Paperclip
Is Paperclip good for me?
Open-source orchestration for AI-agent companies, goals, budgets, and governance.
Tool short answer
Paperclip is a Node.js server and React UI for orchestrating teams of AI agents. It models companies, goals, org charts, work, budgets, heartbeats, governance, and audit trails so operators can coordinate many agents instead of juggling disconnected terminals.
5-day hosted trial
$5 credit if you upgrade to self-hosting
Paperclip needs an Anthropic or OpenAI API key before agents can do useful work. The key is added to Paperclip secrets after the instance is claimed and is encrypted with the instance master key.
- Authenticated Paperclip server on an isolated trial VPS
- HTTPS access via your trial subdomain
- One-time first-user/CEO invite link
- Local/embedded evaluation storage suitable for a short trial
- Provisioning log and readiness tracking
- Access for 5 days
5 days, then the instance is deleted
What is Paperclip?
Paperclip is not a file manager, document store, chatbot, or agent framework. It is an operating layer for running a company made of agents: bring your own agents, assign goals, approve work, monitor costs, and audit what happened from one dashboard. The core evaluation question is whether Paperclip's company model, governance, budgets, and agent coordination fit how your team wants autonomous work to run.
Who it's for
- Developers and operators evaluating orchestration for teams of AI agents
- Small teams that want a shared company, goal, budget, and work model instead of scattered local scripts
- Users bringing Claude Code, Codex, OpenClaw, Cursor, bash, HTTP bots, or similar workers
- Teams that need governance, heartbeats, secrets, budgets, and audit trails around autonomous work
Who it's not for
- Teams looking for general file sync, WebDAV mounts, or document storage
- Users who want a turnkey SaaS agent platform with no model keys or server choices
- Organizations that need mature enterprise SSO, DLP, or compliance controls out of the box
Problems Paperclip solves
- Agent experiments scattered across terminals, local configs, and one-off scripts
- No clear place to model companies, agents, goals, and issues together
- Provider API keys handled manually instead of through an encrypted secrets workflow
- Uncertainty about whether local desktop or shared server operation fits the team
Why people self-host Paperclip
- Run locally on a Mac, from a terminal, or on your own VPS behind your domain
- Keep company data, agent state, and encrypted secrets on infrastructure you control
- Choose Anthropic, OpenAI, or supported adapters instead of being locked into one hosted platform
- Operate an authenticated public or private instance with your own backup and retention policy
Setup difficulty if you do it yourself
Desktop setup is straightforward on macOS. Server setup needs Node.js 20+, pnpm, a dedicated service user, public base URL/allowed hostnames, a reverse proxy, TLS, and a first-user invite generated with the CLI.
With the hosted trial: isitforme.tech handles the server, DNS, TLS, and tool-specific access flow. You get the access details for this tool when provisioning completes.
What isitforme.tech provisions for the trial
- Authenticated Paperclip server on an isolated trial VPS
- HTTPS access via your trial subdomain
- One-time first-user/CEO invite link
- Local/embedded evaluation storage suitable for a short trial
- Provisioning log and readiness tracking
- Access for 5 days
BYOK required
Paperclip needs an Anthropic or OpenAI API key before agents can do useful work. The key is added to Paperclip secrets after the instance is claimed and is encrypted with the instance master key.
Tool capabilities
- Agent/team orchestration across OpenClaw, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, bash, HTTP bots, and similar workers
- Company goals, org charts, roles, reporting lines, and governance
- Ticket/work tracking with comments, logs, work products, and audit trail
- Heartbeats and scheduled or event-triggered agent work
- Budget and cost-control policies
- Secrets, storage, invite, and multi-company isolation primitives
After the trial: your upgrade path
After the trial, recreate the Paperclip server with the documented VPS path, back up the instance master key, add your production model-provider secrets, and choose whether teammates connect through the browser or the macOS desktop app in remote mode.
Questions about Paperclip
No. Paperclip is an AI agent workspace and control plane. It uses storage for its own app data, but file management, WebDAV, and shared-drive replacement are not the product being evaluated here.
The hosted trial generates a one-time CEO invite for the authenticated Paperclip workspace. Open the invite URL, create your account, then configure your company, agents, and provider secrets.
The setup docs describe Anthropic for Claude-backed agents and OpenAI for Codex-style adapters. You provide the relevant API key and store it in Paperclip secrets after onboarding.
Yes, if you run Paperclip as an authenticated server. Teammates can sign in to the shared instance, and the macOS desktop app can connect in remote mode to the same server URL.
Ready to try Paperclip?
Get a live Paperclip instance in minutes with the access needed to evaluate it. $5 for 5 days.