You'll need the following accounts:

Required:

• OpenRouter - AI model provider
• OpenAI - Content moderation
• E2B - Sandbox environment for secure code execution in agent mode
• Convex - Database and backend
• WorkOS - Authentication and user management
• Trigger.dev - Required durable runtime for agent tasks

Optional:

• Amazon S3 - File storage (alternative to Convex storage)
• Perplexity - Web search functionality
• Jina AI - Web URL content retrieval
• Redis - Stream resumption
• Upstash Redis - Rate limiting
• PostHog - Analytics
• Stripe - Payment processing

git clone https://github.com/hackerai-tech/hackerai.git

cd hackerai

pnpm install

pnpm run setup

This runs both Next.js and Convex dev servers:

pnpm run dev

Or run them separately in two terminals:

pnpm run dev:next
pnpm run dev:convex

Agent mode runs the agent loop on a Trigger.dev task. To use the agent locally:

1. Create a project at https://cloud.trigger.dev and copy your dev secret key (tr_dev_…) into .env.local as TRIGGER_SECRET_KEY.

2. In the Trigger.dev dashboard → your project → Environment Variables, add the env vars the task needs to run (these live on the worker, not on Vercel): NEXT_PUBLIC_CONVEX_URL, CONVEX_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY, OPENROUTER_API_KEY, OPENAI_API_KEY, E2B_API_KEY, plus any keys you use (PERPLEXITY_API_KEY, JINA_API_KEY, S3, etc.).

3. Start the worker in a third terminal:

   npx trigger.dev@latest dev