Get started/What is Onnie?
What is Onnie?
The collaboration OS — what Onnie is, who it is for, and when it fits.
What is Onnie?
Onnie is an agent-first collaboration OS (collab OS): one place where humans and AI workmates share the same room, the same context, and the same long-horizon Work — not a chatbot with folders, and not a workspace with AI bolted on.
Work feels different when someone's actually in it with you.
In one screen
| Piece | Role |
|---|---|
| Chat | Private live thread (you ↔ one agent). How you work in the OS. |
| Work | Shared spine for effort that outlives a chat: goal, focus, plan, digests, deliverables, blockers. |
| Artifacts | Tables, pages, Canvas, and images that stay in the place. |
| Knowledge | Atomic notes, typed links, hubs as lenses — agents suggest; you confirm. |
| Agents | Onnie (default superagent) plus custom agents you configure. |
| Skills · Connectors · Routines | Teach procedures, plug the outside world, wake Work on a schedule. |
Bind, don’t freeze: when you track a chat as Work, the chat keeps going while the room gets a durable record.
Who it is for
Same OS, three ways in (result, not job title):
| Room | Result |
|---|---|
| Solo | You’re one person — work still moves (digests, follow-ups, routines). |
| Small teams | One shared spine — no re-brief tax, no DM status black hole. |
| Personal | Side and life projects get a real room. |
If your work (or life projects) are scattered across tools that don’t share context, Onnie is the room where that can live.
What it is not
- Not a chatbot product — chat is the live thread, not the whole product.
- Not a workspace + AI sidebar — collaboration is the architecture.
- Not a Zapier clone — connectors feed agents in the room; the product is not an external pipe.
- Not a Kanban/Gantt hero — Work is attention + continuity; time planning is Calendar.
Problems it is built for
- Context debt — re-explain / re-paste every session.
- Setup trap — structure and templates before real work.
- Scattered tools — chat, docs, data, and agents that never see the same room.
- Status black holes (teams) — truth buried in DMs instead of a shared spine.
Best fits (patterns)
- Solo practice or product ops with morning digests and Needs you judgment
- Small multiparty rooms on one initiative (launch, client program)
- Recurring work via task-routines (ghost runs land on Work)
- Multi-day creative / product efforts with artifacts on the spine
- Knowledge graphs you grow carefully (confirm, don’t auto-clutter)
- Member portals / decks / dashboards as Canvas over tables
How to start
- Talk to Onnie in chat about real work.
- When it should stick, track as Work.
- Open Artifacts, Calendar, Routines, and Agents as you need depth — not all at once.
Related
Internal product synthesis (for team / agents): docs/product/onnie-product-overview.md.