Why RCC is now closed source

[LucianCrainic]

Hello,

i would like to know the reasons behind the decision of closing the source code for RCC, the tool was such a promising component paired with Robot Framework and the feedback from the community was great. Why block the possibility to contribute to the source code and also look into it in case of particular problems when using it since the documentation does not give enough information.

Regards,

[joshyorko]

@LucianCrainic RCC is ROBOCORP—it's the core component that powers everything, including action servers and the Python framework. While it can be frustrating, money talks.

There are a few forks available from the last open-source version. I forked this one, which appears to include the final open-source commit, as noted in the license on this page: https://github.com/robocorp/rcc/blob/master/LICENSE-NOTICE.md#background
And here is the Fork (url) https://github.com/admariner/rcc

[LucianCrainic]

@joshyorko Sadly yes, money talks. We had to implement our own architecture similar to the RCC concept as an internal tool since RCC was such a great tool to use paired with Python and Robot Framework in order to setup and run our Test Suites on any machines. We are looking up to Open Source it and give back to the Community a more simpler alternative.

[joshyorko]

@LucianCrainic rcc is open source again joshyorko/rcc

[joshyorko]

Hey @LucianCrainic,

Let me give you the full picture of what happened.

The Pivot

In January 2024, Sema4.ai acquired Robocorp and pivoted the entire company toward enterprise AI agents. Their focus is now:

• Agentic AI systems - LLM-powered autonomous agents
• Studio - Their IDE for building AI agents with "natural language runbooks"
• Control Room - Enterprise deployment/management (paid)
• Data Server - Wrapper around MindsDB for agent data access (proprietary)
• Action Server - The replacement for running Python automations

They're chasing the enterprise AI market with $80.5M in VC funding ($55.5M Series A from Benchmark, Mayfield, Snowflake Ventures + $25M extension). Traditional RPA automation became secondary.

The "Open Source" Problem

Here's the thing - they claim Action Server is open source (Apache 2.0). But you can't actually build it.

The frontend requires private npm packages from Sema4AI's internal registry:

• @sema4ai/components
• @sema4ai/theme
• @sema4ai/icons

Try to run npm install and you get 401 Unauthorized. Issue #220 has been open for months with no fix. The maintainer admitted they have "paid components that cannot be distributed."

That's not open source. That's source-available - you can look but you can't touch.

The Library Ecosystem

They migrated the Python libraries and split the ecosystem:

Still works standalone:

• robocorp-browser - Playwright automation
• robocorp-excel - Excel file handling
• robocorp-windows - Windows desktop automation
• robocorp-workitems - Technically has local dev mode, but primarily designed for Control Room

Locked to their paid platform:

• robocorp-vault → requires Control Room for secrets
• robocorp-storage → Control Room only
• sema4ai-actions → designed for Action Server ecosystem
• sema4ai-data → ties into their proprietary Data Server

The robocorp-workitems library can work locally for development, but the whole architecture assumes you're deploying to Control Room. The docs literally say "Work items are used in Robocorp Control Room for managing data." Local dev is an afterthought, not the primary use case.

The Fix: I built robocorp-adapters-custom to solve this. It provides pluggable work item adapters so you can use:

• SQLite - Local dev, single-process scenarios
• Redis - High-throughput, multi-worker processing
• DocumentDB/MongoDB - AWS distributed processing
• Self-hosted Control Room - Your own infrastructure

Switch backends by changing environment variables - no code changes. Now you can run proper producer-consumer workflows without being locked to Robocorp's Control Room.

No Communication

The worst part: no announcement, no deprecation notice, no migration guide. The community that helped build Robocorp's reputation got ghosted.

It's their company. They can do what they want. But the way they handled it was not cool.

---

The Solution: Community Fork

RCC is the core that powers everything - it's what creates isolated Python environments and runs automations. The last open source version is Apache 2.0 licensed (irrevocable), and I maintain an active fork:

github.com/joshyorko/rcc

What makes it different from Sema4AI's stuff:

• Actually buildable - Clone it, run go build, done. Or to be super meta, build it with rcc rcc run -r developer/toolkit.yaml -t local --dev. No private dependencies.
• Telemetry disabled by default - No phoning home
• All endpoints configurable - Use your own infrastructure
• Actively maintained - Issues get responses, PRs get reviewed
• New features - Interactive UI enhancements, robot bundling, and more

Latest release: github.com/joshyorko/rcc/releases/latest

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RCC was too good to let die. We keep it alive now.