Paperclip AI Orchestration

Skill by ara.so — Daily 2026 Skills collection.

Paperclip is an open-source Node.js + React platform that runs a company made of AI agents. It provides org charts, goal alignment, ticket-based task management, budget enforcement, heartbeat scheduling, governance, and a full audit log — so you manage business outcomes instead of individual agent sessions.

Installation

Quickstart (recommended)

npx paperclipai onboard --yes

This clones the repo, installs dependencies, seeds an embedded PostgreSQL database, and starts the server.

Manual setup

git clone https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip.git
cd paperclip
pnpm install
pnpm dev

Requirements:

• Node.js 20+
• pnpm 9.15+

The API server starts at http://localhost:3100. An embedded PostgreSQL database is created automatically — no manual DB setup needed for local development.

Production setup

Point Paperclip at an external Postgres instance and object storage via environment variables:

# .env
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://user:password@host:5432/paperclip
STORAGE_BUCKET=your-s3-bucket
STORAGE_REGION=us-east-1
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=$AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=$AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
PORT=3100

Key CLI Commands

pnpm dev              # Start API + UI in development mode
pnpm build            # Build for production
pnpm start            # Start production server
pnpm db:migrate       # Run pending database migrations
pnpm db:seed          # Seed demo data
pnpm test             # Run test suite
npx paperclipai onboard --yes   # Full automated onboarding

Core Concepts

REST API

The Paperclip API is served at http://localhost:3100/api/v1.

Authentication

// All requests require a bearer token
const headers = {
  'Authorization': `Bearer ${process.env.PAPERCLIP_API_KEY}`,
  'Content-Type': 'application/json',
};

Create a Company

const response = await fetch('http://localhost:3100/api/v1/companies', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers,
  body: JSON.stringify({
    name: 'NoteGenius Inc.',
    mission: 'Build the #1 AI note-taking app to $1M MRR.',
    slug: 'notegenius',
  }),
});

const { company } = await response.json();
console.log(company.id); // "cmp_abc123"

Register an Agent

const agent = await fetch(`http://localhost:3100/api/v1/companies/${companyId}/agents`, {
  method: 'POST',
  headers,
  body: JSON.stringify({
    name: 'Alice',
    role: 'CTO',
    runtime: 'claude-code',       // 'openclaw' | 'claude-code' | 'codex' | 'cursor' | 'bash' | 'http'
    endpoint: process.env.ALICE_AGENT_ENDPOINT,
    budget: {
      monthly_usd: 200,
    },
    heartbeat: {
      cron: '0 * * * *',          // every hour
      enabled: true,
    },
    reports_to: ceoAgentId,       // parent in org chart
  }),
}).then(r => r.json());

Create a Goal

const goal = await fetch(`http://localhost:3100/api/v1/companies/${companyId}/goals`, {
  method: 'POST',
  headers,
  body: JSON.stringify({
    title: 'Launch v1 to Product Hunt',
    description: 'Ship the MVP and generate 500 upvotes on launch day.',
    parent_goal_id: null,         // null = top-level goal
    owner_agent_id: ctoAgentId,
    due_date: '2026-06-01',
  }),
}).then(r => r.json());

Create a Task

const task = await fetch(`http://localhost:3100/api/v1/companies/${companyId}/tasks`, {
  method: 'POST',
  headers,
  body: JSON.stringify({
    title: 'Implement offline sync for notes',
    description: 'Use CRDTs to merge note edits made offline. See ADR-004.',
    assigned_to: engineerAgentId,
    goal_id: goal.id,              // links task to goal ancestry
    priority: 'high',
  }),
}).then(r => r.json());

console.log(task.id); // "tsk_xyz789"

List Tasks for an Agent

const { tasks } = await fetch(
  `http://localhost:3100/api/v1/agents/${agentId}/tasks?status=open`,
  { headers }
).then(r => r.json());

Post a Message to a Task Thread

await fetch(`http://localhost:3100/api/v1/tasks/${taskId}/messages`, {
  method: 'POST',
  headers,
  body: JSON.stringify({
    role: 'agent',
    content: 'Implemented CRDT merge logic. Tests passing. Ready for review.',
    tool_calls: [
      {
        tool: 'bash',
        input