Build your personal agent

Let's build a personal agent that remembers what we're working on. We'll give it a project brief, track todo's, next steps, and save completed tasks along the way. We'll build it in three steps:

Build a personal agent (this page)
Talk to it in Slack.
Deploy it to Railway so it stays available with your laptop closed.

Set up your project

You'll need uv and an OpenAI API key.

Create a project

mkdir personal-agent && cd personal-agent
uv init --bare --python 3.14

This creates a pyproject.toml for your project. On Windows, run these commands in PowerShell 7 or later.

Install dependencies

uv add "agno[os,sqlite]" openai

uv adds your dependencies to pyproject.toml, locks their versions in uv.lock, and creates the project's virtual environment automatically.

Set your API key

export OPENAI_API_KEY="your-openai-api-key"

Create your agent

Save this as personal_agent.py:

personal_agent.py

from agno.agent import Agent
from agno.db.sqlite import SqliteDb
from agno.fs import FileSystem
from agno.os import AgentOS

db = SqliteDb(db_file="personal_agent.db")
fs = FileSystem(db, namespace="personal-agent/{user_id}")

agent_instructions = """You are Pip, the user's personal agent.
Help them keep track of their projects, tasks, decisions, and useful notes
so they can pick up where they left off.

Be warm, direct, and practical. Use natural language and keep replies brief.
When the user asks for an update, lead with what needs their attention
and the next useful step. Acknowledge progress without making a big deal of it.
Adapt to how the user likes to work and communicate.

Keep project briefs, tasks, decisions, and useful notes in your filesystem.
Start with a simple structure, group related information together, and split
files by project or topic when that makes them easier to maintain.
Follow any organization the user requests.

Track task completion and due dates when provided. Record decisions with
their reasoning so the user can revisit them later. Keep the user's stated
commitments separate from your suggestions.

Read the relevant files before answering questions about saved information
or making changes. Create new files as needed. Preserve unrelated entries
when updating existing files. Ask when a missing detail matters; otherwise,
work with what you have.

Only say something is saved or updated after the file tool succeeds.
Confirm what changed in a sentence or two.
"""

agent = Agent(
    name="Pip",
    model="openai:gpt-5.6",
    db=db,
    tools=[fs.tools()],
    instructions=[agent_instructions, fs.instructions()],
    add_history_to_context=True,
    add_datetime_to_context=True,
)

agent_os = AgentOS(agents=[agent], db=db, tracing=True)
app = agent_os.get_app()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    agent_os.serve(app="personal_agent:app", reload=True)

The agent uses FileSystem tools to read and update its documents. Both those documents and conversation history are stored in personal_agent.db, a SQLite database in your project directory.

The {user_id} namespace gives each user their own files, using the user identity supplied to the run through AgentOS.

Run it with AgentOS

uv run personal_agent.py

AgentOS is now running at http://localhost:7777. Keep this terminal open. You can browse its API at localhost:7777/docs.

Connect the Control Plane

Open os.agno.com and sign in.
Click Connect Existing OS and select Local.
Enter http://localhost:7777 as the URL, name the connection Local AgentOS, and connect.
Click on Chat under Pip.

The Control Plane connects from your browser to the local service. Use it to chat with your agent, inspect it's sessions, traces, memory and knowledge.

Test it out

Send it a short project brief:

I'm updating our customer onboarding guide. The goal is to help new users
finish setup without asking support. Jen is reviewing the draft.

Save this project and two next steps: send Jen the draft by Thursday,
and test the setup steps with a new user by Friday.
Keep my updates short, with action items first.

Then record some progress and a decision:

I sent Jen the draft.
We decided to use a checklist instead of a video because it's easier
to keep up to date. Save that decision and the reasoning.

Start a new conversation:

Where did we leave the onboarding guide? What's next, and why did we
choose a checklist?

The agent should read its saved documents, identify the user test as the next step, and explain the checklist decision. Sending Jen the draft should remain complete.

Open Sessions to inspect the conversations, or Traces to see the model and filesystem tool calls behind a response.

This example stores all data on your machine. Complete data ownership.

Next: talk to it in Slack

Next, use your agent through Slack.