This seemingly ordinary screenshot of a code repository is actually a silent mockery of “tech hegemony”.
The “Invite Code” Fetish & The 3-Hour Slap
There is a strange ailment in the tech circle called “Invite Code Fetishism.”
A few days ago, Manus emerged out of nowhere. The demo video showed an AI Agent capable of writing its own code, fixing its own bugs, and practically brewing your coffee, leaving everyone on the edge of their seats. Instantly, social media was flooded with the digital begging of “invite codes, please.” People seem to default to a certain logic: The harder something is to obtain, the higher the technical barrier behind it.
Until OpenManus appeared.
The most ironic part of this story isn’t that it’s open source, but the speed of its birth—3 hours. A few veterans from MetaGPT (Xinbin Liang, Jinyu Xiang, et al.) replicated Manus’s core logic with a speed that suggests they understood the architecture at a single glance.
This wasn’t a tribute; it was a resounding slap in the face. It struck those vendors attempting to build “moats” using information asymmetry. The appearance of OpenManus poked a hole right through the paper window: The so-called “General Agent Black Tech” might just be a thin layer of plywood over mature LLMs (Large Language Models) and engineering frameworks.
You thought it was a miracle; actually, it was pip install.
It’s Not Magic, It’s “Pre-fab” Engineering
How was this achieved in 3 hours? Are these developers the Flash of keyboard warriors?
A deep dive into the code reveals that OpenManus’s success doesn’t stem from “inventing from scratch,” but from extremely smart “appropriation.” It resembles a top-tier “pre-fabricated” meal.
- The MetaGPT Foundation: Just as you don’t need to fire bricks to build a house, OpenManus stands directly on the shoulders of the giant that is MetaGPT. Multi-agent collaboration, memory management, and role-playing—the hardest bones to gnaw on—have already been chewed up by MetaGPT.
- The MCP Assist: Did you notice
run_mcp.pyin the code? This is key. MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the “Universal Language for AI” created by Anthropic. With it, OpenManus doesn’t need to write drivers for every tool; it simply “plugs in” MCP-supported tools (file systems, browsers, databases), and the Agent instantly gains hands and feet. - Minimalist Toolchain: Using
uvfor package management (blazing fast compared to conda) and Playwright for browser automation. These are all ready-made wheels.
So, the core logic of OpenManus is actually very simple: Use the best Large Model as the brain, MCP as the nerve endings, and MetaGPT as the muscle memory.
This architecture diagram (while illustrating the general principle of MCP, fully applies to OpenManus) explains everything:
OpenManus’s secret weapon: The MCP protocol makes connecting AI to the world as simple as plugging in a USB.
It is no longer a closed “product,” but an open “connector.” Developers don’t need to wait for charity from Manus; just change two lines in config.toml, swap in your own API Key, and you can own a digital laborer that belongs to you and is uncensored.
The Golden Cage vs. The Wild Garden
Of course, we have to talk about the difference between the “promotional video” and the “actual product.”
Manus (the closed-source one) certainly offers a smoother experience right now. It’s like a beautifully decorated Golden Cage, complete with climate control and butler service; you just speak, and it gets done. But the cost is that your data is naked on someone else’s server, and your usage rights depend on whether they grant you an invite code.
OpenManus is a Wild Garden.
- Pros: Absolute freedom. Want it to connect to a local database? Sure. Want it to use an uncensored open-source model? No problem. Want to mod its execution logic to work only for you?
main.pyis right there, change it as you please. - Cons: You have to tinker with the environment yourself. Although the authors thoughtfully provided a one-click install via
uv, the black-and-white terminal interface is still intimidating for non-geeks. Furthermore, due to the lack of extreme Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT) and Reinforcement Learning (RL) found in commercial companies, OpenManus might “drop the ball” or fall into infinite loops when handling ultra-complex tasks.
But don’t forget, OpenManus has only existed for a few days. Look at the reference to Update README.md Jan 3, 2026 (though likely a future timestamp implying continuous iteration), the community’s evolution speed is exponential. Today it might be a stumbling toddler; next week a大佬 (big shot) might submit an OpenManus-RL PR, maxing out its IQ.
Left: A carefully packaged commercial myth. Right: The savage growth of open-source power. Which one will you choose?
Will “Script Kiddies” Rule the Agent Era?
Looking at the code structure of OpenManus, I feel a concern, or perhaps a point of excitement.
python main.py — launching a fully automated AI that can control a browser has lowered the barrier to the center of the earth.
This means the concept of “Script Kiddies” is about to upgrade. Hackers of the past needed to understand network protocols; the current “Agent Kiddies” only need to know how to configure a config.toml.
OpenManus is like giving everyone a “digital skeleton key.” The good side is that programmers can offload dirty work like bug fixing and documentation to it; the bad side is, what if someone asks it to “automatically go to social media and engage in targeted emotional manipulation with 1000 people”?
“No fortress” is a romantic slogan, but when the fortress collapses, the beasts run free. OpenManus is currently very pure, but with the integration of DataAnalysis Agent and more capabilities, it is not just a productivity tool, but a potential automated weapon.
Final Thoughts: Burn the Ship, Keep the Fire
Will OpenManus completely kill Manus?
Probably not. Just as Linux didn’t kill Windows, and Android didn’t kill iOS.
Commercial products will still have their audience—those willing to pay for “peace of mind.” But the significance of OpenManus lies in the fact that it strips commercial companies of the right to “deify” technology.
It tells us: An Agent is not a god; it is a piece of code, an architecture, a capability you can master.
When you watch the logs scrolling in the terminal, watching OpenManus disassemble tasks, call tools, and solve problems step by step, that feeling is more real than obtaining any invite code.
Stop begging for that code.
Go Clone that Repo.
Hold the fire in your own hands.
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