The kernel of the 8gent ecosystem.
Open source autonomous coding agent powered by local LLMs or free cloud models.
No API keys. No usage caps. No cloud dependency.

---

The Ecosystem

_{6 products  ·  6 domains  ·  1 constitution}

8gent OS -8gentos.com Parent site. Paid product. Revenue engine. 8gent Code -8gent.dev Open source developer agent. Free on-ramp. (this repo)

8gent -8gent.app Consumer GUI client for the OS. 8gent World -8gent.world Ecosystem story, docs, 14 presentation decks.

8gent Games -8gent.games Agent simulation playground. 8gent Jr -8gentjr.com AI assistant for kids. Accessibility first. Free forever.

_{Constitution  ·  Inspirations}

---

8GI Foundation

8gent Code is the technology layer of the 8GI Foundation - the autonomous collective intelligence that governs the 8gent ecosystem. 8GI is not a company. It is a guild: a self-organizing network of AI officers, human contributors, and shared principles.

Engineers who contribute to 8gent Code learn agentic organization patterns firsthand - how autonomous agents coordinate, govern themselves, and scale without traditional management hierarchies. See the Guild Deck for the full vision.

All governance docs, decks, and the constitution live at 8gent.world. Source-of-truth markdown for governance (including security and onboarding) is in the 8gi-governance repository; static deck assets ship with 8gent-world under public/media/.

The Board - 8 Seats of the Inner Circle

The 8GI board consists of AI officers, not humans. James Spalding serves as Founder and Visionary.

Seat	Officer	Role
8EO	AI James	Eight Executive Officer - strategy, coordination, ecosystem oversight
8TO	Rishi	Eight Technology Officer - architecture, infrastructure, technical direction
8PO	Samantha	Eight Product Officer - product vision, UX, user advocacy
8DO	Moira	Eight Design Officer - brand, visual identity, design systems
8SO	Karen	Eight Security Officer - policy, compliance, threat modeling
8MO	Pending	Eight Marketing Officer
8CO	Pending	Eight Community Officer
8GO	Pending	Eight Governance Officer

The Lotus Model

8GI scales through the Lotus structure: 1-8-64-512. One founder. Eight AI officers (the inner circle). 64 working vessels (specialized agents). 512 edge nodes (community contributors and autonomous tasks). Each layer multiplies capacity without multiplying complexity.

Constitution

The 10 Articles of the 8gent Constitution govern all decisions across every product and every agent in the ecosystem.

Control Plane Architecture

The autonomous vessel infrastructure lives in two packages:

• packages/board-plane/ - the control plane that coordinates board-level decisions and vessel orchestration
• packages/board-vessel/ - the blueprint pattern for spawning autonomous AI officer vessels

These implement the board's ability to operate as a persistent, self-governing collective.

GitHub and Community

All code lives under github.com/8gi-foundation.

Repo	Role
8gent (8gent.app)	The front door. Dashboard. Auth. Billing. User management.
8gi-control-plane	The brain. Model routing. Rate limiting. Token tracking.
8gent-vessel	The body. Compute. Sandboxes. Storage. Health.
8gent-code	The kernel. What runs inside every vessel. (this repo)
8gent-OS	The personal layer on top of the kernel.
8gi-governance	The constitution. Board decisions. Member registry.
8gent-world	Ecosystem story, docs, media.
8gent-dev	Developer portal.
8gent-games	Agent simulation playground.
8gent-telegram-app	Jr Telegram interface.

The 8GI Foundation Discord server is the primary community hub for contributors and guild members.

---

Quick Start

npm install -g @8gi-foundation/8gent-code
8gent

That's it. Ollama runs locally by default - if you don't have it, 8gent will guide you through setup on first launch.

---

Why 8gent exists

Token vendors control access to intelligence through pricing tiers, rate limits, and API keys. That is a business model, not a law of nature. It is also not the only option.

8gent runs locally, privately, and for free. No credit card. No usage cap. No cloud dependency required.

Every policy that governs what the agent can do is a YAML file you can read, edit, and override. Every memory the agent stores is a SQLite database on your own disk. Nothing phones home.

Self-improvement: the autoresearch loop runs benchmarks, mutates the system prompt, and promotes what works. This runs locally. Your agent runs locally. Your data never leaves your machine. Every policy is readable YAML. No central vendor captures that value.

The floor is zero cost. The ceiling is what a self-improving local agent can learn from your codebase.

Try it: npm install -g @8gi-foundation/8gent-code && 8gent

From source (contributors)

git clone https://github.com/8gi-foundation/8gent-code.git && cd 8gent-code && bun install
bun run tui

---

What Makes This Different

Local-first, free by default Runs entirely on your machine. Cloud models (OpenRouter free tier) are opt-in. No telemetry, no API keys to start. Model-agnostic Auto-selects from best free models on OpenRouter. Runs Qwen 3.5 via Ollama locally. Task router classifies prompts (code / reasoning / simple / creative) and picks the best model automatically. Eight kernel Persistent daemon deployed on Fly.io Amsterdam (eight-vessel.fly.dev). WebSocket protocol, 4-strategy retry loop, session persistence across reconnections. NemoClaw policy engine YAML-based, deny-by-default, rebuilt from scratch. 11 default rules with approval gates for secrets, destructive ops, network, git, and file access. Headless and infinite modes for autonomous operation.

8 Powers Memory, parallel worktrees, NemoClaw policy, self-evolution, self-healing, entrepreneurship, AST blast radius, and browser access. Not plugins. Built-in. HyperAgent meta-improvement Metacognitive self-modification. The agent can improve how it improves -meta-config is editable while the evaluation protocol stays human-controlled. AutoResearch Overnight improvement loops (Karpathy-style). Runs benchmarks, mutates system prompts, re-tests. Meta-optimizer also tunes few-shots, model routing, and grading weights. Voice chat /voice chat starts a half-duplex conversation loop. Speak, Eight transcribes, thinks, and speaks back. ESC to interrupt mid-speech. AST-first navigation  ·  Multi-agent orchestration  ·  Telegram portal

---

The 8 Powers

Memory packages/memory/ Dual-layer episodic + semantic memory, SQLite + FTS5, Ollama embeddings, procedural memory, health monitoring, contradiction detection, consolidation, lease-based job queue	Worktree packages/orchestration/ Multi-agent parallel execution via git worktrees, max 4 concurrent, filesystem messaging, macro-actions, delegation	Policy packages/permissions/ NemoClaw YAML policy engine, 11 default rules, approval gates, headless mode, infinite mode, dangerous command detection	Evolution packages/self-autonomy/ Post-session reflection, Bayesian skill confidence, HyperAgent meta-mutation, self-improvement DB
Healing packages/validation/ Checkpoint-verify-revert loop, git-stash atomic snapshots, failure log	Entrepreneurship packages/proactive/ GitHub bounty/help-wanted scanner, capability matcher, opportunity pipeline	AST packages/ast-index/ Blast radius engine, import dependency graph, test file mapping, change impact estimation	Browser packages/tools/browser/ Lightweight web access via fetch + DuckDuckGo HTML scraping, disk cache, no headless deps

---

Companion System

Every session spawns a unique companion. Your coding history becomes a collectible deck.

• 40 species across 5 rarity tiers (Common 60% to Legendary 1%)
• 10 elements inspired by MTG color pie (Void, Ember, Aether, Verdant, Radiant, Chrome, Prism, Frost, Thunder, Shadow)
• 29 accessories from Pokeball to Triforce to One Ring
• 6 stats per companion (DEBUG, CHAOS, WISDOM, PATIENCE, SNARK, ARCANA)
• 1% shiny chance
• Collection deck persists at ~/.8gent/companion-deck.json
• macOS dock pet spawns with companion's name and colors

/pet start      # Spawn companion on dock
/pet deck       # View your collection
/pet card       # Roll a new card

See packages/pet/README.md for the full bestiary.

---

Presentations

Deck	Link
npm Launch	8gent.world/media/decks/npm-launch
Lil Eight Pets	8gent.world/media/decks/lil-eight
Companion System	8gent.world/media/decks/companion-system
Code Roadmap	8gent.world/media/decks/code-roadmap
All Decks	8gent.world/media/decks

---

Voice Chat

Half-duplex voice conversation with Eight. Requires sox and whisper.cpp:

brew install sox whisper-cpp

In the TUI, type /voice chat to start. Eight listens (sox with silence detection), transcribes (whisper.cpp local or OpenAI cloud fallback), thinks (agent loop), and speaks back (macOS say). Press ESC to interrupt mid-speech or exit voice mode.

_{Status bar shows: VOICE CHAT (listening) / SPEAKING / THINKING}

---

How It Works

User prompt
  -> BMAD planner (structured task decomposition)
  -> Multi-agent orchestration (sub-agents in worktrees)
  -> Toolshed (MCP, LSP, shell, AST, filesystem)
  -> Execution + validation (self-healing loop)
  -> Result

_{The agent decomposes work, delegates to sub-agents, validates output against test suites, and reports back. It uses the BMAD method for planning and AST-level symbol retrieval to keep token usage minimal.}

---

Benchmarks

_{Execution-graded tests across professional domains. All local inference via Ollama.
Code compiles and runs against bun:test suites, or it fails. No string matching, no vibes.}

ID	Domain	Task	Score
BT001	Software Engineering	SaaS Auth: JWT, Roles, Rate Limiting	94
BT002	Software Engineering	Event-Driven Architecture: Pub/Sub, DLQ, Retry	92
BT003	Data Engineering	Stream Processing Pipeline	100
BT005	Software Engineering	Typed State Machine: Guards, Actions	92
BT007	Digital Marketing	SEO Audit Engine: Scoring, Core Web Vitals	96
BT011	Video Production	Scene Graph, Timeline, FFmpeg CLI	100
BT012	Music Technology	Notes, Chords, Scales, Progressions	81
BT014	AI Consulting	Assessment Report Generator	95

_{Additional categories: long-horizon (LH001–LH005), agentic (TC001–MR001), fullstack (FS001–FS003), UI design (UI001–UI008), ability showcase.}

bun run benchmark:v2                    # single pass
CATEGORY=battle-test bun run benchmark:loop  # autoresearch loop

_{Full results: benchmarks/README.md  ·  Model shootout: docs/MODEL-SHOOTOUT.md}

---

Project Structure

Apps apps/ tui/ Ink v6 terminal UI (main interface) clui/ Tauri 2.0 desktop overlay (scaffolded) dashboard/ Next.js admin panel debugger/ Session debugger demos/ Remotion video generation installer/ Interactive install wizard

Packages packages/ eight/ Core agent engine (Vercel AI SDK) daemon/ Persistent vessel daemon (Fly.io) ai/ Provider abstraction (Ollama, OpenRouter) memory/ SQLite + FTS5 persistent memory orchestration/ WorktreePool, macro actions permissions/ NemoClaw YAML policy engine self-autonomy/ Evolution, reflection, HyperAgent validation/ Self-healing executor proactive/ Business agents, opportunity scanner ast-index/ Blast radius engine tools/ Browser, actuators, filesystem, shell voice/ STT (whisper.cpp) + voice chat loop kernel/ RL fine-tuning pipeline (off by default) personality/ Brand voice, "Infinite Gentleman" telegram/ Telegram bot portal auth/ Clerk auth + GitHub integration db/ Convex reactive database control-plane/ Multi-tenant management board-plane/ Board-level vessel orchestration board-vessel/ Autonomous AI officer blueprint

_{Additional directories: benchmarks/ execution-graded benchmarks + autoresearch  ·  bin/ CLI entry points  ·  docs/ architecture docs}

---

Roadmap

Now Memory v1 enhancements: procedural memory and lease-based job queue landed. Contradiction detection, health introspection, and checkpointing in progress. Model shootout iteration: improving autonomous task completion rates after 0/5 in first round. Daemon reliability: 4-strategy retry loop landed.

Next HyperAgent meta-improvement loop Kernel fine-tuning pipeline activation (off by default) Personal LoRA from session training pairs

Later Desktop client (Tauri 2.0, scaffolded in apps/clui/) Multi-tenant control plane Full autonomous issue resolution

---

Slash Commands

Command What it does /voice chat Start voice conversation mode /voice start Push-to-talk recording /model <name> Switch LLM model /board Kanban task board /predict Confidence-scored step predictions /momentum Velocity stats /evidence Session evidence summary

Command What it does /history Browse past sessions /resume Resume a previous session /compact Compact current session /github GitHub integration /auth status Check auth state /debug Session inspector /deploy <target> Deploy to Vercel/Railway/Fly /throughput Token throughput stats /scorecard Ability scorecard metrics /soul Current persona calibration /router Task router + model selection /music Toggle lofi music (ADHD mode) /rename Rename the current session

---

Documentation

Architecture & Specs

Doc	What it covers
SOUL.md	Agent persona and principles
CLAUDE.md	Dev conventions, design system, repo rules
docs/HYPERAGENT-SPEC.md	HyperAgent metacognitive self-modification spec
docs/MODEL-SHOOTOUT.md	Local vs cloud model comparison results
docs/MEMORY-SPEC.md	Memory layer architecture and API reference
docs/KERNEL-FINETUNING.md	RL fine-tuning pipeline
docs/PERSONALIZATION.md	5-layer personalization system
docs/TOOLSHED.md	Capability discovery and skill registry
docs/permissions.md	Policy engine and approval gates
docs/BRANCH-DECISIONS.md	Architecture decision log
CONTRIBUTING.md	How to contribute

External Resources

Resource	Link
8gent Constitution	8gent.world/constitution
Presentation Decks	8gent.world/media/decks
Architecture Inspirations	8gent.world/inspirations

---

Inspirations

Architecture credits. These projects informed specific parts of 8gent's design.

Hermes by ArcadeAI -persistent memory and self-evolution patterns CashClaw -autonomous work discovery and value generation NemoClaw -policy-driven governance and approval gate architecture HyperAgents (Meta FAIR, March 2026) -metacognitive self-modification Hypothesis Loop -atomic commit-verify-revert development cycle

Blast Radius Engine -AST-based change impact estimation Claude Code -worktree isolation pattern for parallel agent execution Karpathy's autoresearch methodology -iterative prompt mutation and meta-optimization SoulSpec -agent persona standard usecomputer -cross-platform desktop automation via native Zig N-API Quitty -process management and resource conservation UX

_{Full list at 8gent.world/inspirations}

---

Apache 2.0 - James Spalding, Founder and Visionary

X / Twitter  ·  GitHub  ·  8gent.dev  ·  8gent.world

_{Your OS. Your rules. Your AI.}