Odysseus

// Overview

Odysseus is a self-hosted AI workspace rather than a chat window. One deployment covers chat and agents, deep research, a writing-first document editor, an email client, notes, tasks and a calendar — all running against local models or hosted APIs on hardware you control. It is packaged for Docker Compose, with native installs, GPU notes and Windows/macOS instructions in its setup guide.

The agent side gives models tools, MCP servers, shell access, skills and memory, and the Cookbook makes the local-model half practical: hardware-aware model recommendations, downloads and serving from inside the app. Deep Research runs multi-step web research that reads sources and writes a report; Compare runs blind side-by-side model tests and synthesises the results. The document editor takes AI edits and suggestions over Markdown, HTML and CSV with syntax highlighting.

Beyond the model features it behaves like a personal workspace: an IMAP/SMTP inbox with triage, tags, summaries, reminders and reply drafts; notes, todos, scheduled agent tasks and CalDAV calendar sync; and extras including a gallery and image editor, themes, uploads, web search, presets, sessions and two-factor auth. Because the workspace holds powerful local tools, the project is explicit about deployment safety — keep `AUTH_ENABLED=true` on anything network-accessible, keep `LOCALHOST_BYPASS=false` outside local development, and never expose raw model or service ports. It is licensed AGPL-3.0-or-later.

// What it does

• Chat and agents over local or API models, with tools, MCP servers, shell, skills and memory
• Cookbook: hardware-aware model recommendations, downloads and serving from inside the workspace
• Deep Research — multi-step web research that reads its sources and generates a report — plus Compare for blind side-by-side model tests
• A writing-first document editor with AI edits and suggestions across Markdown, HTML and CSV
• IMAP/SMTP email with triage, tags, summaries, reminders and reply drafts
• Notes, tasks, scheduled agent tasks and CalDAV calendar sync, alongside a gallery/image editor, web search, themes and 2FA

// Getting started

The quickest path is the Docker Compose stack in the README. Note that `dev` is the default branch and gets changes first; `main` is the more curated branch.

git clone https://github.com/odysseus-dev/odysseus.git
cd odysseus
cp .env.example .env

docker compose up -d --build

docker compose logs odysseus

AUTH_ENABLED=true
LOCALHOST_BYPASS=false

Commands and code are distilled from the project's own documentation — always check the official repo for the latest.

// When to use it

• Run one private workspace for chat, agents, research and documents on your own hardware instead of several hosted services
• Put a local model to work through the Cookbook without assembling a serving stack by hand
• Triage an IMAP mailbox with summaries, tags and drafted replies that never leave your server
• Compare models blind on your own prompts before committing to one

// How Odysseus compares

Odysseus alongside other open-source assistants & chatbots tools AI/TLDR tracks, ranked by GitHub stars.