The open-source side of dots: agents you can run yourself, and the pieces every dot is made of. A model, a browser, a memory, tools, and a way to reach you.
OpenAI launched dots on September 29, 2026: always-on agents in ChatGPT, each with its own cloud computer and browser. This list is about building and running the same idea on your own machine.
Unofficial. Not affiliated with or endorsed by OpenAI.
- What a dot is made of
- Open-source dots
- Always-on personal agents
- The browser
- Memory
- Tools, skills and plugins
- Official
- News
- Related lists
- A model that decides what to do next.
- A browser, because most of the work lives on websites. It is also the part that fails most often: OpenAI's own guide says a dot uses your local browser when its cloud browser is blocked.
- A memory, so the agent knows what it already did and what you prefer.
- Tools, usually over MCP, for everything that has an API.
- A channel to reach you: chat, Slack, Telegram, voice.
- A clock, so it keeps working when you are not looking.
- open-dots - Self-hosted chat with tools, approvals, connectors and computer tasks. Next.js and FastAPI.
- opendots - An always-on personal agent on the model you choose, built on serverless agents.
- open-dot - Personal agents that each get their own browser, memory and rules, with scheduled routines.
- opendot - Runs Codex or Claude Code in a locked-down container and asks before it acts. Slack and CLI.
- dots - A goal-driven agent runtime: a planner, an executor and a watcher that keep going between conversations.
- AgentForEach - A serverless backend for running one agent per user.
The projects that made the idea popular before dots had a name.
- OpenClaw - A gateway that stays on, with channels, skills and a heartbeat that lets the agent start work on its own.
- nanobot - A small Python take on the same idea, with memory, MCP, cron and chat channels.
Everything a dot does on the web goes through one. What the site sees is the browser, not the model.
- dots - A web agent with a chat on one side and its live browser on the other, driven by any OpenRouter model, on a patched Firefox engine.
- invisible_playwright_mcp - The same browser as an MCP server, for Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI and other clients.
- browser-use - A Python library for agents that use the browser.
- Playwright MCP - Playwright as an MCP server.
- Chrome DevTools MCP - Chrome DevTools for coding agents.
- mem0 - A memory layer for agents: what the user said, preferred and asked for, across sessions.
- Secure MCP Tunnel client - Connects an MCP server on your own machine to ChatGPT without exposing it to the internet.
- ChatGPT developer mode - How to add your own MCP server as a plugin.
- Computer use - The API tool where you run the computer and the model decides the clicks.
- openai/skills - Skills catalog: folders with a
SKILL.mdthat teach an agent one job.
- Introducing dots - The launch post.
- Getting started with your dot - Setup, local computer access, approvals.
- DevDay 2026 recap - Everything announced alongside dots.
- OpenAI launches Dots - TechCrunch.
- Always-on AI agents with their own cloud computers - The Next Web.
- OpenAI DevDay 2026 live blog - Simon Willison.
- mergisi/awesome-dots - Guides, pricing, plugins and use cases for OpenAI's dots.
- awesome-openclaw - Skills, plugins and guides for OpenClaw.
Open a pull request with one line in the right section: the name, the link, and what it does in one sentence. See CONTRIBUTING.md.