A personal iMessage assistant that can use a browser like you.

It can do your chores, book you movie tickets, or handle your groceries. You stay in control of your passwords, credit cards and context.

It's Open Source, self-hostable, and can use any model. One-click deploy to Vercel and get rolling.

Why self-host?

Personal agents are much more useful when they can sign in, book, buy and act on your behalf. But your accounts, your passwords, are the keys to your digital kingdom. OpenInstinct runs in your own Vercel account. Secrets are encrypted before they touch your database and models never see them. Verify yourself by reading the code!

Deployment

The deploy button provisions Kernel for cloud browsers, Neon for Postgres, and a private Vercel Blob store for browser images, per-user memory, and installation secrets. It also creates and attaches a Linq connector for iMessage. Vercel AI Gateway handles inference. Usage is billed to your Vercel account.

On first use, OpenInstinct creates independent Better Auth and vault-encryption keys in the private Blob store. Vercel supplies the application URL, database, Kernel, Blob, and Linq configuration, so the deploy flow requires no environment-variable values. For a non-Vercel host or an existing installation that manages its own keys, set both secret overrides and the public application URL explicitly:

BETTER_AUTH_SECRET="$(openssl rand -base64 32)"
BETTER_AUTH_URL=https://your-host
SECRET_ENCRYPTION_KEY="$(openssl rand -base64 32)"

The application database schema and versioned migrations live in db/. The Drizzle application store uses DATABASE_URL for runtime queries; its migration commands require the direct DATABASE_URL_UNPOOLED connection. Run pnpm db:migrate before starting against a new or upgraded local database. Vercel uses Turbo to run the uncached migration task before its application build. See db/README.md for existing-database adoption, environment loading, and constraint-validation sequencing. Better Auth retains its separate migration path.

Treat the private Blob store as production key material: deleting it loses the automatically generated encryption key, and rotating that key requires re-encrypting existing vault values.

Blob storage

The one-click deploy creates and connects a private Blob store automatically. Vercel supplies BLOB_STORE_ID and a short-lived VERCEL_OIDC_TOKEN to each deployment, so there is no long-lived Blob credential to copy.

OpenInstinct uses this store for persistent per-user memory and browser images. Production conversations require it because memory is recalled before each agent turn. Local Eve development uses process-local memory instead.

For an existing Vercel project, link it first with eve link --project <your-vercel-project> --non-interactive, then create and connect the store with one command:

pnpm exec vercel blob create-store open-instinct-images --access private --yes --environment production --environment preview --environment development

Outside Vercel, set BLOB_READ_WRITE_TOKEN from a private Blob store instead. The memory provider uses that token explicitly, and browser image capture uses the same store.

Linq iMessage setup

The deploy button creates a managed line, writes LINQ_CONNECTOR, and attaches the inbound webhook trigger automatically. For an existing Vercel project, link the checkout, create a Linq line, and attach its connector for both app tokens and inbound webhook triggers:

vercel link
vercel connect create linq --connection-method line --name open-instinct --json
vercel connect attach <returned-connector-uid> --project <your-vercel-project> --environment production --triggers --trigger-path /eve/v1/linq --yes
vercel env add LINQ_CONNECTOR production --value <returned-connector-uid> --yes
eve deploy --non-interactive --yes

The create command returns the connector UID. Repeat the attachment and environment-variable steps for preview or development if those environments should use Linq too. LINQ_PHONE_NUMBER is an optional E.164 override that adds a click-to-message shortcut in the workspace; Linq delivery itself uses the line assigned to the connector.

Before the first sign-in, open the connector's Vercel Connect settings and follow the one-time Phone Numbers verification instruction. Additional users verify themselves by messaging the connector's Linq number once. The --triggers --trigger-path /eve/v1/linq options are also required: attaching a connector without them permits outbound token access but does not forward incoming messages to OpenInstinct.

Google Workspace connection

OpenInstinct can use a user's Gmail, Calendar, and read-only Contacts through a user-scoped Google OAuth grant. Vercel Connect stores and refreshes the tokens; OpenInstinct stores only the stable user identity used to request them. Gmail access deliberately uses gmail.modify, not the permanent-delete mail.google.com scope.

1. In one Google Cloud project, configure the OAuth consent screen and enable the Gmail API, Google Calendar API, and People API.

2. Create OAuth web credentials. Add https://connect.vercel.com/callback as an authorized redirect URI, then download the client-secret JSON.

3. Vercel expects top-level clientId and clientSecret keys, not Google's nested web.client_id and web.client_secret download. Convert the download into a temporary file outside the repository, then create and attach the connector:

   vercel link
   google_credentials_file="$(mktemp)"
   jq '{clientId: .web.client_id, clientSecret: .web.client_secret}' /absolute/path/to/downloaded-client-secret.json > "$google_credentials_file"
   vercel connect create google --connection-method oauth --name open-instinct --data @"$google_credentials_file"
   rm -f "$google_credentials_file"
   vercel connect attach <returned-connector-uid> --project <your-vercel-project> --environment production --yes
   vercel env pull

   Never commit either credential file.

4. Set GOOGLE_CONNECTOR_UID to the returned UID and redeploy. The default is google/open-instinct.

Gotchas:

• Attach the connector separately to every Vercel environment that should use it. A production attachment does not make preview or local development work.
• The Gmail read/modify scope is restricted. A Google OAuth app in Testing mode only works for listed test users, and those grants expire after seven days. Broader distribution requires Google's OAuth verification and may require a security assessment.
• The scopes requested here must also be declared on the Google consent screen. After changing scopes or enabled APIs, disconnect and reconnect the account so Google issues a grant with the new access.
• The grant is keyed to the authenticated OpenInstinct user. iMessage reaches the same grant only when its verified phone number maps to that Better Auth account.
• Google Contacts search uses a provider-side lazy cache, so a contact created moments ago may not appear immediately.
• Sending email and creating confirmed calendar events always require approval. Calendar events with attendees send Google invitations.

Local development

Docker Desktop (or another Docker Compose installation) is required. Configure the non-database variables in .env.example, then:

git clone https://github.com/Merit-Systems/OpenInstinct.git
cd OpenInstinct
pnpm install
pnpm dev

pnpm dev starts PostgreSQL from compose.yaml, applies the committed database migrations, and starts the application. Stopping the development process also stops and removes the PostgreSQL container; its data remains in the postgres-data volume for the next run. Run pnpm dev:app when intentionally using an externally managed database instead.

Local development otherwise uses the same vault, Kernel browser, and AI Gateway path as the Vercel deployment. Better Auth and vault encryption use stable local-only defaults when their variables are unset. Vercel deployments provision them automatically in private Blob; other production hosts require explicit secrets.

Warning

This is not software intended for production use.

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Built on Vercel · Kernel · Linq · Neon