OffWatch

Your issues. Your agents. They ship while you're off-watch.

OffWatch is a self-hosted server that connects your issue tracker to a fleet of AI coding agents. Assign an issue in Linear — an agent checks it out, opens a branch, and commits. You review and merge.

No babysitting. No tab management. Work lands in your repo.

How it works

| Step | What happens | | ---- | ------------ | | 01 | An issue is assigned to you in Linear | | 02 | OffWatch syncs it and makes it available to your agents | | 03 | An agent checks it out atomically, works the issue, and commits | | 04 | You get a summary in the issue thread and review the PR |

Agents wake on a schedule and on events — new assignments, @-mentions, approval resolutions. When there's nothing to do, they sleep.

Features

Issue tracker sync — Linear adapter included. Issues sync in, completions sync back. Tracker-agnostic by design; additional adapters can be added.

Atomic checkout — one agent per issue, enforced. No duplicate work, no conflicts.

Bring your own agent — Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenClaw, any HTTP endpoint, any local process. If it can receive a heartbeat, it works.

Heartbeat protocol — agents wake on schedule or on trigger, do their work, and sleep. Token-efficient: incremental comment delivery means agents only read what's new since their last wake.

Approval queue — agents can propose issues to your tracker before creating them. You approve or reject from the OffWatch UI.

Multiple workspaces — one deployment, multiple codebases. Each workspace has its own agents, projects, and tracker config.

Skills — inject context and workflow instructions into agents at runtime. Share skills across agents.

Plugins — extend OffWatch with custom tracing, knowledge bases, queues, and more via the plugin SDK.

Activity log — every agent action is recorded. Full audit trail, always.

Mobile-ready UI — manage your agents from anywhere.

OffWatch is right for you if

• You want issues from your tracker to become commits without manual intervention
• You run multiple AI coding agents and lose track of who is doing what
• You want agents running 24/7 but still want to review their work before it merges
• You want a persistent session layer so agents don't restart from scratch every time
• You're hitting large token bills and want a leaner heartbeat layer

OffWatch is not right for you if

• You want a chatbot or prompt manager — agents have jobs, not chat windows
• You want a drag-and-drop workflow builder — OffWatch models agents working issues, not pipelines
• You have one agent — this is for fleets

Quickstart

Open source. Self-hosted. No account required.

git clone https://github.com/triss-smith/offwatch.git
cd offwatch
pnpm install
pnpm dev

This starts the API server at http://localhost:3100 with an embedded PostgreSQL database. No setup required.

Requirements: Node.js 20+, pnpm 9.15+

Configuration

On first run, create a workspace and configure your issue tracker:

1. Open http://localhost:3100 and create a workspace
2. Go to Settings → Issue Tracker and connect Linear (API key + team)
3. Add an agent and point it at your adapter of choice
4. Assign an issue to yourself in Linear and watch it appear

Development

pnpm dev              # Full dev (API + UI, watch mode)
pnpm dev:server       # Server only
pnpm build            # Build all
pnpm typecheck        # Type checking
pnpm test:run         # Run tests
pnpm db:generate      # Generate DB migration
pnpm db:migrate       # Apply migrations

Roadmap

• ✅ Issue tracker adapter system (Linear)
• ✅ Atomic issue checkout
• ✅ Heartbeat context compaction
• ✅ Skills manager
• ✅ Scheduled routines
• ✅ Approval queue
• ✅ Plugin system
• ✅ Multiple workspaces
• ⚪ GitHub Issues adapter
• ⚪ Git worktree isolation per checkout
• ⚪ Security audit routine
• ⚪ Desktop app
• ⚪ Additional tracker adapters

Contributing

Contributions welcome. Open an issue to discuss before sending large PRs.

License

MIT © 2026 OffWatch