Our take
Newless than six months old and changing fast- Activity
- 84
- Community
- 86
- Issues
- 68
- Pull requests
- 47
+247 stars in the last 29 days
- Releases more often than 84% of the projects we track
- Merges more pull requests than 79% of the projects we track
- More contributors than 78% of the projects we track
- Slower to merge pull requests than 83% of the projects we track
Maka is a promising, rapidly changing agent workspace with an active contributor base, but its early incubation stage and evolving capabilities call for deliberate evaluation before production adoption.
Good fit if
- You want agent runs to have a durable, inspectable event record and value recovery from that record.
- You can supply and configure your own model connection and want desktop, terminal, or evaluation workflows on a shared runtime.
- You are comfortable testing an incubating project that is receiving frequent code changes and releases.
Look elsewhere if
- You need a mature, stable product with settled data formats and commands.
- You require Windows or Linux support beyond preview status.
- You need a bundled model account or do not want to manage local credentials and model configuration.
All health signals
| Last commit | 2026-10-19 (today) |
|---|---|
| Commits, last 90 days | 100+ |
| Releases, last 12 months | 42 (latest v0.2.1-dev.91.20261018, 2026-10-18, pre-release) |
| Contributors | 100+ (top contributor: 36% of commits) |
| Issues closed, last 90 days | 13+ (typically closed in 2 days) |
| Pull requests merged, last 90 days | 63 (typically merged in 3 days) |
| Project age | 5 months |
Checked on 2026-10-19 with the GitHub API.
Project history
Daily GitHub snapshots since Oct 7, 2026. History covers stars and forks; health signals are not tracked historically.
Stars
5,938Forks
575Change since Nov 4, 2026: +5 stars·+2 forks
Overview
Apache Maka is a high-performance agent workspace built around its append-only RuntimeEvent log. It records model messages, tool calls, permission decisions, and turn endings, so the interface, future prompts, and crash recovery can be reconstructed from the run history rather than relying on a transient conversation view. This is aimed at making agent work inspectable and recoverable while measuring task completion and cost.
Maka is a local-first workspace for people who want to bring their own cloud API, local model, or compatible gateway. It offers a desktop app on macOS, with Windows and Linux preview builds, plus TUI and CLI clients that use the same Runtime Host.
Key Features
- Records agent activity as append-only RuntimeEvents, including model messages, tool calls, permission decisions, and termination.
- Builds UI, prompts, and crash recovery from the event log, while allowing older tool output to leave the next prompt without deleting the record.
- Supports user-supplied model connections, including cloud APIs, local models, and compatible gateways.
- Provides desktop, TUI, and CLI entry points to a shared Runtime Host.
- Includes an evaluation system that runs experiments and publishes per-task results.
- Keeps workspace sessions, settings, and run records on the user's machine.
- Includes sandbox boundaries for tools that write files or run shell commands.
Use Cases
- Developers can run coding or research tasks through an agent and inspect the recorded tool calls and decisions afterward.
- Teams evaluating agent harnesses can compare task outcomes using the repository's experiment and evaluation tooling.
- Users who already have a model API or local model can connect it to a desktop agent workspace without relying on a bundled shared account.
- Terminal-focused users can run tasks or interact with the agent through the CLI and TUI rather than the desktop interface.
What you need
Detected in the repository
- Node.js ^22.19.0 || >=24.0.0 (from package.json)
- Automated checks on GitHub Actions
License in plain words
Apache-2.0permissive
- Commercial use: yes
- Modify and redistribute: yes
- You must keep: the license, the NOTICE file and a note of your changes
- Share your changes: no
- Includes an explicit patent grant from the contributors:
A summary, not legal advice: the LICENSE file is what applies.
Getting Started
Requirements include Node.js 22.19 or newer on the 22 line, or Node.js 24 or newer, plus npm and Git. To run the desktop development build:
git clone https://github.com/apache/maka.git
cd maka
npm ci
npm run dev
On first launch, configure a model connection in Settings. See the README for terminal usage, build options, and additional setup details.
Alternatives
- holaOS: holaOS centers agents alongside apps and integrations with shared local memory, rather than an append-only record of agent execution.
- craft-agents-oss: Craft Agents focuses on connecting services and files and organizing sessions, with a headless server and CLI for remote use.
| Project | Language | License | Stars | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| maka | TypeScript | Apache-2.0 | 5.8k | New |
| holaOS | TypeScript | – | 11.4k | Active |
| craft-agents-oss | TypeScript | Apache-2.0 | 7.2k | Active |
Considerations
Maka is explicitly under active development, and its README warns that data formats, CLI commands, and experimental capabilities may change. The repository is less than six months old and changing quickly, although recent activity includes frequent commits and releases, a broad contributor base, and relatively quick issue and pull request handling. The project is Apache-2.0 licensed and is still in Apache incubation, which is not the same as full ASF endorsement. API keys are stored in a local plaintext credential file readable by the OS account, so teams should review the documented security and privacy boundaries. Windows and Linux are preview platforms, and the README notes that older JSONL transcripts and Electron safeStorage credentials are not imported during upgrades.
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