Rowboat: Open-Source AI Coworker

2026-05-14 · source · source ↗ · raw capture · wiki page

Main Purpose

Rowboat is a local-first AI assistant that "turns work into a knowledge graph and acts on it." Connects to email and meeting notes to build persistent context, enabling users to accomplish tasks privately on their own machines.

Key Features

Core Capabilities: - Generate documents and presentations using accumulated knowledge - Prepare meeting briefs from historical decisions and conversations - Create voice memos that automatically update key takeaways - Track people, companies, or topics through live notes - Visualize and manually edit the underlying knowledge graph

Live Notes Feature: Users can create self-updating notes by mentioning @rowboat, enabling continuous monitoring of competitors, projects, or individuals across web sources and personal communications.

Data Architecture: Maintains an "Obsidian-compatible vault" of plain Markdown notes with backlinks—a transparent working memory stored entirely on the user's device.

Integrations

Gmail and Google Calendar
Rowboat meeting notes or Fireflies
Composio.dev product library
Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers for external tools
Optional: Deepgram (voice input), ElevenLabs (voice output), Exa (web search)

Technical Stack

Primarily TypeScript (96.6%), with CSS, JavaScript, Python, and Docker components. 1,613 commits.

Distinguishing Approach

Rather than reconstructing context on-demand, Rowboat accumulates long-lived knowledge where relationships remain explicit and editable—avoiding proprietary lock-in through local Markdown storage.