February 10, 2026
Row, row, row your graph
Show HN: Rowboat – AI coworker that turns your work into a knowledge graph (OSS)
Rowboat’s AI coworker remembers everything — fans cheer, skeptics fear chaos
TLDR: Rowboat is an open-source AI coworker that builds a long-term, local “memory” from your emails and notes and acts on it. The crowd is split between fans of a persistent work brain and skeptics worried about scope creep, contradictions, and whether existing tools like Graphiti or Logseq already solve it.
Hacker News lit up after the “Show HN” drop of Rowboat, an open‑source, on‑your‑computer AI coworker that turns your emails and meeting notes into a long‑lived “memory” you can actually see and edit. It stores everything as simple Markdown notes, builds a web of connections, and can even auto‑draft emails, prep meeting briefs, and spit out decks. The local‑first, no‑cloud pitch got nods, and the download is here.
The loudest applause? The idea of “work memory.” One commenter called it the missing piece for AI helpers, and fans loved that you can tweak the graph and keep it all private. But the skeptics marched in fast: How do you approve the background tasks? What happens when the memory grows too big or contradicts itself? And in classic HN fashion, the comparison game started—how is this different from Graphiti? Meanwhile, power users flexed: “I already do this with Logseq plus scripts,” basically asking if Rowboat is new magic or just prettier plumbing.
Amid the serious debate, the thread had wink‑and‑nudge humor—yes, the “row, row, row your graph” jokes practically wrote themselves. Whether Rowboat becomes the tidy assistant that finally remembers your life or just another eager intern that files everything in the wrong drawer… the crowd is split, and watching closely.
Key Points
- •Rowboat is an open-source, local-first AI coworker that builds a long-lived knowledge graph from user emails and meeting notes.
- •It stores context in an Obsidian-compatible vault of plain Markdown notes with backlinks, enabling transparent, editable memory.
- •Integrations include Gmail, Granola, and Fireflies, with optional voice notes via a Deepgram API key; downloads are available for Mac/Windows/Linux.
- •Rowboat supports background agents for routine tasks and allows users to control scheduling and write-backs to the local vault.
- •Users can bring their own models (local via Ollama or LM Studio, or hosted) and extend capabilities via MCP to connect tools like Exa, X, ElevenLabs, Slack, Linear/Jira, and GitHub.