Tencent Octop: Self-Hosted AI Assistant You Can Run Locally

Introduction

Octop is a self-hosted AI assistant framework developed by Tencent Cloud. It can be installed on a personal computer, NAS, or cloud server. The web interface works alongside Feishu, WeChat, DingTalk, Enterprise WeChat, QQ, and Telegram. A single deployment supports multiple user accounts, each with isolated experts, memories, and files. The software is free; users bring their own model endpoints (cloud APIs or local Ollama). Model invocation costs are billed by the model provider. The project has 11.9K GitHub stars.

Octop vs. WorkBuddy

WorkBuddy is Tencent Cloud's managed AI office assistant — log in and use it, with models and compute in the cloud. Octop shares many features: experts, skills, connectors, knowledge bases, and scheduled tasks. The official positioning: WorkBuddy is a ready-to-use product; Octop targets individuals, families, and small teams, emphasizing open source, self-deployment, and strict isolation of each user's experts and workspaces. Choose WorkBuddy if you want zero setup; choose Octop if you want conversations, files, and keys to stay on your own hardware.

Installation

Windows (PowerShell)

irm https://finnie-1258344699.cos.ap-guangzhou.myqcloud.com/octop/install.ps1 | iex

octop init

octop run

macOS / Linux

curl -fsSL https://finnie-1258344699.cos.ap-guangzhou.myqcloud.com/octop/install.sh | bash

octop init

octop run

The installer bundles Python 3.12 under ~/.octop/ without touching the system Python. octop init creates an admin account (password ≥8 chars, letters+numbers). Access the UI at http://127.0.0.1:8088.

Docker (for servers or multi-user)

docker run -d 
  --name octop 
  -p 8088:8088 
  -v octop-data:/data/.octop 
  -e HOME=/data 
  -e OCTOP_ADMIN_USERNAME=admin 
  -e OCTOP_DEFAULT_PASSWORD='Passw0rd2026' 
  ghcr.nju.edu.cn/tencentcloud/octop:latest

Use a strong password; the example merely satisfies the policy. On first start the admin credentials are written to credential.txt in the data volume. Without a preset password the web UI launches a setup wizard and the unlock token appears in octop-login.txt.

Model Configuration

Add models via the web UI under Admin → Models . Presets include Tencent Cloud, OpenAI, DeepSeek, and Ollama. API keys can also be placed in ~/.octop/env so they load automatically on restart:

OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-your-key
DASHSCOPE_API_KEY=sk-your-qwen-key

Three Practical Usage Patterns

1. Pick a Specialized Expert

After install a default expert named main exists. For real work, use the Experts page to install built-in templates (e.g., weekly report writer, server monitor, vaccine tracker). Each expert has isolated chat history and files. Templates install with one click. Example prompt for the "Xiao Ban" weekly-report expert:

Summarize my three tasks this week into a weekly report:
1. Changed login page to SMS verification
2. Fixed export timeout
3. Wrote deployment guide for new hires
Tone: neutral, ≤400 words, add one follow-up item for next week.

Experts can adopt 16 MBTI personality presets or a custom test result.

2. Let It Search Your Own Data

Connectors are authorized apps (Tencent Docs, Tencent Meeting, Email, Notion). Knowledge bases hold uploaded PDFs, Word docs, spreadsheets; answers cite source segments. After linking a Feishu calendar and a project spec, ask an expert in Feishu:

Check tomorrow's meetings and summarize the project spec from the knowledge base in 300 words.
Include: meeting time, what I need to prepare, conclusions relevant to this meeting.

Feishu only relays the message; the expert performs the lookup and summarization. The same flow works in the web UI.

3. Plug It Into Your Code Editor

Editors supporting ACP (Zed, OpenCode) can call local experts: octop acp --agent main Conversely, configure OpenCode, Claude Code, or CodeBuddy in Octop's ACP settings to delegate coding tasks from the chat UI. Risky operations pause for confirmation.

Scheduled tasks are created in plain language under Tasks ; they trigger automatically without keeping the web page open.

Message Flow & Architecture

Web, chat apps, and scheduled tasks all feed into a single process that persists to one data store. Default database is local SQLite; for heavier loads switch to PostgreSQL. No Redis or extra services are required. On restart the process reloads experts, channels, and scheduled tasks from the database; chat histories remain in their original directories.

Data Ownership & Backup

Conversations, expert workspaces, and secrets live under ~/.octop/ (or the mounted Docker volume). Deleting the container preserves the volume. Key files: config.json — port, database, process settings octop.db — users, experts, channels, scheduled tasks secrets/ — login keys agents/ — per-expert files and memories

Before migrating machines run octop backup to export your data directory.

Source

GitHub repository: https://github.com/TencentCloud/Octop