Host the event.Ferri runs the rest.
Ferri works on both sides of your event. With your crew, it keeps the plan, ships the site and posters, puts the event on Luma and tracks who's coming. With your community, it keeps everyone informed on Discord, Telegram, Slack and WhatsApp. Every decision reaches them after one OK.
- Live on Discord and Telegram now
- Open source, MIT
- Built on Switch
- Meera asked on Discord. Searched the event's 20 notes.
- Found it in Schedule › Saturday.
- Answered in 1.1 s with its source. Nobody on the crew was pinged.
Works in the chats your people already use. No new app for anyone.
- Discord
- Telegram
- Slack
- Mattermost
Not another help desk
From the first idea to the last thank-you.
A help desk talks only to outsiders, and only answers. Ferri works with your crew inside and your community outside. It turns the crew's chatter into plans, sites, announcements, answers and a recap.
Crew chatter becomes a plan.
Ferri follows the crew's own chat and keeps a living plan: what's decided, who owns what, what's still open. Owners it hears about take over the questions on their topic.
- A run of show, plus one approval card per key decision
- “Priya will handle food” sends every food question to Priya
- Reminders: “@ferri remind me at 5 to order the pizza”
Sound familiar?
The same question.
Forty times.
Five apps.
Your attendees are on Discord, Telegram, Slack and a WhatsApp group. Your crew is a handful of volunteers. So the event gets run on someone's phone, at night.
- An answer given in one group never reaches the others. So the next person asks again.
- The crew decides “lunch moves to 1:30”. Half the people hear the old time.
- A fake “free nitro” link lands in the busiest channel. At the worst possible moment.
- Ishaan whats the wifi pass??
- neha.dev does anyone know the wifi password
- Rahul wifi?
- Zoya Hey! Is there Wi-Fi at the venue?
How it works
Your crew answers once. Ferri tells everyone.
Ferri sits between the community outside and the crew inside. It answers what it knows, asks the crew what it doesn't, and carries every decision back out, on every app at once.
Two people ask on two apps. Ferri asks the crew once, and one answer reaches both.
Desk and Pocket
A control room for the crew. A buzz on the right phone.
Desk shows everything Ferri is doing, live. Pocket, the crew's phone app, buzzes only the person who owns the question, with one big box to answer it.
- Answered alone, by hourWatch the share Ferri answers alone climb as the crew teaches it.
- Every card in one placeQuestions, announcements, care cases, guest sends and posts.
- Knowledge with versionsEdit what Ferri knows. Every change is kept.
- Pocket for the crewPush only to the owner. Answer, post or pause from the phone.
Safe by design
Helpful when it knows. Quiet when it doesn't.
An assistant that guesses in front of three hundred attendees is worse than none. The rules that keep Ferri honest are in code, not in a prompt.
A source under every answer
Ferri answers only from your event's info and names where each answer came from. The source check is in code, so no prompt can switch it off.
Nothing goes out without an OK
Announcements, emails, posts and listings each wait on one approval card. A tap posts it. No tap, nothing happens.
Shield on every message
Scam links, link floods and leaked API keys are stopped on every app before anyone sees them, in 2 to 9 ms, with no model in the path.
One pause button
Pause Ferri everywhere with one switch in Desk. Set each group to Off, Listen, Approve or Auto.
Your tone, their language
Set the tone and language per group. “@ferri reply in Hindi in team-alpha” is enough.
Your server, your data
Ferri is MIT-licensed and runs on your own machine or server, next to your own Switch.
Use cases
Made for volunteer crews.
Each kind of event comes with a starter pack: the desks it needs, the questions people ask, and how Ferri should sound.
Hackathons
Judging, mentors, check-in
Attendee when do submissions close?Ferri 7:00 AM on Sunday. Judging starts at 8.Meetups
Speakers, check-in, food
Attendee is there parking near the venue?Ferri I don't have that yet. I'm checking with the team.A card goes to the crew. Their answer reaches everyone who asked.Conferences
Speakers, sponsors, help
Attendee which room is the keynote in?Ferri Hall A on the ground floor. Doors open at 9:30.Festivals
Safety, volunteers, lost and found
Attendee where is lost and found?Ferri At the info tent by the main gate, open until midnight.Workshops
Help, tables, check-in
Attendee do I need to install anything first?Ferri Yes: Node 22 and VS Code. The setup guide is pinned in #help.Game nights
Tables, food, check-in
Attendee can I bring my own deck?Ferri Yes. Sleeves are required at the tournament tables.
Built on Switch
Take Switch away, and Ferri is five separate bots.
Every group on every app is a Switch room. Ferri is one Switch agent in all of them. Every approval is a card the crew taps, every message passes Switch Trust, and the Builder runs as a Switch-managed agent with a spending cap. We also added two things to Switch core that Ferri needed.
- discord
- telegram
- slack
- mattermost
- Ferrianswers, cards, Shield
- Buildersite, posters, listings
- CrewDesk and Pocket
Get started
Running in one command.
It asks for your Anthropic key once, then starts Switch, a Mattermost to try it in, Ferri and Desk, with a demo event already loaded.
- 1Start itDocker and about 4 GB of free memory. Nothing else to install.
- 2Connect your apps./ferri connect discord, telegram or slack. WhatsApp pairs with a QR code.
- 3Teach it your eventAdd the schedule, venue and FAQ in Desk. Your crew's answers do the rest.
$ git clone https://github.com/RudraO2/Ferri.git$ cd Ferri$ ./ferri up
Questions
Asked once. Answered here.
Does Ferri make things up?
No. It answers only from your event's info and the answers your crew gave it, and it prints the source under every answer. When nothing fits, it says “I don't have that yet. I'm checking with the team.” and asks the crew. If nobody answers, it nudges the owner, then the whole crew. It never invents an answer.
Do attendees need to install anything?
No. Ferri joins the Discord, Telegram, Slack, WhatsApp or Mattermost groups your community already uses. Attendees just ask, the way they already do.
How does the crew answer?
Each question Ferri can't answer becomes one card for the person who owns that topic: in the crew's private room, in Desk, or on their phone through Ferri Pocket. One answer reaches everyone who asked, on their own app, and Ferri remembers it.
Does it only answer questions?
No. Answering is one part of the job. Ferri also keeps the crew's plan, posts announcements on every app after one OK, opens care cases for members who are stuck or upset, runs the guest list, blocks scams, and writes a recap with real numbers at the end. Its Builder ships the event site, posters and listings.
What do I need to run it?
Docker, about 4 GB of free memory and an Anthropic API key. One command, ./ferri up, starts Switch, a Mattermost to try it in, Ferri and Desk with a demo event. Connecting Discord, Telegram, Slack or WhatsApp is one more command each.
What does it cost?
Ferri is free and open source under the MIT license. You pay only for your own model use: Claude Sonnet answers by default, Claude Haiku handles the quick checks, and you can switch answers to Haiku to spend less.
Why Switch?
Switch turns every group on every app into a room, lets Ferri be one agent in all of them, gives the crew approval cards, checks every message through Switch Trust, and runs the Builder as a managed agent with a spending cap. Without Switch, Ferri would be five separate bots.
Give your crew their nights back.
Ferri is live right now for Lantern Build Night, a made-up event. Ask it something on Discord or Telegram, then ask something it can't know and watch it check with the crew.
