I built an open-source AI assistant that actually runs my day — here's the architecture

For the past few months, I've been running a personal AI assistant on a $5 VPS. Not a chatbot — an actual assistant that manages my calendar, triages my email, controls my Spotify, sends me proactive reminders, and remembers my preferences over time. Today I'm open-sourcing it. It's called Rook . GitHub: github.com/barman1985/Rook Why I built this Every AI assistant I tried fell into one of two categories: Chatbots — they answer questions but don't do anything Overengineered platforms — they need Kubernetes, five microservices, and a PhD to deploy I wanted something in between. An AI that lives in Telegram (zero onboarding — no new app to install), actually executes tasks via tool use, and runs on a single VPS I already had lying around. What Rook does 📅 Google Calendar — create, edit, delete, search events 📧 Gmail — read, search, send emails 🎵 Spotify — play, search, playlists, device management 📺 TV/Chromecast — power, apps, volume control via ADB 🧠 Memory — remembers preferences usi