Introduction

OpenIslands is a local-first compiler and runtime for agent-maintained data apps. An app is a typed manifest of reusable visual islands bound to typed data contracts built from files you own. You edit the manifest; you never write rendering code. The point is that an agent can maintain a dashboard for months without it rotting.

• Declarative. A dashboard is a JSON manifest of islands bound to datasets.
• Typed and safe. Every binding is checked against your live data. A missing field fails the build and names the island, so a dashboard can't silently break.
• Local-first. Your files are the source of truth. The runtime queries them live, so there are no snapshots to drift out of date.

The headline use is an agent maintaining the dashboard for you over the MCP server: it reads the manifest and your data, proposes a full-manifest edit, sees the diff, applies it, and rolls back if it was wrong. Every change is validated and snapshotted, so the agent can't hand-edit your files, ship a broken binding, or make a change you can't undo.

Start here

• Getting Started: point an agent at a project and let it build the dashboard. The CLI path is here too.
• MCP Server: the safe edit loop the agent runs.
• The Manifest: how an app is described.
• Data Contracts: how islands bind to data.
• Islands: the visual building blocks, with live previews.