weave

weave is an open-source, self-hosted work database and Airtable alternative. People use the web UI and AI agents use the built-in MCP server, REST API or CLI, on the same tables.

It replaces Airtable, Fibery, Notion databases and ClickUp with connected tables, relations, workflows, formulas, rollups, kanban boards, forms and markdown documents on every row. One SQLite file. Zero dependencies. No build step. MIT.

For agents · Quickstart · Comparison · Agents & MCP · Self-hosting · FAQ

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For agents

weave stores structured work (tables, rows, relations, documents) in one SQLite file, and an agent drives it over MCP, REST or the CLI.

• Connect over MCP: node bin/weave.js mcp --data <file.db>, the same as weave mcp --data <file>. In Claude Code: claude mcp add weave -- node /path/to/weave/bin/weave.js mcp --data /path/to/workspace.db
• Or build from a file: weave build <spec.json> --dry-run, then again without --dry-run.
• Read AGENTS.md › Using weave first: the primer, every tool by job, plans with turn budgets, and common errors with their fixes.

What weave is

weave is a work database you run yourself. Spaces hold tables, tables hold rows (the API calls them entities), and rows link to each other through bidirectional relations, with lookups, rollups, formulas, workflow states, automations and any number of markdown documents on each row.

It replaces the SaaS your work already lives in: Airtable bases and grids, ClickUp tasks and boards, Fibery's connected databases with documents and automations, and Notion databases. It runs on your laptop or your own server, with no per-seat bill and no vendor holding the export button.

weave is built for people and AI agents as equals: everything the web UI can do, the REST API, the CLI and the built-in MCP server can do too, on the same engine and the same data file on your disk. A local install needs no account and sends no telemetry.

• One file per workspace: a workspace is one SQLite file next to your project, served by one Node process on a laptop or a small VPS behind your own TLS and login (see Self-hosting).
• weave cloud: the same code runs at https://weave.grunion.ai behind a sign-in. A new account starts at /start, which sets up a workspace, a template and an agent connection. weave backup --dest weave://<host>/<account> sends a self-hosted install's sealed nightly archive there (the cloud stores ciphertext only), and weave workspace migrate moves a workspace across.
• Zero dependencies: git clone and run, since storage is Node's built-in node:sqlite, and the only third-party code is vendored and pinned.
• Agent access: an MCP server any stdio client can mount (Claude Code, Codex CLI, Cursor, Gemini CLI), a scriptable CLI, row references such as Task#12 everywhere, and markdown documents addressable as plain URLs (/e/Task#12/doc.md, .html, .pdf).
• Undo: weave undo, POST /api/undo and the weave_undo MCP tool reverse any change to a row: edits, creates, deletes, links and comments.
• Versioned documents: every document field keeps its revisions (one per editing session), browsable and restorable from the page, weave doc-revisions / weave doc-restore, or the weave_doc_revisions / weave_doc_restore MCP tools.

Quickstart

Requires Node ≥ 22.16 (Node 24 LTS recommended). There is nothing to build and nothing to install from npm.

git clone https://github.com/grunion-ai/weave
cd weave
node bin/weave.js serve --port 4400 --data ./my-workspace.db

Or start it in a container from the same checkout:

docker compose up -d

Or run the image each release publishes to the GitHub Container Registry. Your workspaces, attachments and keystore stay in the weave-data volume at /data:

docker run -d --name weave -p 127.0.0.1:4400:4400 -v weave-data:/data ghcr.io/grunion-ai/weave:latest

Open http://127.0.0.1:4400 and press ⌘K to search everything. A self-documenting weave docs workspace is provisioned alongside your data at /w/weave/: handbook, wiki, the public issue tracker and roadmap, and a Quality space mirroring the test suite.

If weave replaces a SaaS seat for you, star the repo so other teams can find it.

Connect your agent

One config block, any stdio MCP client (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex CLI, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Windsurf, OpenCode):

{ "mcpServers": { "weave": { "command": "node",
  "args": ["/path/to/weave/bin/weave.js", "mcp", "--data", "/path/to/my-workspace.db"] } } }

Or add it to Claude Code in one line:

claude mcp add weave -- node /path/to/weave/bin/weave.js mcp --data /path/to/my-workspace.db

A hosted instance with an OpenID Connect sign-in provider takes one line too. The first call opens the provider's sign-in in your browser:

claude mcp add --scope user --transport http weave https://weave.example.com/mcp

For weave cloud at weave.grunion.ai, this repository is also a Claude Code plugin marketplace. In Claude Code:

/plugin install weave --marketplace grunion-ai/weave

Each workspace on an instance has its own endpoint, /w/<workspace>/mcp. Link your account to your provider sign-in first: run weave account link <account>, which prints a one-time invite, and open that invite in a browser. Any role connects, and tools/list names only the tools that role may call.

The server lists 17 tools by default: the 16 a workspace build uses, weave_build among them, and weave_call, which runs the other 48. weave mcp --tools all (or WEAVE_MCP_TOOLS=all) lists all 65. The 65 include the same undo the UI has, and weave_vocabulary, which returns the allowed values so an agent reads them instead of guessing. Full map: Agents: MCP, REST, and CLI.

Screenshots

Documents on every row	Relation map	Search across workspaces
Every entity carries markdown documents, addressable as .md, .html, and .pdf URLs.	The schema, drawn: each table with its row count, and relations labelled with cardinality. Automations appear on the same map.	⌘K across every workspace, backed by SQLite FTS5, with copyable permalinks.

Open any row and it docks beside its table, so the entity and the rows around it stay in view together.

Kanban board	Phone layout
A table view in board layout, one column per Status. Drag a card into another column to change its Status, with Undo.	The same table at 390 px: status and owner chips on every row, search and + at the bottom. + opens a New row sheet that stays open for the next row.

How weave compares

Against the SaaS it replaces

	weave	Airtable	ClickUp	Fibery
License	MIT, open source	Proprietary	Proprietary	Proprietary
Where the data lives	A .db file you own	Vendor cloud	Vendor cloud	Vendor cloud
Pricing	Free to self-host	Per seat, per month	Per seat, per month	Per seat, per month
Row / record caps	Your disk	Plan-tiered	Plan-tiered	Plan-tiered
Agent access	MCP server, REST and CLI, against a file you own	Set by the vendor	Set by the vendor	Set by the vendor
Runs offline	Yes	No	No	No
Telemetry	None	Vendor-defined	Vendor-defined	Vendor-defined

Against the open-source alternatives

The open-source options in this space are all worth a look, and several are far more mature than weave. They differ mainly in what they optimize for:

Project	License	Install shape	Optimized for
weave	MIT	One Node process, one file, no dependencies	Agent access, documents on every row, running from a git checkout
NocoDB	Sustainable Use License (since v0.301.0)	Docker + external DB	Putting a smart-spreadsheet UI on an existing MySQL/Postgres
Baserow	MIT (core; paid tiers separate)	Docker Compose + Postgres	A full Airtable-shaped product, cloud or self-hosted
Grist	Apache-2.0	Docker or Node	Spreadsheet-grade formulas and data analysis
Teable	AGPL-3.0 (core)	Docker + Postgres	Postgres-native scale with an Airtable UI

Licenses and packaging as of August 2026; check each project for current terms. Pick weave if you want connected tables plus markdown documents plus an MCP server, with no container, no database server, and no dependency tree, and one of the others if you need permissions narrower than a workspace role or a mature plugin ecosystem (see what weave is not).

What's inside

Area	Details
Data model	Spaces → tables → entities. Field types: text, number, rating (icons you click to fill, 0 to a max), date, date range, checkbox, toggle (a switch with two named states), url, email, select, multiselect, workflow states, attachments (files with small previews; one can be the row's cover picture), avatar (a row's face on its chip, card and header), bidirectional relations, lookups, rollups (count, sum, avg, median, min, max, range, stdev, distinct, filled, empty, join, computed over a relation or over a whole table from the space's own row, which is what the grid footer draws), formulas, and any number of markdown document fields per entity.
Statistics	weave stats <table> (also weave_stats and GET /api/tables/:ref/stats): every column summarised (five-number summary, stdev and a histogram for numbers, ranked distributions for chips, earliest/latest/span for dates), grouped with --by, narrowed with --where, cut to one column and its rollups with --field.
Views	Every table view takes a layout: table, list or board. Board draws kanban columns or a picture gallery with small, medium or large covers and adds swimlanes from a second group level; drag a card to another column or lane to change its field, with Undo. Pick two to four cards to Compare them side by side, or drop a picture on a card to set its cover. The View pane beside the table holds filters, sort (three keys), group (five levels, with subtotals) and saved views, and weave_query can name a saved view. Entity pages dock beside the table or open full page, and the relation map draws the schema with its automations. Inline editing everywhere.
Documents	Every doc is a native URL: .md, .mmd, .html, .pdf. Mermaid diagrams, raw HTML and math render in place; [[Table#12]] mentions resolve to links. Whole-entity export paginates one page per document. Math is KaTeX only ($…$ / $$…$$, vendored + offline); the other fence engines Vditor knows (graphviz, echarts, plantuml, mindmap, abc, flowchart) are deliberately not vendored, so those fences stay plain code blocks.
Automations	Triggers (created / field changed / state changed) → set field, append doc, add comment, outgoing webhook.
Search	Universal ⌘K across workspaces with copyable permalinks, backed by a SQLite FTS5 index.
Storage	One workspace = one .db file (WAL, row-level writes, crash-safe). Legacy JSON workspaces migrate automatically; exportJSON/importJSON remain the human-readable interchange. CLI, server, and MCP can run concurrently.
Forms	A form lets someone without write access add one row to one table, as themselves, from a page at /f/<id> that takes prefilled values from its URL. Build it in the form editor or with weave form create, update and config; submissions arrive through the page, weave form submit or weave_form_submit over MCP. Submitting needs an observer account unless the operator sets WEAVE_ANONYMOUS_FORMS=1. Prefill links (/t/<table>/new?Field=value) open a table's New row form with fields set.
Sharing	A share link (a wvs_ token) opens one row, table, space, saved view or the whole workspace at read, edit or manage access, public or for signed-in accounts only. Architects mint, renew and revoke links. Each lasts thirty days unless renewed, and none reaches the schema or anything outside its scope.
Templates	Forty starter templates in twelve categories at setup, searchable by the tool they resemble ("asana", "jira"). Use template copies a template space, such as the CRM or Money space in the docs workspace, into your workspace.
Phone	At 600 px and under, menus, pickers and the Group popover open as bottom sheets and touch targets are 44 px. Search and + float at the bottom, and the New row sheet stays open for the next row. Board columns snap at 85% of the screen width, and a 250 ms hold lifts a card.
Distribution	Every release publishes ghcr.io/grunion-ai/weave:<version> and :latest, plus an Official MCP Registry entry, io.github.grunion-ai/weave, that runs the image over stdio. The repository is also a Claude Code plugin marketplace for weave cloud.
History	Each row's Activity panel lists its events, field diffs and document revisions, with Restore. The audit log records the account behind each write; a signed-in caller cannot write under another name. PATCH /api/entities/:id with If-Match refuses a stale revision (412) and writes nothing; the grid sends it, so two people editing one cell in the browser cannot overwrite each other.
Interfaces	Web UI (vanilla JS, no build step) · REST API · CLI (bin/weave.js) · MCP server: weave mcp over stdio, or HTTP with OAuth 2.1 sign-in on an instance with a provider configured. 65 tools, 17 listed by default; tools/list names only the tools the caller's role may call.

Agents: MCP, REST, and CLI

Every interface drives the same engine and the same file. Nothing is UI-only.

MCP: point any MCP client at the stdio server. Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex CLI, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Windsurf and OpenCode all mount stdio servers, so one config block works in each of them:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "weave": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/weave/bin/weave.js", "mcp", "--data", "/path/to/my-workspace.db"]
    }
  }
}

It exposes the whole platform as 65 tools. tools/list names the core build set (weave_ontology, weave_schema, weave_query, weave_get_entity, weave_create_entity, weave_update_entity, weave_create_space, weave_create_table, weave_add_field, weave_update_field, weave_add_relation, weave_import_csv, weave_vocabulary, weave_workspace, weave_search, weave_build for spaces, tables, fields, relations and rows in one call) and weave_call, whose description lists every other tool (weave_set_doc, weave_link, weave_set_state, weave_update_table, weave_apply_schema, weave_views, weave_automations, weave_activity and the rest) in one line each; weave_call {name: "help", args: {tool}} returns a tool's full schema. Add --tools all to the mcp args, or set WEAVE_MCP_TOOLS=all, to list all 65 directly. An agent designs a schema, fills it, and configures how it reads (icons, option colors, column widths and order, hidden columns, saved views) without a human opening the UI.

Two things make that practical. weave_vocabulary returns every value a config key will accept and what the choice looks like on screen, so an agent picking a color or an icon is reading rather than guessing. And the meta-model means the schema is data: the rows of System/Spaces, System/Tables and System/Fields are the spaces, tables and fields, so an entity write on a registry row runs the same validation as the schema verb: a field's whole shape edits through its Definition, a table's column order through Field Order. The registry lives once, at the weave root (the default workspace): a Workspaces table holds one row per workspace the hub serves, every registry row carries a Workspace relation, and a row edit routes to the workspace that owns it.

REST and CLI cover the same ground:

# REST
curl -s localhost:4400/api/tables/Task/query -X POST -d '{"where":[["Status","=","Open"]]}'

# CLI
node bin/weave.js query Task --where '[["Status","=","Open"]]' --data ./my-workspace.db

# MCP (stdio)
node bin/weave.js mcp --data ./my-workspace.db

Entity refs accept UUIDs, #12, Table#12, or Space/Table#12, in the UI, in the API, in documents and in agent tool calls. See AGENTS.md for the full agent-facing map of the repo, including the one place the qualified form is not yet accepted.

Self-hosting

A hosted install is the local install plus a door. The container is the same on every target and the Handbook carries the guides (open Handbook → Guide on any instance, including the one you just started):

• Self-host weave: choose your door: the two authentication surfaces (an edge gate, an identity provider) and the rule: the surface is the operator's choice. The built-in passkey door, Door B, was removed after 0.4.52.
• Door A: an edge gate: Cloudflare Access, Tailscale, Caddy, oauth2-proxy, Authelia: one config block and one check each.
• Door C: sign in with a provider: one OpenID Connect provider (Clerk, Auth0, Keycloak, Authentik, Google). weave account link <name> mints a one-time invite link that opens an account to it; signing in creates none, and weave keeps one verified email per sign-in identity, nothing else. WEAVE_ORIGIN names the origin the provider sends people back to. Agents keep wv_ tokens.
• Deploy: Railway: project from GitHub, volume at /data, variables, custom domain, one replica.
• Deploy: Fly.io, Render, a VPS, Docker: one section each, same shape; the service unit lives here.
• Backup and restore: weave backup (one sealed tar of every workspace, attachments and keystore), weave restore, the nightly switch, retention.
• Environment reference: every variable, its default, and what breaks when it is wrong.

Quick start with Docker, using the Dockerfile and compose.yaml in the repo:

docker compose up -d        # http://127.0.0.1:4400, data in the weave-data volume

railway.json and fly.toml are the platform manifests for the same image. Whatever the target, put a door in front and run weave workspace require-auth before the port is reachable from anywhere but your own machine. The threat model behind that rule is in SECURITY.md.

What weave is not

Stated plainly, so you can rule it out fast:

• No field- or row-level permissions for accounts. Each account holds one of three roles in a workspace: an observer reads and comments, an editor writes rows, an architect also changes structure, accounts and keys. An architect can mint a share link that opens one row, table, space or saved view to whoever holds it, but no rule narrows an account's own role to one space, row or field.
• Auth is off until you turn it on. Agents carry wv_ tokens and people sign in through one OpenID Connect provider, but only after weave workspace require-auth. Until then, anyone who reaches the port can do everything an architect can.
• Not a different product in the cloud. weave cloud at https://weave.grunion.ai runs the code in this repository behind a sign-in. weave backup, weave restore and weave workspace migrate carry a workspace between your install and weave cloud.
• No plugin API. weave has no third-party app store inside it. The Claude Code plugin in Connect your agent installs weave's MCP connection into Claude Code and adds nothing to weave.
• Not battle-tested at scale. It is a young project backed by a test suite, not by years of production mileage across thousands of installs.

If those are dealbreakers, Baserow, NocoDB, and Grist are the mature open-source options in this space.

FAQ

Is weave a good open-source Airtable alternative? Yes, if you liked Airtable for linked records, rollups, formulas, views and forms; you also get markdown documents on every record and an MCP server. No, if you rely on permissions narrower than a workspace role or on Airtable's marketplace apps.

Is there a self-hosted Fibery alternative? Yes. weave implements Fibery's model (connected databases across spaces, documents attached to rows, automations and a relation graph) in a single file you own. See docs/PARITY.md for the feature-by-feature matrix.

Can AI agents use it? Yes, with the same reach as people. The MCP server exposes 65 tools: schema design, CRUD, documents, relations, workflow states, search, automations and CSV import and export. It lists 17 by default and runs the other 48 through weave_call. Agents build the schema as well as the rows.

Do I need Docker, Postgres, or npm install? No, no, and no. One git clone and a Node runtime. Storage is Node's built-in node:sqlite; the only third-party code (mermaid, Tabler, Vditor, KaTeX and the DejaVu Sans font) is vendored and pinned in the repo.

Where does my data actually live? In <workspace>.db, a plain SQLite file, plus a files/ directory for attachments. Open it with sqlite3, back it up with cp, commit it if you like. node bin/weave.js export dumps the whole thing as readable JSON.

Can multiple people use one instance? Yes. Give each person an account at a role (observer, editor or architect), run weave workspace require-auth, and let them sign in through your OpenID Connect provider. Every change lands in the audit log under the account that made it. For someone without an account, an architect mints a share link to one row, table, space, saved view or the whole workspace, at read, edit or manage access, valid for thirty days unless renewed. Account roles still cover the whole workspace: no rule narrows an account to one space, row or field.

Is there a hosted version? Yes: weave cloud at https://weave.grunion.ai runs this repository's code behind a sign-in, and a new account starts at /start, which sets up a workspace, a template and an agent connection. Agents sign in through the browser when they connect over MCP; in Claude Code, /plugin install weave --marketplace grunion-ai/weave adds the connection. To move from your own install, back up to weave cloud with weave backup --dest weave://<host>/<account> (the cloud stores ciphertext only), then run weave workspace migrate --from weave://<host>/<account> with the backup passphrase in WEAVE_BACKUP_PASSPHRASE.

How do I migrate off it? node bin/weave.js export --data <file> writes the entire workspace as JSON, csv dumps any table, and the .db is standard SQLite. There is no lock-in to escape.

Development

npm test

The test suite is mirrored as entities in the docs workspace (Quality space), and the roadmap and issue tracker live there too (/w/weave/), so weave tracks its own development. See CONTRIBUTING.md before opening a PR; README screenshots are regenerated with node scripts/screenshots.mjs.

Third-party (vendored, pinned)

• mermaid 11.4.1, MIT © Knut Sveidqvist & contributors
• @tabler/core 1.4.0, MIT © Paweł Kuna & The Tabler Authors
• Vditor 3.11.3 (pruned: only the assets weave loads), MIT © Vanessa219
• KaTeX 0.18.11 (js + css + woff2 fonts + mhchem), MIT © Khan Academy & contributors
• DejaVu Sans 2.37 (DejaVuSans.ttf, PDF export Unicode fallback), Bitstream Vera license © Bitstream, Inc.; DejaVu changes public domain; Arev glyphs © Tavmjong Bah (full text in public/vendor/fonts/DejaVuSans-LICENSE.txt)

Security

Authentication is off until an architect runs weave workspace require-auth on a workspace. Until then, anyone who reaches the port does everything an architect can in it. A local install binds 127.0.0.1, so it stays private to your machine. The container binds 0.0.0.0 for the platform's proxy, so before anyone else can reach a hosted install, put a door in front of it (see Self-hosting) and run require-auth. Every page and API route then refuses a caller without a wv_ token or a signed-in session.

Roles stop at the workspace. An observer reads and comments, an editor writes rows, and an architect changes structure, accounts and keys.

A document of kind html renders on the application's origin, so script an editor places in one runs for whoever opens it. We are reviewing that limitation. Until it changes, grant editor access the way you grant write access to a repository.

The threat model, the scope and private reporting are in SECURITY.md.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.