---
title: "What is o8?"
description: "o8 is a control room for autonomous engineering — one orchestrator dispatches a fleet of coding agents, a governance layer reviews every diff, and nothing risky merges without your sign-off."
canonical_url: https://o8.run/docs/what-is-o8
md_url: https://o8.run/docs/what-is-o8.md
last_updated: 2026-06-25
version: "0.1.431"
stability: stable
---

# What is o8?

> o8 is a control room for autonomous engineering — one orchestrator dispatches a fleet of coding agents, a governance layer reviews every diff, and nothing risky merges without your sign-off.

o8 is a macOS app for **running a team of coding agents** the way a staff engineer runs a team of people: you delegate the work, a governance layer reviews it, and you approve what ships. It's the layer **underneath** the agent IDEs — not another place to type code, but the room you run them from.

## The shape of it

Most tools put one agent in your editor. o8 puts an **orchestrator** in charge of many:

- The **orchestrator** plans the work and dispatches it to a fleet of coding agents — Claude, Codex, Gemini, and others — each in its own isolated git worktree.
- A **governance layer** reviews every diff before it can land: risk is classified by what the change touches, and the dangerous changes get a second, independent review.
- **Nothing merges unreviewed — and nothing risky merges without your sign-off.** Autonomy stays comfortable because the gate is the product, not an afterthought. Every diff is reviewed before it can merge; a standard diff clears on a passing review, while high-risk work is escalated to a second, independent reviewer and held for you.

## The surfaces

o8 is one governed surface seen from several angles:

| Surface | What it's for |
|---|---|
| **Control Room** | The IDE side — sessions, the orchestrator chat, and your `o8.md` workspace. |
| **Agents & Dispatch** | Hand real work to the fleet: missions, isolated worktrees, review, approval. |
| **The Brain** | A queryable map of how your project actually works — organizational memory. |
| **Canvas** | A spatial workspace for arranging work and media. |
| **Symon** | The voice operator — talk to o8, dictate, and drive it hands-free. |

## What it costs

The whole app is **free with your own keys** — bring Claude or Codex and run it. There's no crippled tier and no trial. A paid **Founding Operator** edition funds the build and switches on a managed layer (we run the fast inference for you) for those who want it instant and hands-off — but every capability is in the free app.

> o8 is the orchestration layer that handles the boring production work end to end, so you can step back from the tools and run the room.