openleads 3.1.0

Free, open-source Apollo alternative: find anyone, verify deliverably (7-signal engine), write and send cold email — local-first, keyless, $0. Pluggable public-data sources, a chat CLI, and a local web dashboard.

🧲 OpenLeads

Apollo for everyone. For $0.

Find founders, developers, doctors, researchers — anyone — verify their email deliverably, write the cold email, and send it. Free, open source, keyless, and entirely on your machine.

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Apollo, Hunter, RocketReach, and ZoomInfo sell the same two things: a contact database and email verification — then upsell you the sending. OpenLeads is the whole stack, inverted and free.

A universal entity → verified email → cold email → sent machine, fed by a registry of pluggable, keyless, public data sources — running entirely on your laptop.

v3 is the ultimate update. v2 found and verified leads. v3 closes the loop: it writes the email and sends it, behind a deliverability engine that beats Hunter & Apollo's free tier — all for $0, with a zero-dependency core, and no data ever leaving your machine.

$ openleads run "50 AI founders in SF, verified only" --live
  [engine] source=yc — searching…
   safe   [e-mail]        Ada Lovelace · Founder · 96
   safe   [e-mail]    Grace Hopper · CEO     · 91
   risky  [e-mail]   J. Doe       · —       · 58   (held back)
  [engine] done — 41 safe · 9 risky
  [write]  drafting 41 personalized emails…
  [outbox] sender grade A · warmup day 6 · 40/day
   sent   → [e-mail]   «quick idea re: your launch»
  → 40 sent · 1 held (cap) · 0 bounced

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✨ The four clicks

The painful multi-tool workflow — scrape in A, verify in B, enrich in C, load into sender D, warm up in E — collapses into one local app + CLI:

1 · Find	Describe who you want in plain English.	Keyless public sources → resolved emails.
2 · Write	Personalized, spam-linted, plain-text drafts.	Free LLM or sharp template — edit anything.
3 · Connect	One-time mailbox setup with provider presets.	A preflight grades your SPF/DKIM/DMARC.
4 · Send	Throttled, warmup-capped, suppression-aware.	One-click unsubscribe headers. No tracking pixels.

Do it in the terminal (openleads run …), in the chat REPL (openleads), or in the local web dashboard (openleads web).

🖥️ The local dashboard

openleads web   # opens http://127.0.0.1:8787 — no Node, no build, no cloud

A hand-built single-page app served by a stdlib HTTP server bound to localhost. Find, Leads, Compose, Send, CRM, Settings, and Doctor — with the four-click path front and centre and results streaming in live. Black-and-white with hints of red, reduced-motion aware, and nothing leaves your machine. See docs/web.md.

📡 Why the emails actually land

Most free finders verify with a single SMTP RCPT probe over outbound port 25 — which home ISPs and most clouds block. When it's blocked, every address silently degrades to a first.last@domain guess and your campaign bounces. That was v2's #1 failure.

v3 cross-checks seven independent signals — most needing no port 25 at all — then gates honestly into three tiers so you only send what's likely to land:

Signal	Needs port 25?
MX consensus — two DoH resolvers must agree	no
SPF · DMARC · provider class — TXT lookups	no
Disposable / role / free-provider — static lists	no
Gravatar existence — md5 → 200/404	no
Ground-truth harvest — real emails from GitHub commits, mailto:, security.txt	no
Learned domain patterns — compound across every run	no
SMTP RCPT + catch-all double-probe	yes (graceful when blocked)

→ safe (send it) · risky (kept, held back by default) · bad (dropped). Every lead carries an explainable 0–100 score and a reasons[] list. Deep dive: docs/deliverability.md.

🆚 vs. the free tiers

	OpenLeads	Apollo / Hunter (free)
Cost	$0, forever	credit-limited, then paid
API key required	❌ none	✅ required
Who you can find	founders, devs, doctors, researchers + any vertical you plug in	their database only
Email verification	✅ 7-signal consensus + 0–100 score	paid feature
Writes the email	✅ free LLM or template	❌ / upsell
Sends it for you	✅ warmup, throttle, suppression	upsell
Where it runs	🔒 your machine, no data leaves	their cloud
You own the code	✅ readable, hackable	❌ black box
Core dependencies	zero (stdlib only)	—

🚀 Install

# Python (recommended) — zero-dependency engine + the full local app
pip install "openleads[all]"

# minimal: just the engine + plain CLI
pip install openleads

Prefer Node? A thin wrapper runs it via npx (it installs the Python package on first use):

npx openleads find "50 fintech founders verified only"
# or: npm i -g openleads

Try it in 10 seconds:

pip install "openleads[all]"
openleads doctor     # check your finding + sending setup
openleads web        # launch the local dashboard
# …or stay in the terminal:
openleads            # the interactive chat — just type what you want

openleads --version should print openleads 3.0.0. Full walkthrough: docs/quickstart.md.

⚡ Commands

# find + verify (deliverable only)
openleads find "50 fintech founders, verified only" --out leads.csv
openleads find --source npi --keyword pediatric --location CA --format json

# the whole pipeline: find → write → send (dry-run unless --live)
openleads run "rust developers in Berlin"
openleads run "20 SaaS founders" --live

# pieces of it
openleads write "10 AI founders" -o drafts.json   # just draft
openleads send  "10 AI founders" --live           # find → write → send
openleads verify [e-mail] [e-mail]      # verify concrete addresses

# manage
openleads sources          # what you can search
openleads crm              # your local CRM (leads + touches + status)
openleads config           # set keys, mailbox, sender identity, send limits
openleads doctor           # health-check finding + sending
openleads inbox            # scan IMAP for replies & bounces (optional)

Sending is dry-run by default everywhere — add --live to actually send. The finder never touches your mailbox.

💬 The chat CLI

openleads chat (or just openleads) opens a Claude-Code-style REPL. Type in plain English and refine conversationally — now with /write and /send too:

openleads> pediatricians in California, verified only
openleads> /source github
openleads> machine learning researchers as ndjson
openleads> /write          # draft emails for the safe leads
openleads> /send --live    # send them (with a confirm)

Works fully offline via a rule-based parser (no key needed). Set OPENROUTER_API_KEY (a free model works) to upgrade free-form parsing and AI drafting.

🧩 Sources (and adding your own)

$ openleads sources
  github       [people ] developers & open-source orgs
  hn           [company] companies hiring now (Hacker News)
  npi          [people ] U.S. doctors & healthcare providers
  openalex     [people ] researchers & academics
  producthunt  [company] trending products & startups
  yc           [company] startup founders (Y Combinator)

New in v3.1 — better leads, faster. hn mines Hacker News' monthly "Who is hiring?" thread for companies hiring right now — real domains and, very often, direct apply emails that land as safe instantly. The github source was rebuilt to return real, contactable developers (no more topic/org junk), and the engine now resolves emails concurrently and fails fast with a clear message instead of grinding for minutes. Try: openleads find --source hn -n 25.

All keyless and free. Want a vertical we don't ship — recruiters, lawyers, real-estate agents, your CRM export? Drop a *.py file in ~/.openleads/sources/:

from openleads.sources.base import Source
from openleads.models import Entity, Query

class LawyersSource(Source):
    name, kind, vertical = "lawyers", "people", "attorneys"
    description = "State bar directory."

    def search(self, query: Query):
        for row in fetch_from_some_free_directory(query):
            yield Entity(full_name=row["name"], organization=row["firm"],
                         domain=row["firm_domain"], source=self.name)

Run openleads sources and it's there. The email engine handles the rest. Guide: docs/sources.md.

🔒 Local-first by design

No hosted backend. No accounts. No tracking. Your leads, drafts, mailbox credentials, learned patterns, and CRM all live in a local SQLite file under ~/.openleads. The engine talks only to public data sources and your mail server. Secrets are stored chmod 600 and never sent back to the browser.

🔍 How it works

flowchart LR
    Q[Your request<br/>chat · CLI · web] --> I[Intent parser<br/>rule-based ± free LLM]
    I --> S[Source plugin<br/>yc · github · npi · openalex · …]
    S --> E[Deliverability engine<br/>7 signals → score → tier]
    E --> W[Compose<br/>spam-linted draft]
    W --> P[Preflight<br/>SPF/DKIM/DMARC + warmup]
    P --> D[Send<br/>throttled · suppression-aware]
    D --> C[(Local SQLite<br/>CRM · patterns · cache)]
    E <--> C

Same path is invoked by the CLI, the chat REPL, and the web dashboard. Architecture: docs/architecture.md.

🧭 Responsible use

OpenLeads is for legitimate outreach, recruiting, research, and prospecting. Some verticals carry extra weight — healthcare providers (NPI), academics — so please read docs/responsible-use.md. You are responsible for anti-spam law (CAN-SPAM, GDPR, CASL) and each source's terms. v3 ships the guardrails (suppression, one-click unsubscribe, warmup caps, dry-run defaults); using them well is on you.

🗺️ What's new in v3.0

• ✅ Multi-signal deliverability engine — 7 signals, mostly no port 25, honest safe/risky/bad tiers
• ✅ Writes + sends — drafting, provider presets, preflight, warmup, suppression, follow-ups
• ✅ openleads run — find → verify → write → send in one command
• ✅ Local web dashboard (openleads web) — no Node, no cloud
• ✅ In-app config + doctor — no dotfile editing
• ✅ Local CRM, dedupe, learned patterns that compound across runs

See the full CHANGELOG.

🤝 Contributing

PRs very welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md. The highest-impact contribution is a new source plugin (guide) — that's literally how OpenLeads becomes "Apollo for everyone."

📄 License

PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 — free for personal, research, educational, and nonprofit use. Commercial use? See COMMERCIAL-LICENSE.md.

🙏 Acknowledgements

yc-oss/api · OpenAlex · NPI Registry · GitHub & ProductHunt public data · Gravatar · and everyone who has ever rage-quit a "request a demo" button.

If OpenLeads saved you a subscription, consider leaving a ⭐ — it genuinely helps.