Orbit – open-source tasks, docs and team chat in one workspace, with an MCP server for AI (community package, testing)

[marcusquinn]

I've packaged Orbit, an Apache-2.0 workspace for teams from the creator of Coolify, as a community app. It puts tasks (projects with list, board and timeline views), docs with live co-editing, and team chat in one app on your own server, and AI clients can work with the whole workspace through its built-in MCP server.

Install: add this catalog under Settings → Community apps, then install Orbit from the App Store:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/marcusquinn/cloudron-orbit-app/main/CloudronVersions.json

or cloudron install --versions-url <that URL> --location orbit.example.com.

What fits in with Cloudron

• First run: Orbit prints a one-time setup link in the app's Logs, and orbit-setup-link in the Terminal prints a fresh one. Whoever opens it first becomes the root user, so use it straight after installing.
• Outgoing mail through the Cloudron relay: invitations, password resets and test email. Orbit keeps its SMTP settings in its database and can't read them from the environment yet (coollabsio/orbit#66). Run orbit-mail-settings in the Terminal and paste the values into Admin → Email once.
• Backups: the SQLite database (copied consistently by Cloudron), attachments and the app key are in Cloudron backups. I restored a backup into a clone, and the stored SMTP password still decrypted there.
• Live updates through Cloudron's proxy: chat messages and doc edits appear live for other users. Orbit's sign-in rate limits see each user's real address, not the proxy's.

Tested on Cloudron 10.1.6 with two accounts: setup, invitations, chat and doc co-editing between users, mail through the relay, MCP sign-in over OAuth, restart, backup and clone, and an app update.

Good to know

• No webmail yet: Orbit's Mail section is a preview with sample data upstream ("Coming soon"). Despite my wishlist title, it isn't an email client today.
• No Cloudron SSO: Orbit doesn't support OpenID Connect yet (coollabsio/orbit#65). Sign-in is email and password or passkeys, with optional Google and GitHub sign-in.
• Uploads: 25 MiB per file by default (ORBIT_UPLOAD_MAX_FILE_BYTES in /app/data/orbit.env). For a larger file, chat only says "Upload failed."
• 1 GiB memory limit by default; Orbit used about 55 MiB at idle. x86-64 only for now. Requires Cloudron 10.0+.
• Orbit is early-stage (0.2.1). The package runs upstream's release binary, pinned by digest and unmodified. Images and the catalog carry GitHub build provenance.

Links

• Community Apps listing:
  • https://ca.cloudron.io/app/com.marcusquinn.cloudron.orbit
• Package, setup guide and issues:
  • https://github.com/marcusquinn/cloudron-orbit-app
• Orbit:
  • https://github.com/coollabsio/orbit
  • https://orbit.so
• App Wishlist post with more screenshots:
  • https://forum.cloudron.io/topic/16264/orbit.so-free-open-source-alternative-to-trello-notion-slack-webmail-todoist-and-similar

This is a testing release, so feedback is welcome, especially from teams of several people and from anyone connecting Claude Code or another MCP client.

I maintain the package independently of the Orbit project; please report packaging problems on the package repo rather than upstream.