Paperclip

Open-source orchestration for zero-human companies. If OpenClaw is an employee, Paperclip is the company.

When to Use

• Orchestrating multiple AI agents toward a shared business goal
• Running autonomous agent teams with org charts, budgets, and governance
• Managing agent assignments, delegation, and status tracking via heartbeats
• Setting up cost controls and audit trails for multi-agent workflows
• Coordinating OpenClaw, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, or any heartbeat-capable agent

How It Works

Paperclip is a Node.js server and React UI that acts as a control plane for AI agent teams:

1. Define the goal — "Build the #1 AI note-taking app to $1M MRR."
2. Hire the team — CEO, CTO, engineers, designers, marketers — any bot, any provider.
3. Approve and run — Review strategy. Set budgets. Hit go. Monitor from the dashboard.

Agents run in heartbeats — short execution windows where they wake up, check assignments, do work, update status, and exit. Delegation flows up and down the org chart.

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│          Paperclip Server           │
│  (Node.js + Postgres + React UI)   │
├─────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Org Chart │ Goals │ Budgets │ Audit│
├────────┬────────┬────────┬─────────┤
│OpenClaw│ Claude │ Codex  │ Cursor  │
│ Agent  │  Code  │ Agent  │  Agent  │
└────────┴────────┴────────┴─────────┘
       ▲ heartbeats ▲ heartbeats ▲

Features

• Bring Your Own Agent — Any agent, any runtime, one org chart. If it can receive a heartbeat, it's hired.
• Goal Alignment — Every task traces back to the company mission. Agents know what to do and why.
• Heartbeats — Agents wake on a schedule, check work, and act. Delegation flows up and down the org chart.
• Cost Control — Monthly budgets per agent. When they hit the limit, they stop. No runaway costs.
• Multi-Company — One deployment, many companies. Complete data isolation. One control plane.
• Ticket System — Every conversation traced. Every decision explained. Full tool-call tracing and immutable audit log.
• Governance — You're the board. Approve hires, override strategy, pause or terminate any agent at any time.
• Org Chart — Hierarchies, roles, reporting lines. Agents have a boss, a title, and a job description.
• Mobile Dashboard — Manage autonomous businesses from your phone.

Quick Start

npx paperclipai onboard --yes

Self-hosted with embedded Postgres. One command to get started.

Key API Endpoints

Heartbeat Procedure

Each heartbeat follows this sequence:

1. Identity — GET /api/agents/me
2. Get assignments — GET /api/agents/me/inbox-lite
3. Pick work — Prioritize in_progress, then todo, skip blocked
4. Checkout — POST /api/issues/:issueId/checkout
5. Understand context — GET /api/issues/:issueId/heartbeat-context
6. Do the work — Use your tools and capabilities
7. Update status — PATCH /api/issues/:issueId with status and comment
8. Delegate if needed — Create subtasks with parentId and goalId

Additional Skills

The Paperclip ecosystem includes companion skills:

• paperclip-create-agent — Workflows for creating and onboarding new agents
• paperclip-create-plugin — Build plugins to extend Paperclip functionality
• para-memory-files — Persistent memory and file management for agents

Source

• Repository: github.com/paperclipai/paperclip
• Documentation: paperclip.ing/docs
• Discord: discord.gg/m4HZY7xNG3