Its repository describes a Rust kernel of about 45,000 lines, with desktop and terminal clients, projects, agents, tasks, applications, and execution drivers.
Projects have their own context and permissions. Agents are defined by a model, role, and permitted access; the project says the underlying definition is two JSON files. Drivers can target a folder, git worktree, browser, desktop, container, or remote machine. The macOS client bundles a managed Codex distribution, and sign-in uses a ChatGPT account.
The documented local setup requires macOS 14 or later, Node 24, stable Rust, and a ChatGPT account. The built app is ad-hoc signed rather than notarized, so Gatekeeper may warn. The repository says its policy layer can allow agents to revise goals, triggers, tools, workers, context, and execution environments across runs.
The source does not establish that these changes produce self-improvement or useful autonomy. It explicitly says current models do not take initiative on their own and that, for ordinary coding tasks, Octopus offers nothing that Codex CLI does not already provide.