HackerAI

Your AI-Powered Penetration Testing Assistant

Getting started

Coding agents should start with AGENTS.md.

Prerequisites

You'll need the following accounts:

Required:

• OpenRouter - AI model provider
• OpenAI - Identifies security requests that should use abliteration.ai models
• E2B - Isolated cloud execution in Agent mode
• Convex - Database and backend
• Amazon S3 - File storage
• WorkOS - Authentication and user management
• Trigger.dev - Required durable runtime for agent tasks

Optional:

• abliteration.ai - AI models for security requests that standard models may refuse
• Perplexity - Web search functionality
• Jina AI - Web URL content retrieval
• Redis - Stream resumption
• Upstash Redis - Rate limiting
• PostHog - Analytics
• Stripe - Payment processing

Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/hackerai-tech/hackerai.git

Navigate to the project directory

cd hackerai

Install dependencies

pnpm install

pnpm build generates Next.js route types and checks them with TypeScript 7 before compilation. TypeScript 6 remains installed as typescript for ESLint, ts-node, Convex tooling, and pnpm typecheck. The native compiler is pinned separately as typescript-build; build scripts resolve it explicitly rather than relying on the shared tsc executable name. Use pnpm typecheck for the TypeScript 6 check; package aliases can expose the same tsc command. Vercel Preview retains its existing separate CI typecheck. Running next build directly retains Next's built-in TypeScript 6 check.

Run the setup script

pnpm run setup

To use abliteration.ai for eligible security requests, create an API key in the abliteration.ai console and set ABLITERATION_API_KEY in .env.local, Vercel, and Trigger.dev. Without this optional key, HackerAI continues using its standard models.

Start the development server

This runs both Next.js and Convex dev servers:

pnpm run dev

Or run them separately in two terminals:

pnpm run dev:next
pnpm run dev:convex

Run the Trigger.dev worker

Agent mode runs the agent loop on a Trigger.dev task. To use the agent locally:

1. Create a project at https://cloud.trigger.dev and copy your dev secret key (tr_dev_…) into .env.local as TRIGGER_SECRET_KEY.

2. In the Trigger.dev dashboard → your project → Environment Variables, add the env vars the task needs to run (these live on the worker, not on Vercel): NEXT_PUBLIC_CONVEX_URL, CONVEX_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY, OPENROUTER_API_KEY, OPENAI_API_KEY, AWS_S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID, AWS_S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY, AWS_S3_REGION, AWS_S3_BUCKET_NAME, and E2B_API_KEY. Cloud Agent execution uses E2B. Add any optional keys you use (ABLITERATION_API_KEY, PERPLEXITY_API_KEY, JINA_API_KEY, etc.).

3. Start the worker in a third terminal:

   pnpm dev:trigger

   This starts the default Trigger.dev worker used by local Agent requests. To start an explicitly routed Trigger.dev branch instead, set a stable branch name with TRIGGER_DEV_BRANCH=my-local-agent pnpm dev:trigger. Only use that override when the request path is configured to target the same Trigger.dev branch.