Do I need to write code to build an agent?

No. An agent is a record. It holds a plain-language playbook, the tools it may use, a trigger, a trust tier, a budget and the person it acts for. Developers can also define agents through the API or the CLI.

Is there a visual workflow builder?

No. Agents are defined as records with playbooks, by the Architect, the API or the CLI. The workspace has pages for apps, agents, approvals, inbox, knowledge, search, connections and views.

Can I change a ready-made agent?

Yes. Its playbook, tools and rules are records. Changes go through review and a canary that rolls back automatically.

Is OrchKernel an agent framework?

No. Frameworks such as LangChain or CrewAI build agents. OrchKernel governs them, and runs alongside whatever built them.

Agents

Hire ready-made agents. Build your own.

Enable an app and its agents are ready on day one. Need one that does not exist yet? Build it in an afternoon. Every agent acts for a person and passes the same gate.

Become a design partner See how it works

Hire

Hire agents from an app

Apps cover Sales, Marketing, Support, Product, Engineering and the Founder's office. Each brings agents with their playbook, tools, rules and a scorecard. Enable one in one click and map it to your teams.

See every department and its agents

Build

Build a new agent in an afternoon

An agent is a record, not a project. You fill in six things. The kernel does the rest: scheduling, approvals, budgets and the log.

A playbook

Plain language: what the agent does, step by step, and where it stops for a person.

Declared tools

The agent can call only the tools it declares. Anything else is refused at the gate.

A trigger

A schedule, a webhook, a changed record, a mention, a handoff, or a person's ask.

A trust tier

Sandboxed, standard or trusted. Trust is earned, and it caps what the agent does unattended.

A budget

A spending limit for the agent, inside the limits of its team and task.

Who it acts for

Every agent acts for a person and never holds more than that person can do.

agent record (example)

Name: Renewal reminder
Acts for: Carol, sales lead
Trigger: Schedule: every weekday morning
Tools: Read the CRM, send email through Gmail
Trust tier: Standard
Budget: Set per agent, within the Sales team budget
Playbook: Find renewals due this month. Draft a note to each customer. Sending an email waits for Carol.

Set up

Describe your company. It sets itself up.

The Architect turns a description of your company into a blueprint. A person reviews it and promotes it. Nothing installs itself.

01
Describe
Say who leads what, which teams you have and the work you want agents on.
02
Review the blueprint
The Architect drafts teams, apps, agents, rules and pages. You see all of it before anything changes.
03
Promote
A person promotes the blueprint. Until then, nothing is installed.

Change and bring

Change agents safely. Bring the ones you have.

Changes go through review

A change to a playbook, a tool or a rule is proposed and reviewed before it applies.

Review and scorecards

A canary that rolls back on its own

An approved change runs on a canary first. If it fails, it rolls back automatically.

How the canary works

Agents you already use

Claude, Cursor or your own code get their own identity and act only through the gate.

The MCP gateway

No vendor keys outside

Outside agents never hold your vendor keys. OrchKernel runs the approved action with its own credentials.

The governed actions API

A scorecard for every agent

Ready-made agents ship with a scorecard. Agents you build get one too.

Scorecards

One gate for all of them

Built here, ready-made or brought in, every agent's actions pass the same gate.

The gate

Frequently Asked Questions

Put an agent on real work, with people in charge

Design partners run one real workflow on OrchKernel and work directly with the engineers building it.

Become a design partner See how it works

OrchKernel is source-available and self-hosted.