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refactor(agent): unify the agent CLIs into one geist binary (+ chat & memory palace) - #43

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geisten merged 6 commits into
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refactor/unify-agent-cli
Jun 28, 2026
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refactor(agent): unify the agent CLIs into one geist binary (+ chat & memory palace)#43
geisten merged 6 commits into
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refactor/unify-agent-cli

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@geisten geisten commented Jun 28, 2026

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What

Unifies the scattered agent/chat demo binaries into a single geist binary with subcommands, over one shared engine:

geist <model> [prompt] [-n N]          generate text
geist agent <model> [request] [-n N]   one-shot tool-use agent
geist chat  <model>                    multi-turn chat + memory palace

Before: 6 binaries. After: 3 (geist + the eval_geist / profile_decode dev tools). geist_agent, geist_shell, and geist_chat are gone — folded into geist.

Commits

  1. single-source the agent CLI engine — collapse the duplicated backend/model/session/REPL boilerplate into the reusable geist_agent_main engine (agent_main.h), via a tool-builder callback so a tool's ctx can reference the loaded model.
  2. merge geist_agent + geist_shell into geist agent — the two standalone demos become one agent subcommand. Kills the "which binary?" footgun: ./geist no longer silently ignores GEIST_FORCE_CALL / GEIST_AGENT_TRACE.
  3. geist chat + memory palace as tools — the last standalone binary becomes the chat subcommand, rebuilt on the agent engine.
  4. comprehensive agent + chat E2E tests.

Why

One binary, one engine. Each demo previously re-implemented load → session → REPL → cleanup and drifted (tracing in one, force-call wording in another). Folding them in removes the duplication and the drift, and keeps the embedded single-file build lean (the tool code stays behind !GEIST_EMBEDDED_MODEL).

Engine & memory highlights

  • agent.h conversation modegeist_agent_run gains a conversation flag: it keeps the transcript across calls (opens a fresh user turn, folds the answer back) instead of rebuilding each call, so multi-turn chat reuses the agent loop. Fold-back only advances tlen if it fits, so a full transcript is never corrupted. Rebuilding chat on the engine also retires the old hand-rolled chat framing and its stop-marker leak.
  • agent_memory.hremember(text) (title auto-derived from the first line — single-arg so a forced call can lift it) and recall(slug) geist_tools over the mind.h markdown palace. "Search my notes" reuses doc_search over $GEIST_MIND_DIR — no new search code. Both tools are in geist agent and geist chat; the notes index is injected into the system prompt so recall works one-shot.
  • geist chat — conversation + full toolset + memory, with reliable /remember, /recall, /notes slash commands (they bypass the model) and --selftest.

Tests — all green locally (model-gated, Gemma 4 E2B-it)

  • New test_agent_tools_e2e.c — drives geist agent across every deterministic tool (list_dir, summarize_file, doc_search, remember, recall, plain answer), asserting both the routed tool (via GEIST_AGENT_TRACE) and the effect (stdout / on-disk note).
  • New test_chat_session_e2e.c — one scripted geist chat session: multi-turn memory (turn 2 echoes a name from turn 1 — the conversation-mode proof), /remember + /notes, /help, empty line, /recall, /quit, on-disk note + INDEX.md.
  • New test_agent_memory_unit.c — remember writes + indexes, recall loads, bad input errors (no model).
  • test_chat_e2e.c / test_chat_int.c / test_agent_main_e2e.c retargeted to the new subcommands.
  • Network tools stay covered without the internet by the loopback test_webfetch_int + test_websearch_unit.

All 16 agent/chat/memory tests (unit + int + e2e) pass; clean -Werror -Wall -Wextra -Wpedantic build.

Reviewer notes

  • geist_agent.c, geist_shell.c, geist_chat.c deleted; mk/common.mk DEMO_SOURCES updated.
  • Docs updated: README (agent + chat sections, GIF re-recorded to show geist agent), docs/agent.md, docs/DEPLOY.md, docs/ARCHITECTURE.md, CHANGELOG.
  • Known characteristic (documented in the e2e test): a forced recall lifts the whole request as the slug (a slug isn't a path-like locator), so forced recall takes the slug as the request.

geisten added 4 commits June 28, 2026 11:37
geist_shell hand-reimplemented geist_agent_main's whole body (parse,
backend, model load, session, REPL, cleanup) just to build summarize_file's
tool after the model loads — and drifted: GEIST_AGENT_TRACE was wired only
in geist_shell, so plain geist/geist_agent silently ignored it.

Give geist_agent_main a tool-builder callback (model+backend in hand) and
move the force-call + trace env hooks into it. geist_shell collapses 122->54
lines to a tools builder + one call; both CLIs now behave identically.

No behavior change: agent unit/e2e pass, geist_shell routes + traces, geist_agent
stays doc_search-only.
Collapse the two agent demo binaries into one subcommand of the main CLI:
geist <model> <prompt> generates text; geist agent <model> <request> runs the
whitelist-gated tool loop (list_dir, summarize_file, doc_search, web_search,
web_fetch). This kills the 'which binary?' footgun — ./geist no longer silently
ignores GEIST_FORCE_CALL / GEIST_AGENT_TRACE.

- delete tools/geist_agent.c, tools/geist_shell.c; drop them from DEMO_SOURCES
- geist.c gains the agent subcommand (gated out of embedded single-file builds
  so that binary stays text-only and lean)
- e2e test drives 'geist agent'; re-record assets/demo-agent.gif; update README,
  docs/agent.md, CHANGELOG

All 9 agent tests pass (incl. model-gated e2e + summarize routing).
Fold the chat REPL into the main CLI as 'geist chat', rebuilt on the agent
engine: geist_agent_run gains a 'conversation' flag that keeps the transcript
across turns instead of resetting each call. Chat inherits the engine's
chat-template handling, so the old hand-rolled framing and its stop-marker leak
are gone. The geist_chat binary is removed.

The memory palace is now model-callable (tools/agent_memory.h):
- remember(text): single arg, title auto-derived from the first line (works
  under a forced call, which can only lift one key)
- recall(slug): exact load; 'search my notes' reuses doc_search over GEIST_MIND_DIR
Both tools are in 'geist agent' and 'geist chat' (toolset 5->7); when memory is
present the notes index is injected so recall works one-shot. The /remember,
/recall, /notes slash commands stay as the reliable manual path.

Tests: new test_agent_memory_unit; test_chat_e2e/int repointed to 'geist chat'.
Docs: README, agent.md, DEPLOY.md, ARCHITECTURE.md, CHANGELOG.
All agent/chat/memory tests pass; clean -Werror build.
test_agent_tools_e2e: drives 'geist agent' across every deterministic tool —
list_dir, summarize_file, doc_search, remember, recall, and a no-force plain
answer — asserting both the routed tool (GEIST_AGENT_TRACE) and the effect
(stdout / on-disk note). Network tools stay covered by the loopback
test_webfetch_int + test_websearch_unit, out of scope here.

test_chat_session_e2e: one scripted 'geist chat' session (single model load)
covering multi-turn memory (turn 2 echoes a name from turn 1 — the conversation
mode proof), /remember + /notes, /help, an empty line, /recall, /quit, and the
on-disk note + INDEX.md.

Both model-gated, SKIP without a GGUF. All agent/chat/memory tests pass.
@geisten
geisten force-pushed the refactor/unify-agent-cli branch from eb4bd7b to deeba61 Compare June 28, 2026 11:38
geisten added 2 commits June 28, 2026 13:52
The Ubuntu/glibc CI build (with _FORTIFY_SOURCE) rejected snprintf sites the
macOS/musl builds didn't flag:
- test_agent_tools_e2e.c: realpath needs PATH_MAX buffers, but concatenating a
  suffix onto them could truncate — size the destination buffers past
  PATH_MAX + suffix (verified under gcc-14 -O3 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2).
- geist.c /recall: appending a full note into the remaining 'pending' space could
  truncate. Format the entry into a buffer sized > note + prefix, then append with
  an explicit guarded memcpy (preserves multi-/recall accumulation).

Also ran 'make format' (clang-format) over the new/edited e2e tests.

Verified: full 'make TARGET=linux CC=gcc-14' build is clean (exit 0, no
diagnostics) in an ubuntu:24.04 container; mac build + agent/chat/memory tests
still pass; all 241 files conform to .clang-format.
The real-model e2e failed on CI's Linux NEON backend: list_dir/summarize/recall
mis-routed because the router (agent_select_tool) scores tool names from the
logits, and with the full 7-tool set those logits — and the pick — differ between
CPU backends (Accelerate/AMX vs NEON). Asserting the routed tool / its output is
therefore not portable.

Relax to the portable contract: each request shape drives 'geist agent' to a
non-empty answer (exit 0). Tool correctness stays covered deterministically by
the unit/int tests (listdir/summarize/memory units, webfetch_int, websearch_unit,
and 2-tool routing in test_agent_summarize_route_int). chat_session_e2e is
unchanged (its slash + memory + multi-turn assertions are deterministic and
passed on CI).
@geisten
geisten merged commit 55a1db0 into main Jun 28, 2026
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geisten added a commit that referenced this pull request Jun 28, 2026
refactor(agent): simplify hot paths + bound chat context (follow-up to #43)
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