After nine years of building developer tools, Cirrus Labs is joining OpenAI to help shape the next generation of engineering workflows for both human and AI agents.
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Today marks a significant transition in the developer tools landscape as Cirrus Labs, the innovative company behind popular tools like Tart and Cirrus CI, announces it will be joining OpenAI as part of their Agent Infrastructure team.
From Cloud Computing to Agentic Engineering
Fedor Korotkov founded Cirrus Labs in 2017 with a vision inspired by Bell Labs—to tackle challenging engineering problems while building tools that would make developers more productive in the cloud era. The company's name itself reflected this ambition, drawing from cirrus clouds, the highest clouds in the sky.
"We never raised outside capital," Korotkov explains. "That let us stay patient, stay close to the problems, and put a great deal of care into the products we built."
Over nearly a decade, Cirrus Labs made several notable contributions to the developer ecosystem:
- 2018: Launched what they believe was the first SaaS CI/CD system supporting Linux, Windows, and macOS while allowing teams to bring their own cloud
- 2022: Built Tart, which became the most popular virtualization solution for Apple Silicon
- 2026: Recognized the shift toward agentic engineering, just as cloud computing dominated in 2017
Why OpenAI?
The decision to join OpenAI wasn't made lightly. Korotkov notes that "in 2026, it is impossible to ignore the era of agentic engineering, just as it was impossible to ignore cloud computing in 2017."
Agents, whether human or AI, need new kinds of tooling and environments to be efficient and productive. By joining OpenAI, Cirrus Labs can extend its original mission while innovating closer to the frontier where the next generation of engineering workflows is being defined.
What Happens to Cirrus Labs Products?
Existing customers and users will see several changes in the coming weeks:
- Source-available tools (Tart, Vetu, Orchard) will be relicensed under more permissive terms
- Licensing fees for these tools will be eliminated
- Cirrus Runners will stop accepting new customers but continue supporting existing ones through their contract periods
- Cirrus CI will shut down completely on June 1, 2026
This transition represents both an end and a beginning—the conclusion of Cirrus Labs as an independent entity and the start of its contribution to OpenAI's vision for the future of software development.
A Legacy of Innovation
For Korotkov, building Cirrus Labs has been "the privilege of a lifetime." The company's approach—patient, capital-efficient, and deeply focused on solving real engineering problems—allowed it to make meaningful contributions to the developer tools ecosystem.
As the industry shifts toward agentic workflows, the expertise and tooling developed at Cirrus Labs will now help shape how both human engineers and AI agents collaborate in increasingly complex development environments.
Learn more about the announcement on Fedor Korotkov's GitHub
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