Migrate from OpenHands to Kortix, the open-source AI Operating System
Moving off OpenHands begins with files your team already wrote. Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System, so agents, skills, and memory live in one git repo you own, and each session runs on its own cloud computer and lands as a change request a person reviews.
Start the project, then bring an agent across
Kortix documents these commands in its quickstart and CLI reference.
curl -fsSL https://kortix.com/install | bashkortix loginkortix init my-agentkortix shipagents: support: file: agents/support.md connectors: [helpdesk]What a team moves first
OpenHands keeps its operating state where you installed it. Its README mounts a home directory for OpenHands state and points the install at a projects path you choose, so the agents, tools and conversation state sit with that deployment (OpenHands on GitHub). A Kortix project inverts that: the durable parts are files in a git repo. agents/, skills/, and memory/ sit beside kortix.yaml at the root, and that repo is the company (Kortix docs).
Move the files your team wrote before you move any runtime. An agent prompt, a triage skill and the notes an agent accumulated are text, and text is the part that survives a platform change. Start the project with the commands Kortix documents in its quickstart, bring one agent across, and run it before you touch the rest.
How agents, skills, and memory carry over
Kortix defines an agent as behavior plus governance. The behavior is an agents/<name>.md file with frontmatter and a body that is the system prompt. The governance is an agents.<name> block in kortix.yaml that grants connectors, secrets, skills and Kortix permissions, and a stock OpenCode agent file is valid as it stands (Agents and permissions).
A skill is a folder with a SKILL.md that an agent loads when a task needs it. Memory is plain files that accumulate. OpenHands documents OpenCode as one of the agent backends its Agent Canvas can drive, alongside the OpenHands agent, Claude Code, Codex, Gemini and Pi (OpenHands on GitHub). OpenCode is the harness in Kortix, so a team already pointing OpenHands at OpenCode moves the agent definition without rewriting it. For each agent the shape is:
agents: support: file: agents/support.md connectors: [helpdesk]Keep the change-request review step
Every Kortix session works on its own branch and its own cloud computer. When the agent has something to ship, it commits, pushes and opens a change request against the project's default branch. A person reads the diff and merges. Merge is default-deny for agents, so nothing reaches main until a person, or a grant you set on purpose, allows it (Kortix quickstart). A session can merge its own change request only when its agent's kortix_permissions include project.gitops.merge, and the managed skill that Kortix adds to every session tells the agent to stop after it opens one.
If your OpenHands setup already routes agent work through a review you read as a diff, keep the habit. kortix cr ls, kortix cr diff 1 and kortix cr merge 1 are the same gate from a terminal.
Where the two setups differ
OpenHands Agent Canvas is built to switch among several agent backends from one front end, and it pairs agents with an automation service for schedules and events (OpenHands docs). Kortix is one platform with one harness and one repo: agents, skills, memory, connectors and triggers are files, and the work lands through change requests. If your team depends on running Claude Code, Codex and Gemini beside each other under one roof, Kortix does not model that; its harness is OpenCode.
Self-hosting is a first-class option in both. Kortix runs on Kortix Cloud, in your VPC, or on your own on-prem network, and self-host is free. The self-hosting page covers the install and the first run.
Questions teams ask before they switch
Does Kortix run the OpenHands agent?
Kortix runs the OpenCode harness, and OpenHands documents OpenCode as one of the backends its Canvas can drive. If your agents are defined for OpenCode, the definition moves. If they are built on the OpenHands SDK, you rewrite the behavior as an
agents/<name>.mdfile and anagents.<name>block inkortix.yaml.Can we keep running on our own infrastructure?
Yes. Kortix runs on Kortix Cloud, in your VPC, or on your own on-prem network, and self-host is free. The install and the first run are on the self-hosting page.
Does our OpenHands conversation history come across?
Kortix's docs describe projects you create or clone, and there is no documented OpenHands history import. The durable things to bring are the agent, skill and memory files. Kortix sessions start fresh, and each one keeps its own branch and its own change request.
Bring one agent across, keep the review
Start a Kortix project from the starter and move the work that is already written down.