How to build a company run entirely by AI agents (free, open source, 5-minute setup)

👇👇If you use Claude Code, OpenClaw, Codex, OpenCode, Cursor, or any other AI coding agent - Paperclip was built for you. It's a free, open-source tool that just launched on GitHub and hit 1.6 million views in its first week. It takes every AI agent you already use and organizes them into an actual company - with an org chart, job titles, budgets, goals, and one dashboard to manage all of them. You're already using the workers. Paperclip gives them a company to work in. Real quick ... If you're non-technical and want to learn how to build systems like this, join our Build With AI community:http://return-my-time.kit.com/1bd2720397 Here's everything it does and exactly how to get started... The Problem It Solves Right now you probably have Claude Code in one terminal, maybe Codex in another, Cursor open somewhere else. You're copying outputs between them. You lose track of who's doing what. Your computer restarts and you lose everything. Paperclip fixes all of that. Every agent gets a role, a boss, and a budget. Tasks persist across reboots. And you can check on everything from your phone. Created by @dotta. Completely open source under the MIT license. No account required. No subscription. Self-hosted on your own machine. The 8 Features That Matter Most 1. Org Charts - Your AI Company Has a Structure You create roles just like a real company. CEO, CTO, engineers, designers, marketers. Each agent gets a title, a job description, and a boss they report to. This isn't cosmetic - the reporting structure determines how work flows between agents. 2. Goal Alignment - Every Task Connects to the Mission You set one big company goal (like "Build an AI note-taking app to $1M MRR"). That goal breaks into projects. Projects break into tasks. Every agent working on a task can see exactly why it matters - not just what to do, but what the bigger picture is. 3. Heartbeats - Agents Work on a Schedule Agents don't run 24/7 burning money. They wake up on a schedule (called a "heartbeat"), check if there's work to do, do it, and go back to sleep. You control how often each agent checks in. This keeps costs predictable. 4. Budget Controls - No More Surprise Bills Every agent gets a monthly spending limit. When they hit it, they stop. Period. Paperclip tracks every dollar spent on AI tokens in real time. You'll never wake up to a $300 surprise bill because an agent got stuck in a loop. 5. Ticket System - Every Decision Has a Paper Trail All work happens through tickets. Every conversation is threaded. Every tool call is traced. Every decision is logged. If something goes wrong, you can trace back exactly what happened, when, and why. 6. Works With the Tools You Already Use Paperclip doesn't lock you into one AI provider. It works with Claude Code, OpenClaw, Codex, OpenCode, Cursor, plain Bash scripts, or any agent that can receive a signal over HTTP. You can even mix and match - your CEO agent could run on Claude while your engineering agents run on Codex. Paperclip doesn't care. It just organizes them into a team. 7. Multi-Company Support One Paperclip installation can run multiple companies. Each one has completely separate data, separate budgets, and separate audit trails. If you want to run an AI marketing agency and an AI SaaS company at the same time, one dashboard handles both. 8. Governance - You're the Board of Directors You approve hires. You review strategy changes. You can pause or shut down any agent at any time. Configuration changes are versioned, so if something breaks, you can roll it back. You stay in control. How to Set It Up (5 Minutes) The One-Command Method Open your terminal and run: That's it. Paperclip installs, creates a database automatically, and launches a dashboard at http://localhost:3100. No separate database setup needed. The Manual Method If you prefer to do it step by step: Requirements: Node.js 20+ and pnpm 9.15+. What Happens Next Once the dashboard is running: You'll create your first company and set the mission You'll hire your first agent (it starts with a CEO) The CEO will recommend hiring more agents (like a coder) You approve the hires and set budgets Agents start working on tasks toward your goal You manage everything from the dashboard. On your laptop or your phone. What's Coming Next: ClipMart The team is building ClipMart - a marketplace where you can download entire pre-built companies with one click. Imagine browsing a template library: marketing agency, SaaS builder, content studio. Pick one, import it into Paperclip, and you have a fully staffed AI company ready to go. This hasn't launched yet, but it's on the roadmap. Who This Is For Paperclip isn't for someone who uses one AI tool for one task. It's for people who are already running multiple agents and need a way to coordinate them. If you've ever had 10+ Claude Code terminals open and lost track of what each one was doing, this is your answer. If you've ever had an AI agent burn through $200 in tokens because nobody was watching, this is your answer. One dashboard. One org chart. One budget system. Every agent accounted for. The GitHub repo is live. It's free. And it takes 5 minutes to set up. You Installed Paperclip, Now What !? Read Part 2 Here 👇 PS: If you like this starter pack, you'll love what's coming. I'm building a community where I break down exactly how to turn custom agents into a real employee: custom skills, scheduled workflows, and systems that run while you sleep. Join the waitlist here: https://return-my-time.kit.com/1bd2720397