balda

Self-hosted engineering agent for team chat

Balda is a self-hosted engineering agent that lives in your team chat and works inside your project.

You can give it a task in chat, open a focused topic for a piece of work, run a longer goal loop, or wire external events into the same workflow. Balda keeps context, uses your configured tools, and returns something reviewable: a summary, changed files, validation output, a commit, or a concrete next step.

What Balda is good for

• chat-native engineering help in Telegram, Zulip, or Slack
• focused task threads instead of one shared bot conversation
• long-running goal execution with progress updates and final results
• wedge style operation: put the agent in the middle of your team workflow so chat, tools, schedules, and external events all feed the same execution path
• self-hosted deployment close to your repo, config, and credentials

Quickstart

You need:

• one chat surface: Telegram, Zulip, or Slack
• one supported provider CLI installed on the host or in Docker: codex, opencode, copilot, gemini, or claude
• Node.js/npm, unless you run the Docker Compose path

Install:

npm install -g -y @normahq/balda

Initialize in your project:

balda init

Start:

balda start

balda init creates .config/balda/config.yaml, initializes .config/balda/state.db, detects available provider CLIs, and prints the next step for your selected chat provider.

First run

For Telegram, authenticate the owner with the command printed by balda init:

/start owner=<owner_token>

Then send a normal direct message to the bot, or open an isolated topic:

/topic release

From there you can:

• ask for ordinary help in chat
• start a goal loop with /goalkeeper <objective>
• stop the current turn with /cancel
• reset the current session with /reset

Main workflows

1. Ordinary chat work

Send a message in the session where you want work to happen. Balda keeps that conversation as the execution context.

2. Focused topic work

Use /topic <name> to create a separate session for a task, incident, release, or stream of work.

3. Goal-driven execution

Use /goalkeeper <objective> when you want Balda to keep working until there is a result to review.

Balda will:

• work in repeated passes
• post progress updates
• ask follow-up questions when critical input is missing
• return a terminal result with outcome details

See docs/goal-workflow.md for the detailed goal contract.

4. Wedge mode

Balda can act as a wedge between team chat and the rest of your engineering system:

• chat messages start work
• scheduled jobs wake work up
• inbound webhooks turn external events into session work
• the same session can continue through follow-up questions and delayed work

This is useful when you want one operational path for human requests, automation, and agent execution instead of separate bots and scripts.

Supported chat providers

• Telegram
• Zulip
• Slack

Balda maps each conversation scope to its own session:

• Telegram direct chat or topic
• Zulip stream + topic
• Slack thread

Docker Compose

Balda ships a root Dockerfile and compose.yaml for local Docker Compose deployment.

The current directory is mounted as /workspace, so Balda sees your checkout, config, git metadata, and local state.

docker compose build balda
docker compose run --rm balda init
docker compose up -d balda

Polling mode is the default, so Telegram does not require publishing a port. Webhook deployment details live in docs/balda.md.

Published container image

Balda publishes a release image at ghcr.io/baldaworks/balda:latest.

That image contains the balda binary only. It does not bundle provider CLIs. Use it as a source stage in your own image and add the provider runtime you want.

Example with Codex:

FROM node:24-bookworm-slim AS cli-builder
RUN npm install -g @openai/codex

FROM ghcr.io/baldaworks/balda:latest AS balda

FROM node:24-bookworm-slim
RUN apt-get update \
 && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
      ca-certificates \
      git \
      openssh-client \
      ripgrep \
 && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

COPY --from=cli-builder /usr/local/lib/node_modules /usr/local/lib/node_modules
COPY --from=cli-builder /usr/local/bin/codex /usr/local/bin/codex
COPY --from=balda /usr/local/bin/balda /usr/local/bin/balda

WORKDIR /workspace
ENTRYPOINT ["balda"]

Core commands

• /start owner=<owner_token> — owner bootstrap in direct messages
• /start invite=<invite_token> — collaborator onboarding
• /topic <name> — open a focused session
• /goalkeeper <objective> — run a longer goal loop
• /goalkeeper clear — stop active goal work in the current session
• /cancel — stop the current turn
• /reset or /restart — clear the current session and start fresh
• /locator — show the current session locator for scheduler/webhook routing

Full command behavior is documented in docs/balda.md.

Configuration

Balda loads .config/balda/config.yaml and then applies BALDA_* environment overrides. If a local .env exists, Balda loads it before resolving config.

Minimal shape:

runtime:
  providers:
    codex:
      type: codex_acp
  mcp_servers: {}

balda:
  provider: codex
  telegram:
    token: ""

Common settings:

• balda.provider — which configured provider runtime to use
• balda.telegram.token — Telegram bot token
• balda.zulip.* — Zulip outgoing webhook bot credentials and receiver config
• balda.slack.* — Slack bot token, signing secret, and HTTP receiver config
• balda.webhooks.* — optional inbound webhook routes
• balda.scheduler.jobs — recurring scheduled jobs
• balda.workspace.* — workspace/worktree behavior for goal execution
• balda.permissions.mode — agent permission policy: allow_all, ask, or deny_all
• balda.permissions.timeout — maximum wait for an interactive permission decision (default 2m)
• balda.mcp_servers — MCP servers injected into Balda-started sessions

allow_all preserves historical behavior and should be used only where every agent tool call is trusted. Production chat deployments should normally set BALDA_PERMISSIONS_MODE=ask; unsupported channels, missing requester context, cancellation, and timeout fail closed.

For complete configuration, examples, and provider-specific details, see docs/balda.md.

Troubleshooting

• telegram token is required — run balda init or set BALDA_TELEGRAM_TOKEN
• no supported agent CLI detected — install or expose one of codex, opencode, copilot, gemini, or claude
• balda.provider is required — rerun balda init or set a configured provider id manually
• webhook or Slack/Zulip startup issues — verify the matching balda.* integration settings in config
• workspace import/export issues — check balda.workspace.mode, balda.workspace.base_branch, and the git checkout Balda is running in

Docs

• Product and operator docs: docs/balda.md
• Goal workflow: docs/goal-workflow.md
• Architecture map: docs/architecture/index.md
• Telegram formatting: docs/telegram-formatting.md
• Zulip webhook setup: docs/zulip-webhook.md
• Slack setup: docs/slack.md
• Contributing: CONTRIBUTING.md

Release

• GitHub Releases: https://github.com/baldaworks/balda/releases
• npm package: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@normahq/balda