Omnara: AI agents that sleep, wake and remember

What it is

Omnara is a new open-source platform for running AI agents that stick around. Its founder, Kartik, shared it on Hacker News as an alternative to Claude managed agents. Those are a proprietary option, so the setup belongs to someone else. Omnara lets you keep full control of it.

The idea is simple. A developer asks Omnara for an agent in a single request, and from then on Omnara looks after it. Each agent gets its own little sandbox where it can do its work, and everything it knows is saved automatically into a database as it goes.

Why it caught my eye

Two details. First, if the system restarts, the agents carry on. No lost thread, no starting over. Second, an agent that's just waiting costs nothing. Always-on setups use resources the whole time, a bit like leaving the oven on between orders.

Picture a helper who chases a supplier quote, waits days for a reply, then picks the conversation straight back up as if no time had passed. That kind of patient, slow-burn work is what this is built for.

What it means for you

You won't set this up yourself. But next time you talk to a developer about agents, ask one gentle question: does this run on our terms, or someone else's? Open source means the setup is yours, and you can move it whenever you like.

Words worth knowing

• Sandbox: a fenced-off workspace where an agent can try things without touching anything else.
• Vendor lock-in: when leaving a provider is so painful that you just... don't.
• API: the way one piece of software asks another to do something for it.