workavera

README

Workavera

简体中文

The AI-driven, open-source, self-hosted alternative to Slack + Notion + Linear — one binary on your own server, your data, no per-seat fees.

Workavera connects conversations, knowledge, relationships, projects, tasks, and time commitments in one workspace, and Chat is how you put it in motion: the AI can only use the capabilities your account already has—finding context, creating or updating records—and the server re-authorizes every action against your own permissions before it is applied.

It uses Go and PocketBase for the backend and Vite, React, and TypeScript for the frontend. The compiled frontend is embedded into the Go binary (go:embed) and served by the same PocketBase process, so a release ships as a single self-contained executable.

Why Workavera

Self-hosted AI tools are a crowded space, but most of them fall on one of two sides:

• Chat front-ends (Open WebUI, LibreChat, and similar) put a UI over model APIs. The conversation is the whole product—there is no workspace behind it for the AI to act on.
• Knowledge workspaces (AFFiNE, AppFlowy, and similar) manage notes and projects and bolt AI on as a writing assistant. The AI suggests text; it doesn't operate the workspace.

Workavera combines both halves and adds the part neither has:

• Permission-aware AI tool calling. Chat can search your context and operate Board, Calendar, Docs, Reading, Contacts, and AI Micro Apps—but only within the permissions your account already has, and the server re-authorizes every tool call (identity, role, ownership, revision). The AI is never a privileged service account.
• One self-contained binary. The frontend is embedded via go:embed and data lives in PocketBase/SQLite—no Postgres, Redis, or vector-database stack. Deploy with a single docker run or a single downloaded binary.
• Built for freelancers and small teams. Bring your own model API keys, run it on a cheap VPS or a NAS, and own all of your data. Open source under Apache-2.0.

Screenshots

Dashboard

Chat creating a Board project

Board

Chat creating Calendar events

Calendar

Quick start

No toolchain needed—run the prebuilt image or binary.

Docker

docker run -p 8090:8090 -v workavera-data:/app/pb_data ghcr.io/xusenlin/workavera:latest

Prebuilt binary

Download the archive for your platform from GitHub Releases, extract it, and start the server from a terminal (it is a server process, so double-clicking the binary is not enough):

./workavera serve            # workavera.exe serve on Windows

By default it listens on http://127.0.0.1:8090. Pass --http=0.0.0.0:8090 to accept connections from other machines.

First-run setup

1. Create the superuser. On the first start, PocketBase prints a one-time link containing a token, e.g. http://127.0.0.1:8090/_/#/pbinstal/<token>. Find it in the terminal output (or in docker logs for a detached container), open it in a browser, and create the superuser account.
2. Create an application user. In the Admin UI at http://127.0.0.1:8090/_/, add a record to the users collection. Workavera's login page only accepts these admin-created accounts—the superuser itself cannot sign in to the app.
3. Sign in and add a model. Open http://127.0.0.1:8090, sign in with that user, and add at least one model configuration in Settings before using Chat or AI summaries.

Product areas

• Dashboard shows counts for active projects, open tasks, the next seven days, and unread Reading items, together with due tasks, upcoming events and deadlines, recently updated Docs/Chat/Reading records, and quick links.
• Reading saves external URLs and notes with project, tags, read status, pins, archive, configurable summary language, and AI-generated summaries.
• Contacts provides a searchable contact list, detailed profiles, and personal favorites; Chat can search a bounded, non-sensitive contact projection.
• Chat streams model output, reasoning, and tool calls into durable conversations. Runs continue across browser disconnects and can be resumed or stopped. A context-usage indicator tracks token and cache details, and long conversations are automatically compacted into a summary near the model's context limit without altering the visible history.
• Docs stores private and project Markdown documents with BlockNote rich editing, source/fullscreen modes, Markdown/HTML export, explicit versions, conflict detection, pins, archive, and AI editing.
• Board manages independent project workflows, labels, roles, tasks, activity history, due dates, and same-project document links. Ten bilingual workflow templates are included.
• Calendar combines personal events with visible Board deadlines, supports recurrence and system-timezone scheduling, and produces in-app reminders.
• AI Micro Apps manages self-contained HTML tools and prototypes with sandboxed preview, pins, archive/restore actions, and Assistant tools for HTML generation and revision.
• Notifications provides realtime model-share requests, task-due notices, and calendar reminders with record deep links.
• Settings and Profile manage model configurations, model sharing, per-user appearance, profile fields, and avatars.

Reading is the external-information intake layer, Docs is the reusable knowledge layer, Board is the action layer, Calendar is the time-commitment layer, and AI Micro Apps is the interactive delivery layer.

Chat connects these layers as a permission-aware AI control surface. It can search the context visible to you and invoke registered tools for Board, Calendar, Reading, Docs, Contacts, and AI Micro Apps. Tool availability never bypasses product rules: the backend checks identity, role, ownership, relationships, and revisions for every operation.

Technology

• Go 1.26.5
• PocketBase 0.39.4
• Fantasy 0.37.3
• React 19, TypeScript 6, Vite 8
• Tailwind CSS 4 and local shadcn/ui components
• AI SDK UI message streaming
• Zustand and the PocketBase JavaScript SDK
• BlockNote for Markdown editing

Data and security notes

• Runtime data lives in pb_data/ and is not committed.
• Model API keys stay in the hidden llm_models.api_key field and are accessed through authenticated server endpoints.
• User-facing records are protected by PocketBase rules and server-side domain validation.
• Chat history is loaded by the server; browsers do not provide authoritative prior messages.
• Active Chat runs are process-local. Stream reconnection works while the same server process is alive; production multi-instance execution requires shared durable run infrastructure.
• Calendar scheduling and reminders use configs/system.timezone.

Development

Everything below is only needed when contributing or building from source—see Quick start if you just want to run Workavera.

Requirements

• Go 1.26.5 or newer
• Node.js and pnpm
• Task 3 or newer
• Docker with Buildx only when building or publishing containers

Local development

Install frontend dependencies once:

cd frontend
pnpm install
cd ..

Run the backend and Vite frontend in separate terminals:

task dev:go

task dev:ui

Open http://127.0.0.1:5173. Vite proxies /api to PocketBase at http://127.0.0.1:8090.

PocketBase also exposes:

• Admin UI: http://127.0.0.1:8090/_/
• Health endpoint: http://127.0.0.1:8090/api/health

On the first start the server prints the same one-time superuser setup link described in First-run setup; create the superuser and application users the same way. After signing in, add at least one model configuration in Settings before using Chat or AI summaries.

When task dev:go runs through go run, PocketBase automigration is enabled and schema changes are written to migrations/.

Build and run

Build the frontend and backend:

task build:ui
task build:go

Run the packaged application after the frontend has been built:

task run

Open http://127.0.0.1:8090. task run rebuilds the Go binary with the current frontend/dist embedded, so the resulting binary is fully self-contained.

The version comes from VERSION and is injected into the binary. Check it with:

./workavera --version

Commands

Command	Purpose
task dev:go	Run the Go/PocketBase development server
task dev:ui	Run the Vite development server
task build:ui	Type-check and build frontend/dist
task build:go	Build the workavera binary (embeds frontend/dist)
task build	Build the frontend and the self-contained binary
task release	Cross-compile and package release archives for Linux/macOS/Windows into dist/
task run	Build and run the Go binary
task build:docker	Build the frontend and local ghcr.io/xusenlin/workavera:latest image
task push	Build and push linux/amd64 version and latest images
task test	Run go test ./...
task tidy	Run go mod tidy

Frontend-only commands are documented in frontend/README.md.

Binary releases

Cross-compile self-contained binaries for GitHub releases:

task release

This builds and embeds the frontend, then cross-compiles four targets across Linux, macOS, and Windows into dist/. Archives are named by version, OS, and architecture:

• dist/workavera_<version>_linux_amd64.tar.gz
• dist/workavera_<version>_darwin_amd64.tar.gz
• dist/workavera_<version>_darwin_arm64.tar.gz
• dist/workavera_<version>_windows_amd64.zip

Each archive contains a single self-contained workavera binary (workavera.exe on Windows)—no separate frontend assets are required at runtime. A dist/SHA256SUMS.txt checksum file is generated alongside the archives. The dist/ directory is git-ignored.

Docker image

Build the local image:

task build:docker

The container runs as a non-root user, includes CA certificates and timezone data, exposes a health check, stores data in /app/pb_data, and ships as a single self-contained binary with the frontend assets embedded. See Quick start for the run command.

task push uses the value in VERSION to publish both :<version> and :latest for linux/amd64.

Repository structure

.
├── workavera.go                 # PocketBase entry point and frontend serving
├── internal/
│   ├── agent/                   # Fantasy and AI SDK stream adaptation
│   ├── assistant/tools/         # Actor-scoped workspace tools
│   ├── board/                   # Projects, tasks, roles, validation, activity
│   ├── calendar/                # Events, recurrence, and schedule queries
│   ├── chat/                    # Conversations, runs, SSE, persistence
│   ├── configs/                 # System configuration API
│   ├── contacts/                # Contacts and safe Assistant queries
│   ├── docs/                    # Markdown documents and versions
│   ├── llm/                     # Model settings and sharing
│   ├── microapps/               # AI Micro Apps domain and previews
│   ├── notifications/           # Realtime notifications and scheduler
│   └── reading/                 # Reading library and summaries
├── migrations/                  # PocketBase schema migrations and tests
├── frontend/                    # Vite React application
│   └── src/
│       ├── components/          # Feature and UI components
│       ├── pages/               # Route-level pages
│       ├── store/               # Zustand stores
│       └── lib/                 # PocketBase and shared utilities
├── doc/                         # English and Chinese product documents
├── Dockerfile
├── Taskfile.yml
└── VERSION

Product documentation

Module	English	简体中文
Board	Board PRD	Board PRD
Calendar	Calendar PRD	Calendar PRD
Chat	Chat PRD and Fantasy architecture	Chat PRD 与 Fantasy 架构
Docs	Docs PRD	Docs PRD

Changelog

Release history is documented in CHANGELOG.md.

License

Licensed under the Apache License 2.0.

Copyright 2026 xusenlin