Open source. Local first. Yours to extend.
Less busywork.
More good work.¶
Meet Heinzelmännchen: little helpers for product teams, with a serious foundation. Connect your tools, put repeatable work into workflows, and keep people in control.
MIT licensed · Python 3.12+ · CLI, MCP, REST and a web workspace
One foundation. Many ways in.
Work where you work.¶
01 / WORKSPACE
See the work, together.¶
A web workspace brings Today, contracts and team context into view. Heinzelmännchen show their state in words and character, so waiting for a person is visible.
02 / AUTOMATION
Write once. Reach every head.¶
A typed Python operation can supply a CLI command, an MCP tool and a REST endpoint. Privacy and head restrictions govern access from terminals, agents and applications.
03 / EXTENSION
Make room for your tools.¶
Plugins own their operations, views, widgets and notifications. Themes bring palettes, artwork and soundscapes. Build, test and release each independently.
A foundation you can use today
A little personality.
A lot of possibility.¶
Start with clocks, system resources, private connectivity and the Heinzelmännchen theme. Add integrations as you need them. The standard app includes its default plugins; the SDK stays independently buildable.
Your workspace, your way
A small core. A growing world.¶
Discover capabilities without editing core. Every catalog entry shows its source, compatibility declaration and immutable revision.
The direction is human
Let helpers do the drafting.
Let people make the decisions.¶
The vision is an open-source AI operating system for product teams: model agnostic, composable and accountable. Today’s release supplies the kernel, heads, workflows and extension foundation. End-to-end team automation is a journey we are building in the open.
Build something useful
Your first contribution can be a plugin.¶
Scaffold a public or private repository, write one operation, and test it against an installed SDK. Your plugin can carry its own dependencies and release on its own schedule.
hz system plugin new heinzel-harbor --defaults --data plugin_name=harbor --data github_owner=your-account
cd heinzel-harbor
make setup
make check-fast
Browse every guide and reference
Documentation map¶
Build a custom plugin in its own public or private repository with the plugin author guide.
Find what you need by who you are. Files marked generated are written by make docs from the code, and CI fails when
they are out of date, so they can't drift.
| You want to… | Read |
|---|---|
| Get started: bootstrap a team as its manager, or join one with the line your manager posted | guides/manager.md · guides/joining.md |
| Use Heinzelmännchen: install, commands, configuration | README · MODULES (generated) · CLI_REFERENCE (generated) · CONFIGURATION (generated) |
| Your Heinzelmännchen: the journey from nothing to a scheduled team contract, and the contract reference | HEINZELMAENNCHEN (was WORKFLOWS) · playbooks: your first contract from a plugin |
| Work as a team: create, join and add to the team repository | TEAMS |
| Build durable turns: typed outcomes, checkpoints and offline engine tests | DURABLE_TURNS |
| Build the desktop lifecycle foundation | Shared runtime authority · Production gates still open |
| Understand why it exists and how it is built | INTENT · ARCHITECTURE · decisions (ADRs) · research: daemon head · workflow contracts · embedded workflows · inventory · people and org · onboarding · plugin extraction opportunities |
| Pick a plugin: the gallery, one page per plugin with what it brings in every head, its settings, themes and recordings | Public plugin catalog, with immutable source revisions and theme previews · hz system plugin search discovers available plugins automatically |
| Extend it with modules and plugins | Plugin extension guide · README: Extend · ARCHITECTURE: Plugins · writing a playbook · themes, and how to make a weather theme · settings that need no explaining · the template's AGENTS.md (hz system plugin new) |
| Publish and verify a release | Publishing acceptance |
| Contribute to the core | CONTRIBUTING · CODING_STANDARDS · durable session storage · CHANGELOG (generated at release) |
| Work on it as a coding agent | AGENTS and the scoped AGENTS.md files it lists |
| Report a vulnerability | SECURITY |
How drift is prevented:
- Everything that can be derived from the code is generated: the module catalog, the CLI and configuration
references, the README's module list, every plugin's page (
hz system plugin docs build, ADR 0082), the changelog and the release notes. - What can't be generated is checked: every operation needs a docstring and every parameter and setting a
description (they become help text in every head), every relative link must resolve, and every document in
docs/must be listed here. - The README's install, use and uninstall instructions are run as tests on macOS and Linux.
-
The
docs-revieweragent reviews prose against the code in every pull request that changes behaviour. -
Private HTTPS web sharing: exact proxy origins, pairing and terminal security.
Site guides: Install · First steps · Contribute · Architecture tour · Catalog metadata and automation · Vision · Catalog.
Legacy generated recordings (historical; current sources are in the catalog): Atlassian · Clock · GitHub · Google · Tailscale · Zoom.