Packaging and Gateway Product Modes¶

Open Cowork is one open-source product family with multiple deployable surfaces. The names below are the public names to use in docs, releases, support, and downstream builds.

The most important rule is unchanged: Open Cowork is a product layer on top of OpenCode. It should not become a second OpenCode runtime.

Source of truth for monorepo product partitions and short names (Gateway, Wiki, Channel Gateway): Product partitions ADR. Importing private product history into this public repo: Monorepo privacy ADR.

Product Names¶

Be precise in operator docs — never use unqualified “the gateway”:

• Channel Gateway (apps/channel-gateway): chat providers → Open Cowork Cloud through HTTP/SSE; never spawns OpenCode.
• Standalone Gateway (apps/standalone-gateway): private OpenCode runtime + Gateway Postgres for Gateway-only deployments.
• Gateway (products/gateway; package cowork-gateway): durable Initiatives/Issues/scheduler/Mission Control + MCP beside OpenCode. Optional; not default-on in public Desktop. Standalone release: .github/workflows/release-gateway.yml (gateway@v* tags).
• Wiki (products/wiki; CLI cowork-wiki / openwiki): standalone git-backed knowledge product. Distinct from in-app Knowledge (Knowledge vs Wiki ADR). Standalone release: .github/workflows/release-wiki.yml (wiki@v* tags).

Package and Image Names¶

The desktop/cloud release workflow publishes Desktop artifacts plus Cloud and Channel Gateway OCI images. Workspace packages are not automatically public npm packages. Gateway and Wiki publish as independent product artifacts when enabled (not on every Desktop tag). If a package is promoted to a public SDK, it needs semver, API stability docs, README examples, changelog entries, and package-level provenance.

Dual-publish freeze (JOE-915)¶

Private repos opencode-gateway and open-wiki are frozen as of 2026-07-18. Do not cut new feature releases from those remotes. Monorepo tags:

Archive procedure and README banners: Product repo freeze and archive.

Channel Gateway image dual-tag (JOE-902)¶

Preferred OCI repository name for the Cloud Channel Gateway is:

ghcr.io/<owner>/open-cowork-channel-gateway:<tag>

During the compatibility window, release CI also tags the same digest as:

ghcr.io/<owner>/open-cowork-gateway:<tag>

Helm chart defaults (helm/open-cowork-gateway/values.yaml) use the preferred open-cowork-channel-gateway repository. Operators still on the old name can set image.repository to …/open-cowork-gateway or continue consuming the legacy evidence file open-cowork-gateway.image.json (alias metadata).

Compose service names remain open-cowork-gateway for local stacks; image tags open-cowork-gateway:local and open-cowork-channel-gateway:local are both produced in CI.

Do not use either image name for the durable Gateway product (cowork-gateway / products/gateway).

Product Modes¶

The same product may expose multiple modes, but one thread has exactly one execution authority. Local threads stay local. Cloud threads sync through Cloud. Gateway messages belong either to a Cloud Channel Gateway session or to a Standalone Gateway session; they should not be merged implicitly.

Release Channels¶

Cloud and Gateway images must use the same release tag as the source release and should be deployed by digest from the image evidence files. Do not deploy latest for shared, beta, or production environments.

Support Policy¶

Support docs must be honest about launch tier. The public repo can claim local self-host beta evidence. Managed SaaS or enterprise claims need private operations evidence before being marketed as GA.

Release Checklist Additions¶

Before a release that touches Desktop, Cloud, Gateway, packaging, or docs:

• Product names in README, docs, release notes, images, and Helm/Compose examples match this page.
• Cloud Channel Gateway and Standalone Gateway are not described as the same product mode.
• open-cowork.config.json and deploy examples use placeholders for private domains, project ids, customer names, prices, and secrets.
• Release notes state the accepted launch tier: preview, private hosted beta, public beta, stable, or enterprise-ready.

Validation¶

Run these checks after editing packaging, naming, product-mode, or release docs:

pnpm docs:build
git diff --check

For release-sensitive edits, also run:

pnpm deploy:validate
pnpm deploy:launch:validate
pnpm ops:validate

Env naming disambiguation (channel vs standalone)¶

OPEN_COWORK_GATEWAY_PRODUCT_MODE is not a switch that turns apps/channel-gateway into Standalone. Setting it to standalone or hybrid fails closed and names the correct binary in the error message.