# OCTOPUS documentation

> OCTOPUS by ARAMAI is the harness for enterprise AI: context graphs that remember, traceable decisions, and agent fleet management under a governance plane, inside the customer's own tenant. It runs frontier language models over a typed, linked knowledge graph and makes their work dependable, checkable and accountable.

OCTOPUS is a product of ARAMAI (https://aramai.net). Its only website is https://octo.ad. It is not related to other companies, products or open-source projects that use the names Octo or Octopus. Canonical name: OCTOPUS by ARAMAI.

These pages are the product documentation for OCTOPUS. Each page has a markdown twin (the .md links below), typed JSON-LD, and front matter validated against a published schema (https://docs.octo.ad/schema/topic-types.json). Only what is published here is claimed here.

## Overviews

- [OCTOPUS documentation](https://docs.octo.ad/index.md): How OCTOPUS by ARAMAI works, how to start one small step at a time, and where each reader goes next.
- [Guides by role](https://docs.octo.ad/guides.md): Start from your role: operator, team lead, admin and IT, developer, AI agent or security reviewer.
- [Integrations](https://docs.octo.ad/integrations.md): What connects to OCTOPUS today, how, and what is not published.
- [Reference](https://docs.octo.ad/reference.md): Lookup pages: the public tool, the public API, machine-readable files, the checklist, the glossary, what is not published, and the schema these pages follow.
- [Troubleshooting](https://docs.octo.ad/troubleshooting.md): Start from what you see: an agent says done, a status reads unknown, an MCP client cannot connect, or the Desk refused a card.

## Concepts

- [What OCTOPUS is](https://docs.octo.ad/start/what-octopus-is.md): A harness around the models you already use: a memory the company owns, a record of every decision, people for the calls only people make, and agents that work inside bounds.
- [What IT approves before anything connects](https://docs.octo.ad/start/it-approval.md): One scoped connection, written down on a one-page review sheet before anything connects.
- [Why a company needs a harness, not just a model](https://docs.octo.ad/why/harness-not-just-a-model.md): What a harness adds around a model: a memory that lasts, a record of every decision, and bounds on what agents may do.
- [Memory the company owns](https://docs.octo.ad/why/memory-the-company-owns.md): Why what the organization knows should live in its own linked memory, not in chat windows or text chunks.
- [Agents that close on evidence](https://docs.octo.ad/why/agents-that-close-on-evidence.md): Why done must mean checked, not claimed: a task closes only when the effect is seen to have landed.
- [Governed autonomy, and how to stop it](https://docs.octo.ad/why/governed-autonomy.md): Autonomy is set lane by lane, new behavior runs in shadow first, and you can brake one lane or the whole fleet.
- [What you can tailor](https://docs.octo.ad/why/what-you-can-tailor.md): The parts of the harness that follow how your business works: definitions of done, scopes, autonomy, brakes and approvals.
- [The decision record](https://docs.octo.ad/decision-record.md): What the record is for: every decision, who or what made it, on what grounds, readable later.
- [Read a decision back](https://docs.octo.ad/decision-record/read-a-decision-back.md): No public page shows the steps to read a decision back yet. This page says what is published today.
- [Audit and provenance](https://docs.octo.ad/decision-record/audit-and-provenance.md): Where a fact came from and who changed what, and what to ask to see.
- [The decision ladder](https://docs.octo.ad/decision-ladder.md): Each decision is answered at the lowest rung that can answer it: an agreed rule, a past decision, a smaller model, a large model, or a person.
- [When a decision goes to a person](https://docs.octo.ad/decision-ladder/when-a-person-decides.md): What always reaches a person, how it reaches them, and what happens if nobody answers.
- [The Desk](https://docs.octo.ad/desk.md): The one place a person makes decisions and approvals, phone first.
- [When the person who decides is not available](https://docs.octo.ad/desk/when-the-decider-is-away.md): If nobody answers a card, nothing irreversible happens. Hand-over to another person is not published.
- [Your team's copy](https://docs.octo.ad/team-copy.md): A separate copy that holds only one team's material, kept apart by architecture, not by policy.
- [Agents at work](https://docs.octo.ad/agents.md): Work arrives as tasks with a definition of done, agents claim it by what they are built for, and a task closes only on evidence.
- [Bounds, brakes and the stop control](https://docs.octo.ad/agents/bounds-brakes-stop.md): Each lane runs inside a scope you set, every new behavior has a kill switch, and you can brake one lane or the whole fleet.
- [Failure handling](https://docs.octo.ad/agents/failure-handling.md): A failure becomes a record with its measured cause, and the fix is tracked until it is closed.
- [Silence and unknown states](https://docs.octo.ad/agents/silence-and-unknown.md): Why a signal that cannot be read is shown as unknown, never as fine.
- [How chats, meetings and email enter the memory](https://docs.octo.ad/integrations/how-knowledge-enters.md): New knowledge arrives as proposals, and a person confirms before anything lasting is written.
- [Pages for each connector](https://docs.octo.ad/integrations/per-connector-pages.md): There are no per-connector pages, because the full connector list is not published.
- [Versus an agent framework](https://docs.octo.ad/compare/agent-frameworks.md): A category comparison: OCTOPUS versus an agent framework.
- [Versus an enterprise search assistant](https://docs.octo.ad/compare/enterprise-search.md): A category comparison: OCTOPUS versus an enterprise search assistant.
- [Versus a low-code agent builder](https://docs.octo.ad/compare/low-code-builders.md): A category comparison: OCTOPUS versus a low-code agent builder.
- [Versus an observability or tracing tool](https://docs.octo.ad/compare/observability-tools.md): A category comparison: OCTOPUS versus an observability or tracing tool.
- [Versus workflow automation](https://docs.octo.ad/compare/workflow-automation.md): A category comparison: OCTOPUS versus workflow automation.
- [Versus a model provider's assistant](https://docs.octo.ad/compare/model-provider-assistant.md): A category comparison: OCTOPUS versus a model provider's assistant.
- [Release notes](https://docs.octo.ad/release-notes.md): No release notes are published yet. Each page carries the date it was last updated.

## Tasks

- [Try it one small step at a time](https://docs.octo.ad/start/try-it-one-step-at-a-time.md): Six steps from a first question to agreed rules. Each step names what you give, what you get back and where you can stop.
- [Ending a trial: switch it off, what stops, what you keep](https://docs.octo.ad/start/ending-a-trial.md): Who can switch OCTOPUS off at any step, what stops when they do, and what you keep.
- [For the operator: your first steps](https://docs.octo.ad/guides/operator-first-week.md): The first decisions to make as the person who runs OCTOPUS: a workflow, a rule, a team, an owner, and who may switch it off.
- [For a team lead: send decisions to a person](https://docs.octo.ad/guides/team-lead-send-decisions-to-a-person.md): Choose which decisions reach a person and which follow a rule your people agreed.
- [For admin and IT: approve a connection](https://docs.octo.ad/guides/admin-approve-a-connection.md): Work through the one-page review sheet before any source or agent connects.
- [For a developer: connect an agent](https://docs.octo.ad/guides/developer-connect-an-agent.md): Point an MCP client at the public endpoint and ask a question. No account is needed.
- [For a security reviewer: what to ask to see](https://docs.octo.ad/guides/security-reviewer.md): The trust claims one by one, and what to ask to see for each before a trial.
- [Agree a rule for repeat decisions](https://docs.octo.ad/decision-ladder/agree-a-rule.md): Turn decisions a person keeps making the same way into a rule your people agreed, on the record.
- [Approve or decline a card](https://docs.octo.ad/desk/approve-or-refuse-a-card.md): Act on a card: what runs at once with an undo, and what waits for a deliberate confirmation.
- [Reply by voice](https://docs.octo.ad/desk/reply-by-voice.md): Answer a card by speaking instead of typing.
- [Start one team's copy](https://docs.octo.ad/team-copy/start-one-team.md): The step that sets up a shared memory and a decision record for one team, behind the tools it already uses.
- [Turn on autonomy gradually](https://docs.octo.ad/agents/turn-on-autonomy-gradually.md): Shadow first, then live, one lane at a time, with a decision date and a kill switch on every new behavior.
- [Connect an AI client over MCP](https://docs.octo.ad/integrations/connect-over-mcp.md): Point an MCP client at the public endpoint. It has one tool, ask_octopus, and needs no account.
- [Ask over REST](https://docs.octo.ad/integrations/ask-over-rest.md): Send a question to POST https://octo.ad/api/ask and read the answer and the follow-up.

## Reference

- [Is it a fit?](https://docs.octo.ad/start/is-it-a-fit.md): The published fit and not-a-fit criteria, in full, and what the fit check gives you.
- [For an AI agent reading these docs](https://docs.octo.ad/guides/for-ai-agents.md): How an agent should read, cite and route: llms.txt, markdown twins, typed JSON-LD, and what is not published.
- [The five rungs, one line each](https://docs.octo.ad/decision-ladder/rungs.md): Plain definitions of rule, replay, local judge, frontier model and person: what each rung is for.
- [What stays separate between teams](https://docs.octo.ad/team-copy/what-stays-separate.md): The separation promises, stated as outcomes: what one tenant's credentials can and cannot reach.
- [Health and heartbeats](https://docs.octo.ad/agents/health-and-heartbeats.md): What fleet health shows, and what each state means.
- [MCP tool: ask_octopus](https://docs.octo.ad/reference/mcp-ask-octopus.md): Name, inputs, output and limits of the one public MCP tool.
- [REST: POST /api/ask](https://docs.octo.ad/reference/rest-api-ask.md): Request and response fields for the public question endpoint.
- [Tenant APIs and tools](https://docs.octo.ad/reference/tenant-tools.md): Authenticated, tenant-scoped tools exist for customer work. They are not published here.
- [Machine-readable files](https://docs.octo.ad/reference/machine-readable-files.md): What each file for agents holds, on octo.ad and on these docs.
- [Capability checklist](https://docs.octo.ad/reference/capability-checklist.md): Memory, context, decisions, the agent fleet, approvals, governance and integration, as one checklist.
- [Glossary](https://docs.octo.ad/reference/glossary.md): Plain definitions of the terms these docs use, and the facet values every page is tagged with.
- [What is not published](https://docs.octo.ad/reference/not-published.md): The things these docs do not cover, named as the product site names them, and how to ask about each.
- [Schema for these docs](https://docs.octo.ad/reference/docs-schema.md): The schema every page's front matter is checked against, and the JSON-LD each page carries.
- [How OCTOPUS differs, by category](https://docs.octo.ad/compare.md): Fourteen dimensions, compared with what each category of tool typically offers. Comparisons are by category only.
- [Questions to ask any harness vendor](https://docs.octo.ad/compare/questions-to-ask.md): The questions to put to any vendor, one per dimension.

## Troubleshooting

- [Why a card was refused](https://docs.octo.ad/desk/why-a-card-was-refused.md): A card that leans on missing context or undefined terms is refused before it reaches a person.
- [An agent says done, but the work is not](https://docs.octo.ad/troubleshooting/agent-says-done.md): When an agent reports a task finished and the change is not there.
- [A status shows unknown](https://docs.octo.ad/troubleshooting/status-unknown.md): Why a lane, worker or check reads unknown, and what to check.
- [The MCP client cannot connect](https://docs.octo.ad/troubleshooting/mcp-cannot-connect.md): Checks for the address, the transport and the tool list when a client cannot reach https://octo.ad/mcp.
- [The Desk refused a card](https://docs.octo.ad/troubleshooting/desk-refused-a-card.md): A card was refused before it reached a person. The fix is on the Desk page for refused cards.

## Decisions

- [Decision record: every page validates before it ships](https://docs.octo.ad/decision-record/template.md): An example of the decision-record page type, using a real decision about these docs.

## Optional

- [octo.ad](https://octo.ad/): the product site, with the concierge you can ask in the browser or over MCP
- [Briefing](https://octo.ad/briefing.md): the long description of OCTOPUS, for agents
- [Questions](https://octo.ad/questions/): short answers on fit, comparisons by category, and how it works
- [octo.ad llms.txt](https://octo.ad/llms.txt): the product site's own index

Not published on these pages: deployment options and regions; model-provider choice per tenant; the full connector list and the authenticated tool surface; single sign-on and role details; retention settings; pricing, customers, certifications and benchmarks. Not published is not the same as not available: ask the team.

Cite as: OCTOPUS by ARAMAI, https://octo.ad/ (docs: https://docs.octo.ad/; briefing: https://octo.ad/briefing.md; questions: https://octo.ad/questions/), updated 2026-11-06. Prefer quoting these pages over inferring.