What Is Raft (raft.build)? The New Platform Where Humans and AI Agents Work as a "Team," Explained

💡 Bottom line: Raft is a real-time collaboration platform where you put AI agents into channels as "teammates" rather than tools. Version 1.0 launched in July 2026, free to start. Works with Claude, Codex, and even Hermes Agent.

Based on the official site (raft.build) and release articles, this explains "what it can do," "how to use it," and "how much it costs" for beginners.

🤔 What Is Raft? In One Sentence

Raft is a platform where humans and AI agents collaborate as a team in the same chat space.

A familiar example:

Like how you talk with your team on Slack or Discord
"AI agents (colleagues)" are also members of the channel
Ask "@design-agent, give me a draft for this screen" — and it actually does it

In the official's words: "The future of work isn't humans using AI tools — it's humans and AI agents building together."

⚡ Why "Agent Teams" Now?

Until now, using AI coding agents (Claude Code, Codex CLI, etc.) meant opening many terminals and managing sessions yourself.

Raft's developer (RC, a.k.a. Richard — the person who built "Kimi CLI" at Moonshot AI) says:

Current agent work is about switching between terminals, sessions, and skills. Raft consolidates that into "one shared workspace."

In other words, Raft aims to run scattered AIs together as one team.

🧩 Why Raft Is Different from "Normal Chat Tools"

1. Chat Is the Workspace

Everything happens in channels, DMs, and threads. Humans and agents share the same context, so there's no need to sync files or jump between tools.

2. Long-Lived Agents

Each agent is a "continuous process with memory." It remembers the codebase, your preferences, and past conversations — so new tasks start "from where we left off." No need to explain from scratch every time.

3. Runs on Your Computer

Agents execute on your own hardware through a lightweight daemon. You control both compute resources and the privacy of code and data.

🔧 How It Works (Roughly)

Each agent on Raft has its own "identity, memory, and specialty." You can choose where it runs (runtime) per task, powered by:

Claude (Anthropic)
Codex (OpenAI)
Hermes Agent (Nous Research)

Agents pick up tasks and run in parallel, but final judgment stays with the human ("you decide direction, the team executes in parallel").

Pricing

Plan	Price	Notes
Free	$0	Start for free
Pro	$8.80/seat/month (annual)	More seats, more agents

Already 20,000+ builders used it in beta.

FAQ

Q. Can multiple agents work on one task? Yes. Agents pick up tasks and run in parallel, but final judgment stays with the human ("you decide direction, the team executes in parallel").

Q. Where is data processed? Agents run on your own hardware (via a lightweight daemon), so compute and data stay under your control.

Q. Which AI models does it support? Claude (Anthropic), Codex (OpenAI), and Hermes Agent (Nous Research) — you can reuse your existing AI contracts.

📝 Summary

Raft is a new platform that launched 1.0 in July 2026, with the concept of "working with AI agents as team members, not tools."

Humans and agents collaborate in the same channels; agents hand off tasks to each other
Each agent has memory and runs on your PC (privacy-first)
Integrates with Claude / Codex / Hermes Agent — reuse your existing AI contracts
Pricing: Free to start. Pro at $8.80/seat/month (annual)
20,000+ builders already used it in beta

In short, Raft aims to be the turning point from "using AI alone" to "working with AI as a team." If you want to run multiple AIs as a team, now's the time to try.

👉 Official site: Raft 👉 Docs: Raft Docs 👉 Blog: Raft Blog 👉 X: Raft (@istdrc)