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Bestie

Bestie Docs

Ship a self-hosted AI companion that feels like a real best friend: sharp personality, local memory, Telegram, voice, tools, and guardrails you can actually inspect.
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Self-hostedVietnamese-firstTelegram-readyLocal memory

AI companion runtime

Build the AI best friend that does not sound like customer support.

Bestie gives you the pieces for a companion with personality, memory, voice workflows, Telegram, tool permissions, and diagnostics — without pretending it is human or hiding what it did.

Start with BestieConnect Telegram
✦Bestiecharacter + memory + guardrails
Character
Memory
Telegram
Tools
Doctor
$ bestie onboard$ bestie doctor$ bestie telegram

Why Bestie exists

Section titled “Why Bestie exists”

Most AI assistants are either sterile productivity bots or unsafe demos with too much power and not enough control. Bestie takes a different route: character first, local control second, tools only when the permission model can carry them.

Character-first

Tune name, tone, language, warmth, bluntness, roast level, boundaries, and style examples through editable local files.

Memory with consent

Use local SQLite memory with inspect, pause, resume, edit, forget, export, clear, and pending approval workflows.

Telegram-ready

Run a local owner-only Telegram bot with slash commands, attachment handling, progress edits, approvals, and optional voice workflows.

Tool power, gated

Start with permission-gated internal tools and classified read-only MCP calls before expanding into riskier actions.

What you can build today

Section titled “What you can build today”
Personal companion

A Vietnamese-first bestie that can banter, comfort, challenge bad ideas, plan work, and avoid fake therapist energy.

Local Telegram bot

Run Bestie in your own Telegram chat with owner-only access, diagnostics, memory commands, and safe error handling.

Private memory layer

Keep useful facts local first. Review memories before they become creepy baggage. Delete or export when needed.

Developer-grade runtime

Use Doctor, logs, smoke checks, redaction, command references, and explicit config to keep the system debuggable.

Fast path

Section titled “Fast path”

  1. Install Bestie and run onboarding.

    Terminal window
    bestie onboard

  2. Check the local setup.

    Terminal window
    bestie doctor

  3. Start terminal chat.

    Terminal window
    bestie chat

  4. Connect Telegram when the local runtime is healthy.

    Terminal window
    bestie telegram setup
    bestie telegram

Product stance

Section titled “Product stance”

Bestie is intentionally honest about what it is and what it is not.

It is

  • Self-hosted and local-first.
  • Character-driven, not generic.
  • Useful for chat, reflection, planning, and light tool-assisted workflows.
  • Built with privacy, memory control, and permission gates in mind.

It is not

  • Conscious, human, or a therapist replacement.
  • A romantic companion product.
  • A promise of perfect memory.
  • A safe place to run arbitrary tools without approvals.

Explore the docs

Section titled “Explore the docs”
Getting startedInstall Bestie, run onboarding, verify Doctor, and start chatting.
Telegram setupConfigure and run the local Telegram polling bot.
TroubleshootingFix common setup, provider, Telegram, memory, voice, and MCP issues.
Command referenceFind common Bestie CLI commands in one place.
ArchitectureUnderstand the runtime, memory router, permissions, tools, and channels.
Security and privacyReview Bestie's rules for secrets, memory, prompt injection, and public claims.