Deft — The AI-Native Workspace

Chat, tasks, and an AI agent that actually understands your work. Source-available.

What is Deft?

Deft combines team chat, task management, and an AI agent into one workspace. The AI has direct SQL access to your conversations and tasks — it doesn't just search, it understands context and takes action.

• Chat — Real-time messaging with threads, reactions, @mentions, file sharing, rich text
• Tasks — Kanban boards, list views, priorities, assignments, due dates, drag-and-drop
• AI Agent — Ask questions, create tasks, summarize conversations, execute multi-step workflows with approval gates
• Dashboard — Morning pulse briefing, task overview, activity feed, project progress

License: Source-available under the Business Source License 1.1. Use it for any purpose — including self-hosting — except offering Deft as a hosted or managed service to third parties. Forks must retain attribution. Converts to Apache License 2.0 four years from each release date.

Project status

Deft is in alpha — usable and self-hostable today, but expect breaking changes and rough edges until a tagged v0.1.0. Designed for one workspace per deployment. Source-available under BSL 1.1.

Quick Start

Get to first login in under 5 minutes.

Prerequisites

• Docker Desktop (includes Docker Compose)
• (Optional) An Anthropic API key for AI features — chat and tasks work without one

Steps

git clone https://github.com/Maneek21/Deft.git
cd deft

# 1. Create your env file
cp .env.example .env

Open .env and set the three required values (plus the optional AI key if you want AI features):

Variable	Required?	How to get it
POSTGRES_PASSWORD	Required	Any strong string — openssl rand -hex 32
JWT_SECRET	Required	openssl rand -hex 32
JWT_REFRESH_SECRET	Required	openssl rand -hex 32 (run it again)
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	Optional	console.anthropic.com — only for AI features; can also be set per-org in Settings → AI

# 2. Start the stack (Postgres + Redis + Deft)
docker compose up -d

# 3. Initialize the database (run once on first boot)
pnpm db:push-full   # applies schema + the two extras SQL files (FTS columns / triggers)
pnpm db:seed        # seeds Defty + bundled skills/templates (prod-safe, idempotent)
# pnpm db:seed:demo # ALSO inserts 5 test users for poking around — dev only, NEVER in prod

Note: Use pnpm db:push-full, not pnpm db:migrate. push-full is the supported path for fresh installs — it diffs the live schema against packages/db/src/schema.ts, then applies two orphan SQL files (0020_wiki_search_vector.sql and 0033_tasks_embedding.sql) that create generated tsvector columns and GIN indexes Drizzle's pushed schema can't express. Plain pnpm db:push skips the orphans and leaves wiki/task FTS broken. Versioned db:migrate upgrade paths are not yet supported and will arrive post-alpha.

pnpm db:seed is prod-safe and idempotent — re-running on a populated workspace is a no-op. It inserts only platform bundles (Defty system user, bundled skills, bundled task templates, first-party employee templates). It never inserts test accounts.

Open http://localhost:3000 and create your account. The first signup becomes the org owner and administrator.

Want to poke around without creating an account? Run pnpm db:seed:demo (dev only — wipes the DB and inserts five test users with passwords listed in CONTRIBUTING.md). Use them for a guided tour, then re-init the DB before inviting real testers.

Single-org note: Deft is designed for one workspace per deployment. Additional users join via invite link from Settings → Members — direct signups after the first account are blocked.

For a deeper setup guide — environment variable reference, backups, upgrades, and MCP agent configuration — see docs/self-hosting.md.

Local Development

# Prerequisites: Node.js 18+, pnpm, PostgreSQL 16, Redis
git clone https://github.com/Maneek21/Deft.git
cd deft
pnpm install
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your database URL

# Set up database
pnpm db:push-full
pnpm db:seed         # Platform bundle only (prod-safe)
# pnpm db:seed:demo  # OR: wipe + populate with 5 test users + demo content (dev only)

# Start dev servers
pnpm dev        # Starts web (3000) + API (3001)

Architecture

deft/
├── apps/
│   ├── web/          # Next.js 16 (App Router, TypeScript)
│   └── api/          # Hono on Node.js (REST + WebSocket + agent engine)
├── packages/
│   ├── db/           # Drizzle ORM schema + migrations
│   └── shared/       # Shared types and constants
├── docker-compose.yml
└── pnpm-workspace.yaml

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Frontend	Next.js 16, React 19, Tailwind CSS v4, TipTap
API	Hono on Node.js
Database	PostgreSQL 16 + Drizzle ORM
Real-time	Socket.io + Redis adapter
Background Jobs	BullMQ + Redis
AI	Anthropic Claude API (Sonnet for reasoning, Haiku for classification)
Auth	JWT + refresh tokens
File Storage	Local disk (R2-ready)
Monorepo	pnpm workspaces

AI Agent

The agent has direct SQL access to your data — no API middleman. It can:

• Answer questions about tasks, conversations, and team activity
• Create and assign tasks from natural language
• Summarize conversation threads and spaces
• Execute multi-step plans with approval gates and live progress streaming
• Post messages and updates across spaces
• Leave proactive comments on stalled or overdue tasks
• Offer inline task suggestions from actionable chat messages

Every write action goes through an approval flow. The user sees what the agent wants to do, approves or rejects, and can undo after execution.

Bring your own API key. Self-hosted, your data stays with you.

Features

Chat

• Real-time messaging with Socket.io
• Threaded conversations
• Emoji reactions (24+ common emojis)
• @mentions with autocomplete
• File upload with inline image preview
• Rich text (bold, italic, code blocks, lists, links)
• Typing indicators and online presence
• Unread badges and mark-as-read

Tasks

• Kanban, List, Calendar, and Pipeline views — view mode driven by the project's attached skill
• Skill-driven project config: statuses, priority vocab, custom fields, task templates
• Drag-and-drop across columns
• Task detail panel with full editing
• Emoji reactions on tasks
• @mentions in task descriptions and comments with notification dispatch
• Activity diff view (old → new) on the activity log
• Comments + full activity log
• Labels, due dates, assignments, recurrence (daily/weekly/biweekly/monthly)
• Quick-create (press C)
• Project archive + soft-delete with 7-day recovery
• GitHub PR → Done on merge (parses PREFIX-N in PR title/body)

Dashboard

• Personalized greeting with morning pulse
• Due today / this week / overdue task sections
• In-progress task tracker
• Unread messages widget
• Recent activity feed
• Project progress cards

Global

• Cmd+K command palette (search + commands)
• Dark mode (default, with light mode support)
• Real-time presence (online/idle/offline)
• Notification system with mentions, tasks, agent alerts

Environment Variables

See .env.example for all configuration options with inline documentation. Three variables are required for first boot:

• POSTGRES_PASSWORD — Database password (openssl rand -hex 32)
• JWT_SECRET — Secret for JWT signing (openssl rand -hex 32)
• JWT_REFRESH_SECRET — Secret for refresh tokens (openssl rand -hex 32)

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is optional — the app boots without it and AI features stay disabled until a key is configured (via env or per-org in Settings → AI).

Full reference: docs/self-hosting.md#environment-variables-reference

License

Business Source License 1.1 (BSL-1.1)

• Use, copy, modify, and distribute for any purpose
• Cannot offer as a hosted/managed service to third parties
• Attribution required in forks and derivative works
• Converts to Apache License 2.0 after 4 years from each release

See LICENSE for full terms.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup and guidelines.