Coworker: An Open-Source Desktop Agent App for Local and Cloud Models

Melvin Vivas · X post · 2026-09-15 · Open on X

Topics: AI Agents, Tool Use & MCP, Portfolio Projects, AI Dev Tools & Productivity · Level: intermediate

Summary

Melvin Vivas built Coworker, an Electron desktop app for AI agents, to practise building agentic apps. He took ideas from Grok Bot and Hermes. The post lists its features: support for local models through Ollama, LM Studio and llama.cpp, free models from OpenRouter, Telegram and Discord integration, in-chat approvals, Skills that can be turned on or off per agent, and file access limited to chosen folders.

Key points

• Coworker is a learning project for agentic app development. It is not meant to compete with Hermes or Grok Bot.
• You can connect local models from Ollama, LM Studio or llama.cpp in the UI. This was the main reason for building it.
• It is an Electron desktop app, so it installs easily on Mac, Windows and Linux.
• It connects to Telegram and Discord, and approvals can happen in chat on the desktop, Telegram or Discord.
• Each Coworker can switch to a free model from OpenRouter with little effort.
• Files, scheduled jobs and approvals have their own views, so you don't have to scroll through chats to find them.
• Each Coworker gets its own Skills and its own local folders, and it can only access those folders.
• Headless mode for servers is experimental.

Resources mentioned

• Coworker (donvito/coworker) · repo · github.com · free
  The creator's local-first desktop app where you pick an AI coworker and have it produce work such as invoices as finished PDFs.
  Also in: Claude Opus 5.5 for Video Making: Creator's Showcase Thread (Coworker) (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Coworker: free open-source desktop AI coworker app (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Coworker: Open-Source Desktop App for AI Agents (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Using Devin AI to Test the Coworker Desktop App on Windows (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) and 38 more
• Hermes · tool · hermes-agent.nousresearch.com · free
  The AI agent the creator uses to automate making explainer videos. It is probably Nous Research's Hermes Agent, but the post does not say so.
  Also in: OpenAI DevDay recap: Dots, GPT-6.1 Sol, Codex Cloud, Agents API (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Coworker: free open-source desktop AI coworker app (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Agent Monitor: see traces, tokens and costs of your coding agents (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), jsonl-viewer: Inspect Coding Agent Traces (Codex, Claude Code, Pi, Hermes) (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) and 13 more
• Grok Bot · tool · x.ai · paid
  An early-beta AI agent product from the Grok family that runs in its own computer and browser instance and does tasks in your tools.
  Also in: An agent bot that installs and drives Codex on its own (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Asking a Coder bot to install Codex (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Using an ML agent to train an open-source TTS model on your voice (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Organizing Grok Bot Lead Collection in One Google Sheet (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) and 14 more
• Ollama · tool · x.com · free · recommended by both Bashiri Smith & Melvin Vivas
  Open-source tool for downloading and running LLMs on your own machine with minimal setup.
  Also in: Running LLMs Locally Without an Expensive Rig (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Adding Vercel AI Gateway as a provider in AIBackends with Devin (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Running Qwen3.8-27B Locally on an M5 Max MacBook with Inco Splash (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), AIBackends: An API Layer Between Your App and AI Models (Now with Jev) (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) and 12 more
• LM Studio · tool · x.com · free
  Desktop app for downloading and running LLMs locally, with a developer mode that serves models through an API.
  Also in: Running LLMs Locally Without an Expensive Rig (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Adding Vercel AI Gateway as a provider in AIBackends with Devin (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), LoRA Fine-Tune Qwen3.5-2B on Your Tweets with Unsloth Studio (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), AIBackends: An API Layer Between Your App and AI Models (Now with Jev) (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) and 31 more
• llama.cpp · repo · github.com · free
  An open-source C/C++ engine for running GGUF models locally. Its llama-server command provides an OpenAI-compatible HTTP server.
  Also in: Running LLMs Locally Without an Expensive Rig (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), llama.cpp / Llama-macOS v0.5.0 release (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Run llama.cpp GGUF Checkpoints in Hugging Face Transformers (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), llama.cpp v0.4.1 release announcement (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) and 28 more
• OpenRouter · tool · openrouter.ai · free
  A single OpenAI-compatible API that routes requests to hundreds of models from many providers, with one bill and model fallbacks.
  Also in: Customizing Your Coding Setup with Pi Coding Agent Extensions (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), The Jev model is now on OpenRouter (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Kev-4B model, an alternative to Jev, now available on OpenRouter (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Space Bunny Alpha: stealth 1M-context flash model on OpenRouter (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) and 42 more
• Electron · tool · electronjs.org · free
  Framework for building cross-platform desktop apps with web technologies.
  Also in: One-Shotting a Slack Clone with Fable 5 (Melvin Vivas on X · notes)
• Telegram · tool · telegram.org · free
  Messaging app that can be connected to MaxClaw so you chat with the agent there.
  Also in: Coworker: Free Local-First Desktop App for Running AI Agents (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Coworker v0.3.1: Telegram Streaming Sync, Built Fast with Codex (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Coworker v0.3.1: Streaming Sync Between Telegram and Coworker (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Coworker v0.3.0: Telegram Messaging, File Return and PowerPoint Export (Melvin Vivas on X · notes) and 3 more
• Discord · tool · discord.com · free
  Chat platform with servers and threads, used here as a client for Hermes Agent.
  Also in: Coworker v0.6.0 Adds Discord Integration for AI Agents (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Using Hermes Agent with Discord vs Telegram as Chat Clients (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Running Hermes Agent in Telegram and Discord (Melvin Vivas on X · notes), Set Up MaxClaw in MiniMax Agent and Connect It to Telegram (Melvin Vivas on X · notes)

Try this

• Try Coworker from the GitHub repo.
• Connect a local model (Ollama, LM Studio or llama.cpp) or a free OpenRouter model.
• Build your own agentic desktop app, using existing agents like Hermes as inspiration, to practise agent development.