Show HN: Rowboat – AI coworker that turns your work into a knowledge graph (OSS)

Open-source AI coworker that turns work into a knowledge graph and acts on it

Rowboat connects to your email and meeting notes, builds a long-lived knowledge graph, and uses that context to help you get work done - privately, on your machine.

You can do things like:

• Build me a deck about our next quarter roadmap → generates a PDF using context from your knowledge graph
• Prep me for my meeting with Alex → pulls past decisions, open questions, and relevant threads into a crisp brief (or a voice note)
• Visualize, edit, and update your knowledge graph anytime (it’s just Markdown)
• Record voice memos that automatically capture and update key takeaways in the graph

Download latest for Mac/Windows/Linux: Download

Watch the full video

Download latest for Mac/Windows/Linux: Download

All release files: https://github.com/rowboatlabs/rowboat/releases/latest

To connect Google services (Gmail, Calendar, and Drive), follow Google setup.

To enable voice notes (optional), add a Deepgram API key in ~/.rowboat/config/deepgram.json:

Rowboat is a local-first AI coworker that can:

• Remember the important context you don’t want to re-explain (people, projects, decisions, commitments)
• Understand what’s relevant right now (before a meeting, while replying to an email, when writing a doc)
• Help you act by drafting, summarizing, planning, and producing real artifacts (briefs, emails, docs, PDF slides)

Under the hood, Rowboat maintains an Obsidian-compatible vault of plain Markdown notes with backlinks — a transparent “working memory” you can inspect and edit.

Rowboat builds memory from the work you already do, including:

• Gmail (email)
• Granola (meeting notes)
• Fireflies (meeting notes)

Most AI tools reconstruct context on demand by searching transcripts or documents.

Rowboat maintains long-lived knowledge instead:

• context accumulates over time
• relationships are explicit and inspectable
• notes are editable by you, not hidden inside a model
• everything lives on your machine as plain Markdown

The result is memory that compounds, rather than retrieval that starts cold every time.

• Meeting prep from prior decisions, threads, and open questions
• Email drafting grounded in history and commitments
• Docs & decks generated from your ongoing context (including PDF slides)
• Follow-ups: capture decisions, action items, and owners so nothing gets dropped
• On-your-machine help: create files, summarize into notes, and run workflows using local tools (with explicit, reviewable actions)

Rowboat can spin up background agents to do repeatable work automatically - so routine tasks happen without you having to ask every time.

Examples:

• Draft email replies in the background (grounded in your past context and commitments)
• Generate a daily voice note each morning (agenda, priorities, upcoming meetings)
• Create recurring project updates from the latest emails/notes
• Keep your knowledge graph up to date as new information comes in

You control what runs, when it runs, and what gets written back into your local Markdown vault.

Rowboat works with the model setup you prefer:

• Local models via Ollama or LM Studio
• Hosted models (bring your own API key/provider)
• Swap models anytime — your data stays in your local Markdown vault

Rowboat can connect to external tools and services via Model Context Protocol (MCP). That means you can plug in (for example) search, databases, CRMs, support tools, and automations - or your own internal tools.

Examples: Exa (web search), Twitter/X, ElevenLabs (voice), Slack, Linear/Jira, GitHub, and more.

• All data is stored locally as plain Markdown
• No proprietary formats or hosted lock-in
• You can inspect, edit, back up, or delete everything at any time

If you’re looking for Rowboat web Studio, start here.