ORBIT

Open Retrieval-Based Inference Toolkit

Connect your data and tools to local or hosted models through one API. Deploy on your own infrastructure.

Why ORBIT

An AI gateway, retrieval engine, and agent host in one Apache 2.0 project, with no gated features.

	What you get
Your data, connected	Query files, SQL, NoSQL, vector stores, and APIs through YAML-configured adapters, with hybrid retrieval and reranking.
Your choice of models	Use local or hosted models through one OpenAI-compatible API, with automatic model selection and provider fallbacks.
Agents that take action	Connect MCP tools, route requests to specialized skills, and coordinate agents through A2A or async messaging.
Beyond text chat	Process documents and images, build voice experiences, and generate images, audio, and video.
Real-time decisions	Get structured choices, yes/no answers, and scores with probabilities for routing, triage, and moderation.
Your infrastructure	Self-host on-premises or in a private cloud, including air-gapped deployments with local models.
Security and operations built in	SSO, role-based access, PII detection, moderation, quotas, audit logs, and cost estimates, plus an admin UI for day-to-day management.

Explore the capability matrix for a detailed comparison with Open WebUI and LiteLLM.

See who ORBIT is for for organization types, needs, relevant features, and pilot ideas.

Explore what you can build with ORBIT, from conversations over private data to voice assistants and tool-using agents.

• Talk to a municipal assistant in real time
• Choose AI models and configure model availability per agent
• Render music and play MIDI
• Query SQL data through a real-time voice conversation
• Render Mermaid diagrams in OrbitChat
• Chat with Elasticsearch data using an intent retriever
• Render charts in OrbitChat

Quick start

With Docker installed and running, use a prebuilt flavor image to try ORBIT without downloading a tarball or cloning the repo. Each image bundles the ORBIT server, OrbitChat web UI, and document chat for PDFs, Word, Excel, images, and Markdown.

Choose one flavor:

Flavor	Image	What you need
Ollama	schmitech/orbit-ollama:latest	Local inference; no API key. Ollama is bundled.
OpenAI	schmitech/orbit-openai:latest	OPENAI_API_KEY exported in your shell.
Gemini	schmitech/orbit-gemini:latest	GOOGLE_API_KEY exported in your shell.
OpenRouter	schmitech/orbit-openrouter:latest	OPENROUTER_API_KEY exported in your shell. Free models.
Cohere	schmitech/orbit-cohere:latest	COHERE_API_KEY exported in your shell.

Each image is also published with a version tag (e.g. schmitech/orbit-ollama:2.21.1) if you want to pin to a specific release instead of :latest.

Ollama

docker pull schmitech/orbit-ollama:latest
docker run -d --name orbit \
  -p 127.0.0.1:5173:5173 -p 127.0.0.1:3000:3000 \
  -v orbit-data:/orbit/data \
  -v orbit-models:/orbit/models \
  schmitech/orbit-ollama:latest

OpenAI

docker pull schmitech/orbit-openai:latest
docker run -d --name orbit \
  -p 127.0.0.1:5173:5173 -p 127.0.0.1:3000:3000 \
  -e OPENAI_API_KEY \
  -v orbit-data:/orbit/data \
  schmitech/orbit-openai:latest

Gemini

docker pull schmitech/orbit-gemini:latest
docker run -d --name orbit \
  -p 127.0.0.1:5173:5173 -p 127.0.0.1:3000:3000 \
  -e GOOGLE_API_KEY \
  -v orbit-data:/orbit/data \
  schmitech/orbit-gemini:latest

OpenRouter

docker pull schmitech/orbit-openrouter:latest
docker run -d --name orbit \
  -p 127.0.0.1:5173:5173 -p 127.0.0.1:3000:3000 \
  -e OPENROUTER_API_KEY \
  -v orbit-data:/orbit/data \
  schmitech/orbit-openrouter:latest

Cohere

docker pull schmitech/orbit-cohere:latest
docker run -d --name orbit \
  -p 127.0.0.1:5173:5173 -p 127.0.0.1:3000:3000 \
  -e COHERE_API_KEY \
  -v orbit-data:/orbit/data \
  schmitech/orbit-cohere:latest

Once startup completes, open OrbitChat to chat or upload a document. The API is available at http://localhost:3000, with the bundled multimodal API key for the document-chat adapter.

View startup progress with docker logs -f orbit. Data persists in orbit-data; the Ollama flavor also stores downloaded models in orbit-models.

To sign in to the admin dashboard, grab the one-time generated admin password from the container log (it's not baked into the image):

docker logs orbit | grep -A3 "one-time admin password"

Log in with admin and that password.

See the Docker guide for more details.

Prerequisites: Python 3.12+, an internet connection for downloads, and Ollama installed and running. If needed, run ollama serve in a separate terminal. On Windows, follow the installation guide.

curl -LO https://github.com/schmitech/orbit/releases/download/v2.21.1/orbit-2.21.1.tar.gz
tar -xzf orbit-2.21.1.tar.gz && cd orbit-2.21.1
./install/setup.sh --profile default

ollama pull gemma4:e2b
# Required for file/multimodal adapters:
ollama pull nomic-embed-text

./bin/orbit.sh start
./bin/orbit.sh status

Open the admin dashboard and sign in with admin / ChangeMe!2026.

Send your first message

For a quick smoke test, the release seed includes default-key mapped to the simple-chat adapter:

curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/v1/chat \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'X-API-Key: default-key' \
  -H 'X-Session-ID: readme-smoke-test' \
  -d '{
    "messages": [
      {"role": "user", "content": "Say hello in one sentence"}
    ],
    "stream": false
  }'

Continue with your first chat to create an API key, or use the Docker quick start for containers.

The default setup uses Ollama with the gemma4-e2b-cpu preset, which resolves to gemma4:e2b.

• Server settings: config/config.yaml.
• Providers: Enable a provider in config/inference.yaml, set its credential in .env, and select it globally or per adapter.
• Ollama presets: config/ollama.yaml.
• Data and tools: Configure adapters in config/adapters.yaml and config/adapters/. Start with the adapter guide or intent templates.

See Before you start for installation checks, file retrieval setup, and API-key management.

Use orbit-cli from a terminal (Node.js 20+):

npm install -g @schmitech/orbit-cli@latest
orbit-chat --url http://localhost:3000 --key default-key

Or launch OrbitChat in your browser:

npm install -g orbitchat@latest

cat > orbitchat.yaml <<'EOF'
agentMode:
  mode: "single"
  defaultAdapterId: "simple-chat"
adapters:
  - id: "simple-chat"
EOF

ORBIT_ADAPTER_KEYS='{"simple-chat":"default-key"}' orbitchat --config orbitchat.yaml --open

OrbitChat opens at http://localhost:5173. See the example configuration for more options.

Explore more

I want to…	Start here
Learn ORBIT	Tutorial · First chat · HTTP APIs
Connect private data	Files · Vector stores · SQL · Intent templates · Adapter system overview
Build agents	MCP tools · Automatic skill routing · A2A · Adapter creation
Make real-time decisions	Decision models · Automatic model selection · Triage Rush demo · Sentiment Pulse
Run in production	Authentication · Cost tracking · Rate limiting · Fault tolerance
Use a client	OrbitChat · Realtime Voice · Node.js SDK · Python API example

See the documentation index for every guide and architecture deep dive.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome: new retrievers and provider integrations, deployment guides, tests, fixes, and documentation. Read CONTRIBUTING.md, pick an open issue, or start a discussion.

Maintained by Remsy Schmilinsky.

License

ORBIT is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.