whatisgithub

What is gobby?

nick-baumann/gobby — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-05-18

122TypeScriptAudience · developerComplexity · 4/5LicenseSetup · hard

In one sentence

An always on personal AI assistant that runs on a Mac Mini and reaches you through WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, and more.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((repo))
    What it does
      Always on assistant
      Multi surface messaging
      Shared memory
    Tech stack
      TypeScript
      Rust
      Codex CLI
    Use cases
      Personal automation
      Skill extensions
    Audience
      Mac Mini owners
      Developers

Code map

Detail Auto

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filefunction / class

What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Run one always on AI assistant reachable from WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, and iMessage.

USE CASE 2

Add new abilities by dropping a SKILL.md folder into a directory, no restart needed.

USE CASE 3

Keep one shared conversation memory across every messaging app you use.

What is it built with?

TypeScriptRustCodex CLI

How does it compare?

nick-baumann/gobbyhvardhan878/ghostworkclarilayer/clarilayer
Stars122122124
LanguageTypeScriptTypeScriptTypeScript
Setup difficultyhardmoderateeasy
Complexity4/54/53/5
Audiencedevelopergeneraldata

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · hard Time to first run · 1h+

Designed specifically for a Mac Mini M4 with launchd setup and Codex CLI access.

Free to use, modify, and distribute, including commercially, as long as you keep the copyright notice.

So what is it?

GOBBY is a personal AI assistant designed to run around the clock on a Mac Mini M4, Apple's small desktop computer. It stays always on, can be reached from several messaging apps at once, and acts as one consistent assistant across all of them, sharing a single memory of your conversations no matter which app you use. The idea behind the project is that a Mac Mini M4 is cheap enough to leave running twenty four hours a day, costing roughly twelve dollars a year in electricity, quiet enough to sit on a desk without a fan, and powerful enough to handle the AI reasoning GOBBY needs. Rather than trying to run on every kind of computer, GOBBY commits fully to this one piece of hardware, which lets it plug directly into macOS features: login credentials are stored in the macOS Keychain, the built in secure password manager, the assistant starts automatically using macOS's own background process supervisor so it survives restarts and sleep, and camera, microphone, and screen access follow Apple's standard permission prompts rather than a custom system. You can talk to GOBBY through WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, iMessage, a web chat page, or voice, and every one of these connects to the same underlying conversation, so a chat started on one app can continue on another without losing context. New abilities, called skills, are added simply by placing a folder containing a SKILL.md file into a directory, and the running assistant picks it up immediately, with no restart required. All of the actual AI reasoning is handled by OpenAI's Codex command line tool running underneath. The project is released under the MIT license. The full README is longer than what was provided.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Help me set up GOBBY's launchd LaunchAgent so it survives reboots on my Mac Mini.
Prompt 2
Show me how to add a new skill to GOBBY by creating a SKILL.md file.
Prompt 3
Explain how GOBBY keeps one shared session across WhatsApp and iMessage.
Prompt 4
Walk me through connecting GOBBY to Telegram and Discord as messaging surfaces.

Frequently asked questions

What is gobby?

An always on personal AI assistant that runs on a Mac Mini and reaches you through WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, and more.

What language is gobby written in?

Mainly TypeScript. The stack also includes TypeScript, Rust, Codex CLI.

What license does gobby use?

Free to use, modify, and distribute, including commercially, as long as you keep the copyright notice.

How hard is gobby to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated hard, with roughly 1h+ to a first successful run.

Who is gobby for?

Mainly developer.

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