CONCEPT · ARCHITECTURE
Build your tools once. Reach them every way you need.
A workbench is the tools your team builds for a job, written once in a repo. Run it on your laptop with fai run, or let OpenX host it in your tenant over MCP, API and web interfaces.
build once: reach it over MCP, API or web
WHAT IT IS
One domain of work, self-contained.
A workbench is declared in one repo: the tools it offers, the modes it's reached through, and, if it needs them, vaults for anything it needs to keep. Declare a tool once and every mode serves it, so MCP for AI, an API for code and a web interface are one definition, not three builds.
Run it on your laptop with fai run and its vaults carry over from run to run (fAI is an example of this). Host it in OpenX and it can be wired to your other workbenches at deploy. Hosted vaults that persist are coming soon.
Skill
Tells an agent how to do something.
MCP server
One way for AI to reach a tool. It speaks MCP and nothing else.
Workbench
Tools written once and reached every way you need: MCP, an API, a web interface. It runs on your laptop or in your OpenX tenant, and builds on your other workbenches.
BUILD YOUR OWN
Yours to make, yours to keep.
Your own, custom
Build a workbench for your purpose: your incident response, your support triage, your release process, your SCADA monitoring, your compliance reporting.
Hostable
OpenX hosts it in your tenant over MCP, API and web, ready for every AI and app your team runs.
Portable
Yours, and it travels: fire us, keep running.
HOST IT
One command to bring a workbench to any AI.
Run a workbench in its MCP mode and any AI tool can connect: Claude Code, Codex, whatever you run. The same command runs it on your laptop and in your OpenX tenant, and fai mcp install puts a hosted workbench in every coding agent you use.
THE PRODUCT
fAI is a workbench, and the runtime for yours.
fAI is your session workbench: it captures across the AI tools you already use and briefs them back, so every session starts where the last one left off. It is also the runtime every workbench runs on: fai run is the same command on your laptop and in your OpenX tenant.
WHERE IT FITS
The unit everything else composes.
Compose them in a workshop
Workbenches snap together into a shared space your team builds in. The Workshop →
The architecture underneath
Why composition is safe: every workbench is a holon. Holonic →
Build & host your own
Guides for building a workbench and hosting it for your team. Docs →