OpenViking is an open-source context database from Volcengine: it keeps memories, documents and skills as files, and its coding plugins capture each session and search it before every prompt. Harbor learns from where the team decides, in Slack threads, PR reviews and docs, and serves the rules that apply. OpenViking runs on more agents and you can host it yourself. Harbor has the gate you set, served and cited counts on every rule, and guardrails.
Setup is self-serve and takes two minutes, with no call required. Every line about OpenViking is from its own pages, read on 30 October 2026.
Three things Harbor does for the team behind the agents, each beside what OpenViking's own pages say about the same job.
Manual, Hybrid or Auto. Whatever you pick, a contradiction waits for a person.
In OpenVikingExtraction is automatic, and the Claude Code plugin documents no review step. Memories are private: to share one, its owner publishes a copy, and access rules decide who can read it.
Every rule shows how often it was served and how often an answer cited it.
In OpenVikingIn Claude Code, a card under each answer lists the OpenViking sources it drew on, and a status command shows recall counts.
Block rules refuse it before it runs, in Claude Code, Cursor, Codex and Copilot.
In OpenVikingNot part of the product.
| Harbor | OpenViking | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A company brain for a team's coding agents. It learns the rules your team decides and serves the ones that apply to each session. | A context database for AI agents. It keeps memories, documents and skills as files under viking:// paths, plus plugins that add memory to coding agents. |
| Where the knowledge comes from | Slack, GitHub, GitLab, Notion, Confluence, Jira, Linear, Google Drive and Granola, plus what agent sessions record. | What happens in agent sessions: its coding plugins capture every turn, tool output included, and extract memories as Markdown when the session is committed. You can also add documents. |
| Who decides what gets in | You set the gate. Manual holds everything for a person, Hybrid adds routine rules and holds the important ones, Auto adds everything else. A contradiction always waits for a person. | Extraction is automatic, and the Claude Code plugin documents no review step. Memories are private: to share one, its owner publishes a copy, and access rules decide who can read it. |
| How it reaches the agent | Hooks add the rules that apply to the session before the agent writes a line. The same rules are on an MCP server, the CLI and /harbor in Slack. | In Claude Code, hooks add your profile and memory index when a session starts and search for relevant memories before every prompt. Agents can also use its MCP server, the ov CLI, SDKs or HTTP. |
| When a decision changes | When a push deletes the file a rule is about, the rule is retired, or flagged if other repos still use it. A newer decision that contradicts a rule waits for a person. | Each repo keeps one memory across clones and worktrees. Duplicates merge when you run its consolidation command, which updates one memory and deletes the others. |
| Seeing what was used | Every rule shows how often it was served and how often an answer cited it. | In Claude Code, a card under each answer lists the OpenViking sources it drew on, and a status command shows recall counts. |
| Stopping a risky command | Block rules refuse a command before it runs, in Claude Code, Cursor, Codex and GitHub Copilot, and hand the agent something to run instead. | Not part of the product. |
| Agents | Claude Code, Cursor, Codex and GitHub Copilot (the CLI and VS Code). | Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and TRAE through hooks and MCP, plus OpenCode, OpenClaw, Hermes and any MCP client. |
| Open source and hosting | The CLI, harborloop, is MIT licensed on npm. The service is hosted. | Open source under AGPLv3 and self-hosted. Volcengine also runs it as a hosted service, and sells a self-managed commercial edition. |
| Price | Setup is self-serve and takes two minutes, with no call required. Free costs nothing for your whole team on one source, Pro is $24 per person a month billed yearly or $30 monthly, and Premium is $36, or $45 monthly. | Self-hosted is free. Volcengine's hosted service is free for the first 50 files, then has Personal and Enterprise plans. |
| Best for | Engineering teams who want every coding session to start with what the team decided. | Developers who want a self-hosted context store their agents fill and search on their own. |
OpenViking's side comes from its own pages, read on 30 October 2026: openviking.ai · OpenViking on GitHub · OpenViking in Claude Code · OpenViking sharing · OpenViking memory consolidation · OpenViking Service. Out of date? Tell us.
Both put memory in front of coding agents, so most teams would pick one. The split is whether each engineer's agents recall their own sessions, or every agent starts from what the team decided.
Yes, in private beta. Leave your email and we send your invite link. Create your workspace, run npx harborloop init, and setup takes two minutes, with no call. OpenViking can be signed up for today too.
The CLI, harborloop, is MIT licensed on npm. The service is hosted. OpenViking: Open source under AGPLv3 and self-hosted. Volcengine also runs it as a hosted service, and sells a self-managed commercial edition.
From OpenViking's own public pages, read on 30 October 2026, which are listed under the table. Products move, so if a line is out of date, tell us and we will fix it.
Nothing to migrate and nothing to write. Every agent starts with what your team settles, and two weeks in you see which rules they cite.
npx harborloop initSetup takes about 2 minutes once you're in. Free for your whole team, no card, no call.
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