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Marowa Labs
Marowa Labs

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Building WorkContext: An Open-Source, AI-Powered Workspace (Looking for Contributors!)

Hey DEV Community! 👋

I'm Craig, founder at Marowa Labs. Over the past few months, I've been building WorkContext — an open-source productivity workspace designed to eliminate tool sprawl by bringing writing, tasks, real-time collaboration, and grounded AI assistance under one roof.

💡 Why WorkContext?

Most workspace AI tools trap you in proprietary ecosystems or charge heavy subscription markups. WorkContext takes a different approach:

  • Bring Your Own Key (BYOK): Connect your Google AI Studio, OpenAI, Anthropic, or OpenRouter keys directly. You pay AI providers at cost with zero vendor lock-in.
  • Context-Aware AI: The assistant isn't just a generic chatbot; it reads your active documents, tasks, and history to give grounded answers.
  • Real-Time Collaboration: Live multi-user editing with presence cursors and comments, powered by Yjs & CRDTs (Hocuspocus).
  • Smart Task Extraction: Highlight any text inside your docs to turn it into actionable tasks and deadlines instantly.

🛠️ Tech Stack

  • Frontend: Next.js 16 (App Router), React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, TipTap Editor, Radix UI
  • Backend: Node.js, Express 5, TypeScript, Prisma 7
  • Database & Auth: PostgreSQL 17 + pgvector, Supabase Auth
  • Real-time Engine: Hocuspocus + Yjs (CRDT)

🤝 Looking for Contributors!

We're making a strong push to welcome open-source contributors! Whether you're looking to practice TypeScript, test Next.js 16, or dive into real-time CRDT architectures, there's a place for you.

We already have beginner-friendly tasks set up:

  • 🏷️ Look for the good first issue tag on our GitHub Issues tab.
  • Tasks include adding unit tests, UI empty states, and expanding .env documentation.

🔗 Links

I’d love to hear your feedback on the architecture, UX, or feature ideas. Star the repository if you find it interesting! ⭐

Top comments (1)

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alexshev profile image
Alex Shev

The interesting part of an AI workspace is not just collecting context, but deciding what context deserves to persist. I would look for workflows around source links, stale context cleanup, and handoff between sessions. That is where these tools become operational.