Agentic Open Notebook

A multi-agent knowledge operating system built on top of Open Notebook.

Powerful underneath. Simple on the surface.

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Built on Open Notebook

This project is an independent extension of Open Notebook by Luis Novo, the open-source, privacy-focused alternative to Google's Notebook LM.

We build on the Open Notebook foundation — the three-tier architecture (Next.js → FastAPI → SurrealDB), multi-provider AI (18+ providers via Esperanto), multi-speaker podcasts, vector/text search, and the 14-locale UI — and add a multi-agent orchestration layer on top of it.

Upstream: https://github.com/lfnovo/open-notebook · Website: https://www.open-notebook.ai · License: MIT (LICENSE, copyright © Luis Novo)

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What we added

Engine	What it does
Agent Engine	A supervisor (plan → execute → decide → finalize) orchestrates 10 specialized agents across a safe tool registry
Control Layer	Labels every claim verified / external / inferred / unverified; contradiction & hallucination checks
Research	gather → synthesize → fact-check produces source-cited reports with verification labels
Education	Turns any source into a study plan, explanation, quiz and flashcards
Persona	Re-interprets material from any expert perspective
Live Sync	Diffs external sources (Google Drive) into your knowledge base, deduped by content hash
Action + Approvals	External actions (email, Jira) execute only after human approval
Workflow + Scheduler	Run registered tool-step workflows on demand or hourly/daily/weekly
Multi-user foundation	user table + users API
Redesigned UI	Modern indigo design system, Home dashboard, non-technical navigation

Read the full story in docs/agentic/:

• Architecture
• What we built
• Feature catalogue
• Roadmap

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Architecture

flowchart LR
  UI[Next.js 16<br/>:3000] --> API[FastAPI<br/>:5055]
  API --> DB[(SurrealDB<br/>:8000)]
  API -->|submit_command| Q[(Command queue)]
  Q --> W[Background worker]

  subgraph Engine layer
    A[Agent supervisor] --> T[Tool registry]
    R[Research] --> C[Control / verification]
    E[Education] 
    P[Persona]
    ACT[Action] --> AP[Approvals]
    S[Live sync]
    WF[Workflows + scheduler]
  end

  W --> A
  W --> WF
  T --> DB

Loading

Every long-running operation is a surreal-commands background job — the API never blocks on podcast generation, embeddings, source processing or agent runs.

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Features (upstream + ours)

• Private & self-hosted — your data stays yours
• Multi-provider AI — OpenAI, Anthropic, Ollama, LM Studio and 15+ more
• Multi-agent orchestration — delegate a goal, the supervisor does the rest
• Verification layer — every claim gets an evidence label
• Multi-modal sources — PDFs, video, audio, web pages
• Multi-speaker podcasts — 1–4 speakers with custom profiles
• Full-text + vector search across everything
• Context-aware chat with citations
• Study material generation — plans, quizzes, flashcards
• Live sync & actions — Google Drive, email, Jira
• 14-locale UI

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Quick start

Docker (recommended)

git clone https://github.com/koraysrn/agentic-open-notebook.git
cd agentic-open-notebook
docker compose up

Open http://localhost:3000. Configure your AI models in Settings → Models (or set API keys in the UI). For local models, start Ollama and run:

ollama pull qwen2.5            # chat model
ollama pull nomic-embed-text   # embedding model

Then add both in Settings → Models (provider ollama). A helper script is available for headless setup:

uv run python scripts/configure_ollama_models.py

Local development

Three tiers, started in order:

make database     # SurrealDB
make api          # FastAPI (migrations run automatically)
make worker-start # surreal-commands worker (podcasts/embeddings/agents)
make frontend     # Next.js UI

Or all at once: make start-all · status: make status · stop: make stop-all.

See Open Notebook's docs and docs/1-INSTALLATION/ for full installation and configuration guides.

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Tests & quality

uv run pytest tests/        # 761 backend tests
cd frontend
npm run test                # 140 frontend tests
npm run lint
npm run build

CI runs the same suite on every push (see .github/workflows/test.yml).

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Built with

Python · FastAPI · Next.js · React · SurrealDB · LangChain · LangGraph · Esperanto

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License & attribution

Distributed under the MIT License — see LICENSE.

This project is a derivative of Open Notebook © Luis Novo (https://github.com/lfnovo/open-notebook), used under the MIT License. The original copyright notice is preserved in LICENSE.