🐧 Bates — Your Personal AI Assistant for Windows

One-click installer that turns a Windows PC into an autonomous AI executive assistant.

Built on OpenClaw · Open Source · Apache 2.0

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What Bates Does

Bates runs 24/7 on your Windows PC and handles your operational workflow autonomously:

• Email — Monitors multiple inboxes, triages messages, drafts replies for your approval
• Calendar — Manages scheduling across personal and business accounts, resolves conflicts
• Voice Calls — Makes and receives phone calls using a clone of your voice (ElevenLabs + Twilio)
• Proactive Briefings — Morning summaries, real-time alerts, and check-ins via Telegram
• Document Search — Indexes your emails and files locally with semantic search (ChromaDB + Ollama)
• Task Management — Tracks tasks in Microsoft Planner and To Do, flags overdue items
• Cost Intelligence — Tracks every API call and token, daily cost reports, spending alerts
• Code Reviews — Monitors repos, reviews pull requests, runs overnight code reviews via Claude Code
• Document Drafting — Generates presentations, reports, and spreadsheets, saves to OneDrive
• Autonomous Tasks — Overnight code reviews, health checks, system maintenance. Runs while you sleep.

All data stays on your machine. No cloud dependency beyond the AI model API.

What's Running Right Now

This is not a concept. Bates runs daily in production:

Metric	Value
Cron jobs	17 scheduled tasks
MCP servers	6 (Microsoft 365, GitHub, more)
Email inboxes	4 monitored continuously
Document index	68,000+ documents
Embeddings	ChromaDB + Ollama (nomic-embed-text)
Voice	ElevenLabs clone + Twilio
Channels	Telegram, MS Teams, Voice, Web Dashboard
Hardware	Lenovo ThinkCentre M70q Gen 5 (1L, $500)
Extra API cost	$0 — uses existing Claude/ChatGPT subscriptions via OAuth

The Team: 10 Sub-Agents

Agent	Variant	Role
Sky	Smart Email	Monitors 4 inboxes, triages, drafts replies
Ember	Calendar Management	Scheduling across personal and business accounts
Dark	Voice Calls	Phone calls with cloned voice via ElevenLabs + Twilio
Aqua	Local Search	68K docs indexed locally with ChromaDB and Ollama
Bolt	Proactive Briefings	Morning summaries, real-time alerts via Telegram
Core	Autonomous Tasks	Overnight code reviews, cost tracking, health checks
Nova	GitHub & Code	Monitors repos, reviews PRs, tracks issues
Sage	Task Management	Microsoft Planner and To Do, flags overdue items
Frost	Cost Intelligence	Tracks every API call and token, daily cost reports
Pixel	Document Drafting	Generates presentations, reports, spreadsheets

Hardware Requirements

Minimum:

• Windows 10/11 Pro (WSL2 support required)
• 8GB RAM
• 256GB SSD
• Any modern Intel or AMD CPU

Recommended:

• 16GB RAM
• 512GB+ SSD
• Mini PC form factor (runs 24/7, low power draw)

Tested on: Lenovo ThinkCentre M70q Gen 5 — Intel Core i5-14400T, 8GB DDR5, 1L form factor. A $500 box smaller than a paperback book.

Quick Start

# Download and run the installer (Windows PowerShell as Administrator)
irm https://getbates.ai/install.ps1 | iex

The installer handles everything:

1. Enables WSL2 and installs Ubuntu
2. Installs Node.js, Docker, Ollama, ChromaDB
3. Installs OpenClaw and configures MCP servers
4. Sets up systemd services and cron jobs
5. Configures Telegram, Teams, and voice channels
6. Builds local search index

Time: ~45 minutes on a fresh Windows machine.

Manual steps required: Microsoft Entra app registration (for Office 365 access) and Telegram bot creation. The installer guides you through both with screenshots.

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                 Windows 11 Pro               │
│  ┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐ │
│  │              WSL2 (Ubuntu)              │ │
│  │                                         │ │
│  │  ┌──────────┐  ┌────────────────────┐   │ │
│  │  │ OpenClaw │  │   MCP Servers (6)  │   │ │
│  │  │ Gateway  │  │  M365 · GitHub     │   │ │
│  │  │          │  │  Twilio · Search   │   │ │
│  │  └────┬─────┘  └────────────────────┘   │ │
│  │       │                                  │ │
│  │  ┌────┴─────┐  ┌──────────┐ ┌────────┐  │ │
│  │  │  Agents  │  │ ChromaDB │ │ Ollama │  │ │
│  │  │ Sonnet   │  │ 68K docs │ │ embed  │  │ │
│  │  │ Haiku    │  └──────────┘ └────────┘  │ │
│  │  │ DeepSeek │                           │ │
│  │  └──────────┘                           │ │
│  └─────────────────────────────────────────┘ │
│         ▲            ▲           ▲           │
│    Telegram      MS Teams     Voice          │
│    (proactive)   (workplace)  (Twilio)       │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Integrations

Service	Access	Purpose
Microsoft 365	OAuth (4 app registrations)	Email, Calendar, Planner, OneDrive, Teams
GitHub	Personal Access Token	Repository monitoring, PR reviews, issue tracking
Telegram	Bot API	Primary communication channel, proactive briefings
Twilio	Voice API	Inbound/outbound voice calls with cloned voice
ElevenLabs	API	Voice cloning and text-to-speech
Ollama	Local	Embedding generation (nomic-embed-text)
ChromaDB	Local	Vector search over documents and emails
Brave Search	API	Web search capability
Perplexity	API	Research and deep search

Security

• All data stored locally on your machine
• Email restricted: Bates can only send to pre-approved addresses (Exchange transport rule)
• OAuth scopes follow least-privilege principle
• Read-only access for monitoring; write access only for the assistant's own mailbox
• No data sent to third parties beyond the AI model API calls
• Full audit trail of all actions

Personality System

Bates ships with configurable personality presets:

• Formal British — Precise, measured, British spelling. "Good morning, sir."
• Professional — Direct, clear, American English. No emoji.
• Friendly — Warm, casual, occasional emoji. Celebrates wins.
• Minimal — Facts only. Bullet points. No filler.

Custom personalities supported via brand.yaml configuration.

Project Status

🟡 Pre-release — Running in production daily. Installer in final packaging.

Roadmap

• Core assistant functionality (email, calendar, voice, search)
• Multi-agent architecture with 10 specialized sub-agents
• Local semantic search (ChromaDB + Ollama)
• Voice calls with cloned voice (Twilio + ElevenLabs)
• Proactive briefings and check-ins
• Cost tracking and health monitoring
• WSL2 installer scripts
• Inno Setup Windows executable (.exe)
• Screenshot-annotated installation guide
• Video walkthrough
• One-line PowerShell installer
• Community skill marketplace

Contributing

Bates is open source under Apache 2.0. Contributions welcome:

• Windows testing — Different hardware, Windows versions, edge cases
• MCP server integrations — Google Workspace, Notion, Slack
• Skills — New automation workflows
• Documentation — Guides, translations, video tutorials
• Community — Local meetups, ambassador program

Community

• 🌐 getbates.ai — Website
• 💬 Discord — Community chat
• 🐦 Twitter/X — Updates
• 📧 Newsletter — Launch updates

FAQ

Does Bates require an API key? No. Bates uses OAuth to authenticate with your existing Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini subscription. No separate API costs.

Can I run it on an old PC? Yes. Any Windows 10/11 Pro machine with 8GB RAM and WSL2 support works.

Is my data safe? Everything runs locally. Your emails, documents, and conversations never leave your machine except for AI model API calls.

Why Windows? Most people have a Windows PC. OpenClaw's community runs primarily on macOS and Linux. Bates fills the Windows gap.

Credits

Built on OpenClaw by Peter Steinberger. The penguin stands on the lobster's shoulders. 🐧🦞

License

Apache 2.0 — See LICENSE for details.

Bates-original code is Apache 2.0. OpenClaw is MIT licensed. See THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md.

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Built by Robert Koller — AI infrastructure builder, founder of SynapseLayer and fDesk.