GitHub Copilot CLI; choose Squad to stay inside Copilot, OpenRig for harness-independent, tmux-backed seats with a durable cross-session queue.

## Bottom line

**Recommended for terminal-native engineers who already run several Claude Code and Codex sessions and want to define, boot, and restore the team as infrastructure.**
Not for anyone who needs agent sandboxing, a Windows desktop, or a managed cloud with a support contract.

## Changes

- 2026-10-02 - Created.

## See also

- [Orchestration Feature Matrix](../orchestration-feature-matrix/index.md) - the category comparison this note joins
- [Omnara](../omnara/index.md) - the closest control-plane rival
- [Conductor](../conductor/index.md) - the closed Mac GUI incumbent
- [Squad](../squad/index.md) - the Copilot CLI team harness
- [The Agentic Development Environment Landscape](../../the-agentic-development-environment-landscape/index.md) - the tracker this category extends

## References

- https://openrig.dev/ - definition, self-hosted positioning, install path, and the Claude Code, Codex, and Pi framing
- https://openrig.dev/docs/getting-started - prerequisites, starters, seat and pod concepts, and the human-and-agent user model
- https://openrig.dev/what-is - architecture, primitives, and the software-factory framing
- https://github.com/mvschwarz/openrig - repository, Apache-2.0 license, stars, and the what-it-changes-on-your-machine table
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/@openrig/cli - package version 0.6.4 and the release history
- https://openrig.dev/blog/orchestrator - launch demo, the two-orchestrator high-availability pair, and the September 2026 permission-override update
- https://openrig.dev/blog/cross-harness-agents - the cross-harness thesis and the terminal-as-transport mechanism
- https://esoteric.run/blog/why-i-built-openrig - the author's design rationale and the restore-everything motivation
- https://openrig.dev/compare/claude-managed-agents - the managed-cloud counterpart and the local-versus-hosted split
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47772935 - the Show HN launch thread and the supervision concern
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48241066 - the control-plane thread and the agent-isolation question