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Headless Mode

You can run OpenHands with a single command, without starting the web application. This makes it easy to write scripts and automate tasks with OpenHands.

This is different from CLI Mode, which is interactive, and better for active development.

With Python​

To run OpenHands in headless mode with Python, follow the Development setup instructions, and then run:

poetry run python -m openhands.core.main -t "write a bash script that prints hi"

You'll need to be sure to set your model, API key, and other settings via environment variables or the config.toml file.

With Docker​

  1. Set WORKSPACE_BASE to the directory you want OpenHands to edit:
WORKSPACE_BASE=$(pwd)/workspace
  1. Set LLM_MODEL to the model you want to use:
LLM_MODEL="anthropic/claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022"

  1. Set LLM_API_KEY to your API key:
LLM_API_KEY="sk_test_12345"
  1. Run the following Docker command:
docker run -it \
    --pull=always \
    -e SANDBOX_RUNTIME_CONTAINER_IMAGE=docker.all-hands.dev/all-hands-ai/runtime:0.16-nikolaik \
    -e SANDBOX_USER_ID=$(id -u) \
    -e WORKSPACE_MOUNT_PATH=$WORKSPACE_BASE \
    -e LLM_API_KEY=$LLM_API_KEY \
    -e LLM_MODEL=$LLM_MODEL \
    -e LOG_ALL_EVENTS=true \
    -v $WORKSPACE_BASE:/opt/workspace_base \
    -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
    --add-host host.docker.internal:host-gateway \
    --name openhands-app-$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S) \
    docker.all-hands.dev/all-hands-ai/openhands:0.16 \
    python -m openhands.core.main -t "write a bash script that prints hi" --no-auto-continue