Question 1

What is Brigade?

Accepted Answer

Brigade is a self-hostable crew of AI agents arranged on a real org chart. They delegate work, hand tasks off between models with no context loss, remember across sessions through a shared memory called Tideline, and act inside the tools and channels you already use.

Question 2

Is Brigade free and open source?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Brigade is MIT licensed and free to self-host today, with a managed cloud service coming soon. You only pay for the AI model usage you run through it, or nothing at all if you use a local model.

Question 3

Can I self-host Brigade and run it locally?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Brigade is CLI-first and runs on your own machine or server, so your data and credentials stay with you. It works with local models through Ollama and any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, as well as hosted providers.

Question 4

How is Brigade different from Claude Code or OpenClaw?

Accepted Answer

Brigade runs agents on a real org chart with goal-based routing, ships Tideline managed long-term memory, plugs into 1,000+ apps via Composio, and lets agents self-improve under your sign-off behind five layers of security. Most alternatives leave memory, integrations, and security for you to wire up.

Question 5

What is Tideline?

Accepted Answer

Tideline is Brigade's proprietary long-term memory, built in-house. It is a real memory graph with typed links between facts, not a notes file replayed into the prompt. It keeps what matters, lets the rest fade, self-improves under your approval, and resists poisoning from untrusted pages.

Question 6

What apps and models does Brigade work with?

Accepted Answer

Brigade connects to 1,000+ apps through Composio, including Gmail, Slack, GitHub, Notion, Jira, and Linear, plus 20+ chat channels. It runs across any model, including Claude, GPT, Gemini, Llama, GLM, DeepSeek, Qwen, and MiniMax.

Question 7

How do I install Brigade?

Accepted Answer

Install it from npm with npm i @spinabot/brigade (Node 22.12 or newer), or use the one-click self-host flow. There is nothing to host for the managed service when it launches; today you can run the whole crew on your own machine for free.

Command	What it does
`brigade · brigade tui`	Start the chat TUI (auto-starts the gateway if needed)
`brigade connect`	Attach a thin TUI to a running gateway (`--host`, `--port`)
`brigade agent <msg>`	Drive a single turn (`--provider`, `--model`, `-m`)
`brigade onboard`	Run the provider/model setup wizard
`brigade status`	Snapshot config, sessions, and gateway state (`--json`)
`brigade doctor`	Health-check Node, config, providers, prompts, logs, gateway (`--json`, `--strict`, `--host`, `--port`)
`brigade logs`	Tail today's gateway log (`--follow`)
`brigade mcp`	Serve long-term memory as an MCP server over stdio (`--agent <id>`)

Command	What it does
`brigade gateway run`	Run the headless WebSocket gateway (`--port`, `--host`, `--verbose`, `--quiet`, `--log-level`)
`gateway status · stop · restart`	Inspect / stop / restart the running gateway
`gateway install · uninstall`	Install/remove as a system service (launchd / systemd / Task Scheduler)
`gateway supervise`	Out-of-process crash watchdog

Command	What it does
`brigade agents · agents list`	List every configured agent (`--json`, `--bindings`)
`agents add [name]`	Create an isolated agent (`--workspace`, `--model`, `--provider`, `--bind`, `--non-interactive`)
`agents delete <id>`	Delete an agent + its workspace/sessions (`--force`)
`agents bind · unbind`	Claim / release channel-account routing slots (`--agent`, `--bind`, `--all`)
`agents bindings`	List routing bindings (`--agent`)
`agents set-identity`	Set name / theme / emoji / avatar

Command	What it does
`brigade org init`	Write a starter `cfg.org` block (`--template solo\|family\|company\|custom`, `--skip-editor`)
`org show`	Print an ASCII tree of the current org
`org explain <from> <to>`	Show whether from can message to, and why
`org doctor`	Run org lints (single-member dept, dangling overrides, depth > 5, …)

Command	What it does
`channels list · status · add`	List channels, probe status, add an account
`channels link · unlink`	Pair / unpair a channel (e.g. WhatsApp QR)
`channels enable · disable`	Toggle a channel
`channels allow list\|add\|remove`	Manage the per-channel allowlist
`pairing list\|approve\|revoke`	Review / approve / revoke pending pairing codes

CLI reference

Core#

Gateway#

Agents#

Org / Pride#

Channels & pairing#

Cron#

Storage, encryption & data#

Self-hosted Convex backend#

Config, skills, sessions, exec#

Command	What it does
`cron list · status · runs <jobId>`	List jobs, service status, per-job run history
`cron add`	Create a job (`--cron`/`--every`/`--at`, `--tz`, `--message`/`--system-event`, `--model`, `--tools`, `--channel`/`--to`)
`cron edit <jobId> · rm <jobId>`	Modify / remove a job
`cron enable\|disable\|run <jobId>`	Toggle or run a job on demand

Command	What it does
`store mode show`	Print the active storage mode (filesystem / convex)
`store mode set <mode>`	Pin the mode (`--convex-url` for convex)
`store migrate --to <mode>`	Copy data between backends (`--dry-run`, `--keep-source`)
`store reset`	Factory-reset the Convex backend (`--yes`, `--purge-local`)
`encrypt status · init · test`	Manage the AES-256-GCM at-rest key
`backup create · verify · restore`	Snapshot / verify / restore your install as a .tar.gz
`secrets audit`	Find suspected leaked credentials in your install

Command	What it does
`brigade convex dev · start`	Run the bundled backend (`http://127.0.0.1:3210`) + dashboard (`http://127.0.0.1:6791`) in the foreground; downloads the ~46 MB binary on first run, Ctrl-C to stop
`brigade convex status`	Report whether the backend is running
`brigade convex stop`	Explain how to stop the foreground backend (Ctrl-C)
`brigade convex push`	Deploy the bundled `convex/` functions to the running backend
`brigade convex codegen`	Regenerate the Convex client (`convex/_generated`)

Command	What it does
`config list\|get\|set\|unset\|file\|schema\|validate`	Read & write configuration
`skills list\|info <name>`	Inspect installed skills
`sessions list\|cleanup`	List + clean up session transcripts
`exec list\|allow\|allow-pattern\|remove\|deny-test\|file`	Manage the `bash`-tool approval allowlist