Houston

The open source platform for AI-native products.
One desktop app. Pre-built AI agents that work from day one.
Real tools. 1000+ integrations. Free forever.

gethouston.ai · Vision · Learn · For Startups · Join the waiting list

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What Houston is

For everyone — a free desktop app with AI agents that do real work. Bookkeeping, outreach, research, scheduling. Install agents from the store and start working. No terminal. No prompt engineering.

For founders — the platform where you build AI-native products for your customers. Define your agents, Houston handles the workspace, the chat, the board, the integrations. You bring the domain expertise. Read more.

Read the vision: Ship the impossible

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Quick start

Run the Houston app

git clone https://github.com/ja-818/houston.git
cd houston
pnpm install
cd app && pnpm tauri dev

Build your first agent

Create two files:

houston.json

{
  "id": "bookkeeper",
  "name": "Bookkeeper",
  "description": "Categorize expenses and reconcile accounts.",
  "icon": "Calculator",
  "category": "business",
  "tabs": [
    { "id": "board", "label": "Tasks", "builtIn": "board", "badge": "activity" },
    { "id": "files", "label": "Files", "builtIn": "files" },
    { "id": "job-description", "label": "Instructions", "builtIn": "job-description" }
  ]
}

CLAUDE.md

# Bookkeeper

You categorize transactions, reconcile accounts, and flag anomalies.
Ask which period the user wants before starting.

Push to GitHub. In Houston, click New Agent > GitHub, paste your repo URL. Done.

The Learn guide covers the full details in five short chapters.

Share a workspace template

Bundle multiple agents into one repo:

my-workspace/
├── workspace.json
└── agents/
    ├── bookkeeper/
    │   ├── houston.json
    │   └── CLAUDE.md
    └── tax-reviewer/
        ├── houston.json
        └── CLAUDE.md

workspace.json

{
  "name": "Tax Practice",
  "description": "A complete workspace for tax professionals.",
  "agents": ["bookkeeper", "tax-reviewer"]
}

In Houston, click New Workspace > Import from GitHub, paste the repo URL. Houston creates the workspace with all agents ready to use.

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How the app works

Houston organizes work into Workspaces and Agents:

• Workspace — a group of agents (like a team or project).
• Agent — an AI agent instance. Chat, kanban board, skills, files, integrations.
• Agent Definition — a houston.json that defines what an agent looks like and does.

Workspace ("Tax Practice")
  ├── Agent ("Bookkeeper")         ← board, files, instructions
  ├── Agent ("Document Reviewer")  ← board, files, integrations
  └── Agent ("Client Comms")       ← board, files, integrations

Each kanban card is a Claude conversation. Click a card to see the full chat. Connect Slack and the same conversation becomes a thread.

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Agent definitions

Three tiers:

Tier	What you write	What you get
JSON-only	houston.json + CLAUDE.md	Tabs, prompt, icon. Uses built-in components.
Custom React	Add bundle.js	Custom React components as tabs.
Workspace template	workspace.json + agents folder	Multiple agents, one import.

Built-in tab types: board, files, job-description, integrations, routines, configure, events

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Monorepo layout

Organized as 6 end-user products + 3 code libraries.

houston/
├── app/                     Houston App — desktop (Tauri 2)
│   ├── src/                 React frontend
│   ├── src-tauri/           Tauri binary
│   └── houston-tauri/       Tauri adapter (applies Engine to desktop)
├── mobile/                  Houston Mobile companion
├── desktop-mobile-bridge/   Cloudflare Worker — pairs Desktop ↔ Mobile
├── store/                   Houston Store — agent registry
├── website/                 Houston Website — gethouston.ai
├── always-on/               Houston Always On — VPS deploy (Dockerfile + compose + systemd)
├── teams/                   Houston Teams (TBD — hosted multi-tenant)
│
├── ui/                      Houston UI — @houston-ai/* React packages
├── engine/                  Houston Engine — Rust crates (frontend-agnostic)
├── cloud/                   Houston Cloud (TBD — managed Engine hosting)
│
└── examples/                Reference consumers of houston-engine
    └── smartbooks/            Bookkeeping app built on a custom React frontend

See knowledge-base/architecture.md for crate-level detail + current gaps.

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Build on Houston Engine (custom frontends)

The engine is frontend-agnostic. You don't have to ship inside the Houston App — any web or native runtime can drive it over HTTP + WebSocket using @houston-ai/engine-client.

Working example: SmartBooks — a bookkeeping product with its own brand, its own UX, and zero @houston-ai/* UI deps. ~400 lines of TSX, one npm package, renders a live transactions table + a multi-sheet Excel workpaper. Soft workflow: the user asks for a new column, Claude edits the Python script, every future upload picks up the change. Clone it, rename things, ship your own AI-native product.

cd examples/smartbooks
pnpm install
pnpm dev

Full walkthrough + architecture diagram + custom-frontend gotchas in examples/smartbooks/README.md.

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Resources

• gethouston.ai — landing page
• For Startups — build AI-native products on Houston
• Vision essay — Ship the impossible
• Learn guide — five chapters on building agents
• Join the waiting list — get notified when the app ships

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Contributing

Houston is open source under MIT. Issues and PRs welcome.

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License

MIT