A developer operating
environment for macOS.
Owen is not a chatbot. It is an engineer persona running on your machine with real context, credentials, and tools.
brew install owendev/tap/owen Built for the terminal.
Built for your machine.
Real context
Owen reads your repos, open PRs, installed tools, and credentials at startup. No copy-paste, no re-explaining your setup.
Fully local
No cloud backend. No required account. Owen runs entirely on your machine — your code and credentials never leave.
Containerized runtime
Owen supervises a Docker container as its execution environment. Works with Docker Desktop, OrbStack, Colima, and Rancher Desktop.
Approval model
Owen asks before destructive actions — file deletions, commits, and pull requests. You stay in control.
Single binary
One compiled Go binary. No runtime dependencies. No npm, no Python, no scripting environment to manage.
Persistent sessions
Sessions survive terminal closes. Resume where you left off — Owen remembers the task context.
Why Owen?
| Owen | Cloud AI Assistants | IDE Plugins | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Runs locally | ✓ | ✗ | Partial |
| Full system access | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Real credentials | ✓ | ✗ | Limited |
| Terminal-native | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Persistent context | ✓ | Session-based | File-based |
| No account required | ✓ | ✗ | Varies |
Install
brew install owendev/tap/owenQuick start
# First-run setup
owen init
# Authenticate GitHub (optional, enables PR and repo capabilities)
owen auth github
# Start the runtime
owen runtime start
# Discover your repositories
owen repos discover
# Start a session
owen chat