Introduction

Companion Intelligence is a self-hosted AI platform: software you download or hardware you own, running entirely on your machine. It is your private AI infrastructure, your personal cloud, and your Companion Memory in one stack.

Every service you might otherwise rent, Dropbox, Slack, Spotify, Google Drive, ChatGPT, is a subscription paid with money and data. Companion is the exit ramp. All your cloud apps under one roof; installs in minutes; the results are yours.

Companion Hub is the free software that installs and manages self-hosted apps through a web dashboard, desktop app, and CLI. It runs on most PCs (Linux, Windows, Mac) and on Companion Core hardware built for local inference.

This documentation covers the full ecosystem:

• Companion Hub: the local app runtime and dashboard
• CI Account: remote access, device pairing, and public access flows at hub.ci.computer 
• First-party apps: Companion Intelligence apps that work on Hub and with Companion Memory
• Companion apps: user-facing clients, wearables, and interfaces across devices
• Connecting your own agent: point an MCP client you already run at your Hub and Memory

Why Companion Hub?

• Ownership by default: run your apps, data, and AI on hardware you control
• Privacy by design: local-first architecture; no telemetry; no training on your data
• One dashboard: install apps, manage updates, check logs, and configure networking
• Integrated AI: local Ollama support, cloud fallback, and standardized inference settings for apps
• Managed remote access: Tailscale and Cloudflare Gateway without manual port-forwarding
• A bigger ecosystem: Hub is the foundation for your CI Account, Companion Memory, agents, and 250+ installable apps

How the platform fits together

Capture → CI Account / Gateway → Companion Memory ← Hub (app runtime) ← Companion App Store
                                  ↕
                           Clients / XR / Devices

In practical terms:

• Hub runs apps and local services on your machine
• CI Account (hub.ci.computer) is the optional remote control plane
• Companion App Store is where installable apps are published
• First-party, third-party, and companion apps are the user-facing tools built on top of that stack

Companion Hub itself runs on Docker. Each app is an isolated compose stack with automatic reverse proxy (Traefik), local hostnames, and optional remote exposure.

You can run Hub via the desktop app (macOS, Windows, Linux), companion-hub --detached on Linux servers without a display, or the bundled cihub CLI for scripting and lifecycle control.

Start here, then branch out

Your First Hour walks the whole path on one page: Docker → Ollama → Hub → your first app. If you’d rather take it piece by piece:

1. Install Hub on your machine
2. The Onboarding Wizard launches to set up AI, apps, and VPN
3. Pair with your CI Account for remote access (optional)
4. Install your first app from the Companion App Store