Paperclip AI Orchestration Skill by [ara.so](https://ara.so) — Daily 2026 Skills collection. Paperclip is an open source Node.js + React platform that runs a company made of AI agents . It provides org charts, goal alignment, ticket based task management, budget enforcement, heartbeat scheduling, governance, and a full audit log — so you manage business outcomes instead of individual agent sessions. Installation Quickstart (recommended) This clones the repo, installs dependencies, seeds an embedded PostgreSQL database, and starts the server. Manual setup Requirements: Node.js 20+ pnpm 9.15+ The API server starts at http://localhost:3100 . An embedded PostgreSQL database is created automatically — no manual DB setup needed for local development. Production setup Point Paperclip at an external Postgres instance and object storage via environment variables: Key CLI Commands Core Concepts Concept Description Company Top level namespace. All agents, goals, tasks, and budgets are scoped to a company. Agent An AI worker (OpenClaw, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, HTTP bot, Bash script). Goal Hierarchical business objective. Tasks inherit goal ancestry so agents know the "why". Task / Ticket A unit of work assigned to an agent. Conversations and tool calls are threaded to it. Heartbeat A cron style schedule that wakes an agent to check for work or perform recurring tasks. Org Chart Hierarchical reporting structure. Agents have managers, direct reports, roles, and titles. Budget Monthly token/cost cap per agent. Atomic enforcement — agent stops when budget exhausted. Governance Approval gates for hires, strategy changes, and config rollbacks. You are the board. REST API The Paperclip API is served at http://localhost:3100/api/v1 . Authentication Create a Company Register an Agent Create a Goal Create a Task List Tasks for an Agent Post a Message to a Task Thread Report Agent Cost Agents self report token usage; Paperclip enforces budget atomically: Heartbeat Ping Agents call this endpoint on each scheduled wake up: TypeScript SDK Pattern Wrap the REST API for cleaner agent integration: Building an Agent That Works With Paperclip A minimal agent loop that integrates with Paperclip: Registering an HTTP Agent (any language) Any process reachable over HTTP can be an agent. Paperclip sends a POST to your endpoint: Respond with: Multi Company Setup Governance & Approvals Environment Variables Reference Common Patterns Pattern: Manager delegates to reports Pattern: @ mention an agent in a task thread Pattern: Export a company template (Clipmart) Pattern: Import a company template Troubleshooting Problem Fix ECONNREFUSED localhost:3100 Server not running. Run pnpm dev first. 401 Unauthorized Check PAPERCLIP API KEY is set and matches server config. Agent never wakes up Verify heartbeat.enabled: true and cron expression is valid. Check server logs for scheduler errors. Budget exhausted immediately monthly usd budget too low or tokens in/tokens out are being over reported. Check POST /agents/:id/cost payloads. Task stuck in open Agent may be offline or heartbeat misconfigured. Check /api/v1/agents/:id/status . Database migration errors Run pnpm db:migrate after pulling new commits. Embedded Postgres won't start Port 5433 may be in use. Set EMBEDDED PG PORT=5434 in .env . Org chart not resolving reports to agent ID must exist before creating the subordinate. Create top down. Resources Docs: https://paperclip.ing/docs GitHub: https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip Discord: https://discord.gg/m4HZY7xNG3 Clipmart (company templates): https://paperclip.ing/clipmart (coming soon)

paperclip-ai-orchestration