CowAgent

CowAgent is an open-source super AI assistant that proactively plans tasks, controls your computer and external services, creates and runs Skills, builds a personal knowledge base and long-term memory, and grows alongside you through self-evolution — a reference implementation of Agent Harness engineering.

CowAgent is lightweight, easy to deploy, and built to extend. Plug in any major LLM provider and run it 24/7 on a personal computer or server, across the web and all major IM platforms.

🌟 Highlights

🏗️ Architecture

CowAgent is a complete Agent Harness: messages flow in through Channels; the Agent Core plans and reasons over memory, knowledge, and the available tools and skills; Models generate the response, which is sent back through the originating channel. Every layer is decoupled and independently extensible.

Read more in Architecture.

🚀 Quick Start

A one-line installer takes care of dependencies, configuration, and startup:

Linux / macOS:

bash <(curl -fsSL https://cdn.link-ai.tech/code/cow/run.sh)

Windows (PowerShell):

irm https://cdn.link-ai.tech/code/cow/run.ps1 | iex

Docker:

curl -O https://cdn.link-ai.tech/code/cow/docker-compose.yml
docker compose up -d

Once started, open http://localhost:9899 to access the Web console — your one-stop hub to chat with the Agent, configure models, connect channels, and install skills.

Deploying on a server? Set web_host to 0.0.0.0 in config.json to make the console reachable from outside, and set web_password to protect it. Don't forget to open port 9899 in your firewall or security group.

📖 Detailed guides: Quick Start · Install from Source · Upgrade

After installation, manage the service with the cow CLI:

cow start | stop | restart        # service control
cow status | logs                  # status and logs
cow update                         # pull latest code and restart
cow skill install <name>           # install a skill
cow install-browser                # install browser automation

💻 Desktop client: download the CowAgent Desktop client (macOS / Windows) — the backend is bundled, ready to use out of the box.

🤖 Models

CowAgent supports all mainstream LLM providers. Chat, vision, image generation, ASR/TTS, and embeddings can each be routed to a different vendor. Providers are configured directly in the Web console — no manual file editing required.

For details on each provider, see the Models overview.

💬 Channels

A single Agent instance can serve multiple channels in parallel. Most channels can be onboarded right from the Web console.

See the Channels overview for setup details.

The Web console is the default channel and the unified entry point to configure models, channels, skills, memory, and more.

🧠 Memory & Knowledge Base

Long-term memory uses a three-tier architecture: conversation context (short-term) → daily memory (mid-term) → MEMORY.md (long-term). A nightly Deep Dream pass distills scattered memories into refined long-term entries and a narrative journal. See Long-term Memory · Deep Dream.

Personal knowledge base complements the time-ordered memory by organizing structured knowledge by topic. The Agent automatically curates valuable information from conversations, maintains cross-references and ind