Paradigm and Tempo have open-sourced Centaur, the self-hosted, Slack-native multiplayer agent runtime they have been operating internally since January. The project is released under the Apache 2.0 license. Centaur aims to address challenges that differ from personal assistants like Hermes or OpenClaws, such as surviving laptop closures, securely handling real credentials, running for extended periods, and being reachable where teams actually collaborate.
What Centaur provides
Centaur runs agents inside Slack conversations with per-thread isolation and operational features designed for team use:
- Every thread is assigned its own isolated Kubernetes sandbox, providing separation between concurrent sessions.
- Tools you add are plain Python drop-ins and become instantly available across conversations.
- A credential firewall injects secrets in-flight so agents never receive raw keys and cannot exfiltrate them.
Reliability and operational details
Tools are implemented as simple Python plugins that hot-reload across an organization when updated. Workflows checkpoint to Postgres so they can resume exactly where they left off after a crash. The system also performs nightly self-reviews and ships fixes to its own skills, according to the project description.
How to get started
You can clone the Centaur repository from GitHub or visit centaur.run for more information and setup instructions.
Why this matters
Centaur focuses on the operational and security needs of teams and enterprises rather than individual local assistants: persistent runs, stronger isolation, and safer credential handling. By releasing the project as open source, Paradigm and Tempo allow other organizations to run and extend the runtime on their own infrastructure.
