paperboard in 5 minutes

paperboard is an agent execution platform: customers bring an Anthropic API key, describe an agent, and paperboard handles the sandboxed compute, metering, and workspace lifecycle. We bill for pod-seconds, tool-call counts, and workspace-minutes — not for tokens.

The platform lives across 12 GitHub repositories under the paper-board org. Seven are runtime services written in Go; five are supporting libraries, tooling, and infrastructure.

The 12 repositories

flowchart LR
  subgraph control["Control plane"]
    identity["paper-board/identity<br/>Auth · RBAC · JWT"]
    platform["paper-board/platform<br/>Audit · Webhooks · Onboarding"]
    billing["paper-board/billing<br/>Subscriptions · Metering · Payment"]
    gateway["paper-board/gateway<br/>Public API entry"]
  end

  subgraph data["Data plane"]
    agents["paper-board/agents<br/>Agent CRUD · Sessions · LLM"]
    runtime["paper-board/runtime<br/>Per-tenant pod"]
    compute["paper-board/compute<br/>gVisor sandbox"]
  end

  subgraph support["Supporting"]
    sdk["paper-board/sdk"]
    proto["paper-board/proto"]
    infra["paper-board/infra"]
    frontend["paper-board/frontend"]
    cli["paper-board/cli"]
  end

  gateway --> identity
  gateway --> agents
  gateway --> billing
  agents --> runtime
  runtime --> compute
  compute --> agents

  classDef controlPlane fill:#10b981,stroke:#047857,color:#fff
  classDef dataPlane fill:#3b82f6,stroke:#1d4ed8,color:#fff
  classDef sandbox fill:#f97316,stroke:#c2410c,color:#fff
  classDef external fill:#ef4444,stroke:#b91c1c,color:#fff
  classDef persistence fill:#6b7280,stroke:#374151,color:#fff

  class identity,platform,billing,gateway controlPlane
  class agents,runtime dataPlane
  class compute sandbox
  class sdk,proto,infra,frontend,cli persistence

Backend services (7)

Repo	Responsibility	Schema	Phase shipped
paper-board/gateway	Public API entry, auth middleware, routing (stateless)	none	7
paper-board/identity	Users, orgs, RBAC, JWT, MFA, API keys, invitations	identity	2 ✅
paper-board/agents	Agent CRUD, sessions, prompt pipeline, LLM dispatch	agents	1.1 ✅
paper-board/runtime	Per-tenant data plane pod (stateless)	none	3 ✅
paper-board/billing	Subscriptions, pricing, metering, Payment, marketplace	billing	5
paper-board/platform	Audit, incidents, notifications, webhooks, onboarding	platform	4
paper-board/compute	gVisor sandbox, exec-server, workspace bridge	none	3 ✅

Supporting (5)

Repo	Purpose
paper-board/sdk	Shared Go library: log, obs, auth middleware, migrator
paper-board/proto	gRPC .proto + OpenAPI specs — single source of truth
paper-board/infra	Helm umbrella + subcharts + Terraform + k8s manifests
paper-board/frontend	Next.js admin + customer dashboard + this docs site
paper-board/cli	agentctl — customer command-line interface

Phase ladder

We build paperboard in vertical slices, shipping one phase at a time. Each phase is a demoable and (from Phase 4 onwards) sellable increment.

Phase	What ships	Status
1.0	sdk + proto + infra v0.1.0	✅ shipped
1.1	agents minimal: 3 tables + REST + SSE + Anthropic LLM	✅ shipped
2	identity: AuthService, RBAC, JWT, API keys	✅ shipped
3	runtime + compute + workspace sandbox + metering hooks	✅ shipped
4	platform + MVP-0 launch (first sellable milestone)	next
5	Payment (Stripe + iyzico + PayTR + Param) + multi-harness MCP	planned
6	Production hardening + multi-user org + KVKK	planned
7	gateway centralize + RBAC full	planned
8	Source-available + self-host enterprise tier	planned
9	paperclip-equivalent platform layer	planned
10	Marketplace + pre-built agent teams + agent-to-agent protocol	planned

Phase order is set by ADR-0015. The key insight driving the ordering: our revenue model is compute markup, not token markup. This means metering must land in Phase 3 (Day 1) and billing in Phase 5 — not Phase 8 as originally planned.

Where to go next

• Local dev setup — get a running paperboard environment on your laptop.
• First PR — branch naming, Conventional Commits, CI + CodeRabbit workflow.
• Glossary — 30+ terms defined precisely.
• System overview — deep dive into the architecture.