Local / Self-Hosted.

Run The Intern entirely on your own infrastructure for maximum control and privacy.

Requirements

Node.js 18+. Cloudflare account (free tier sufficient for Workers). Neon PostgreSQL database (free tier: 0.5GB storage, 1 compute unit). Firebase project with Authentication enabled. Anthropic API key.

Backend setup

Clone the repo. Create backend/.dev.vars with DATABASE_URL, ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, and optionally GOOGLE_API_KEY and OPENAI_API_KEY for the 3-provider fallback. Run npm install && npm run dev. The Hono worker starts on localhost:8787. For production, run npm run deploy to push to your Cloudflare account.

Frontend setup

Create frontend/.env.local with NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL pointing to your backend (localhost:8787 for dev, your Worker URL for prod) and all Firebase config variables. Run npm install && npm run dev for local, npm run build for production.

Limitations vs managed cloud

Phone call capabilities require Twilio credentials (TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID, TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN). ElevenLabs voice requires ELEVENLABS_API_KEY. Stripe payments require STRIPE_SECRET_KEY. These are all optional — the core agent platform works without them.