What Agentic OS is
Agentic OS turns a Linux server into a machine that OpenAI-powered Agents operate for you. You give it a Task in English — “set up a Postgres instance and a backup cron”, “read these CSVs and build me a report” — and an Agent does the work with real shell commands, on a real machine, while you watch. Anything with lasting consequences stops and asks you first.
There are two ways to run it, and they differ in one way that matters more than any other.
Native install (recommended)
Section titled “Native install (recommended)”install.sh installs the daemon on the server itself. The machine the Agents work on is your
server: they read and write the real filesystem, install real packages with apt, and run real
services under systemd. That is the point of it, and it is also the risk of it — see
what the password protects before you install on a server
that holds anything you care about.
Docker Compose
Section titled “Docker Compose”The same product, confined to a container. Agents get a complete Ubuntu machine, but it is not your server: the filesystem they see is the container’s, and it goes away when the container does. Use it to try Agentic OS, or to keep Agents away from a host you are not willing to hand over.
Both shapes give you the same two front ends: a macOS-style Desktop in the browser, and the
aos command line over SSH. Every command is in the reference.