olliesrv

A 9P server that exposes ollie agent sessions as a virtual filesystem. Mount it with 9pfuse and interact with AI sessions using ordinary shell tools.

The goal is integration, not self-sufficiency. Rather than providing orchestration, scheduling, or workflow primitives, olliesrv exposes a stable surface — sessions as directories, conversation as files — and defers everything else to the surrounding environment. Scripting, chaining, monitoring, and automation come from composing olliesrv with tools that already exist, not from building those capabilities into the server.

Filesystem layout

ollie/
  p/                    dir:   prompt templates (r/w, backed by ~/.config/ollie/prompts/)
    SYSTEM_PROMPT.md    r/w:   the system prompt template
  pl/                   dir:   plans
  s/                    dir:   one entry per active session, sorted by creation time
    new                 r/w:   read: KV template; write: create session
    <session-id>/               rm -r to kill session; mv to rename
      prompt            write: submit a prompt to the agent
      enqueue           write: queue a prompt for later execution
      dequeue           read:  pop the next queued prompt
      chat              read:  cumulative conversation history
      reply             read:  assistant text from the most recent turn only
      state             read:  current agent state (idle, thinking, calling: <tool>)
      ctl               write: stop | <command>
      backend           r/w:   active backend name
      agent             r/w:   active agent name
      model             r/w:   active model name
      workdir           r/w:   working directory for tool execution and system prompt
      usage             read:  token counts (input, output, requests; [estimated] if not reported by backend)
      ctxsz             read:  estimated context size vs context window
  sk/                   dir:   skills (r/w, from OLLIE_SKILLS_PATH or ~/.config/ollie/skills/)
    <name>.md           r/w:   skill SKILL.md content
  t/                    dir:   tool scripts (r/w, backed by ~/.config/ollie/tools/)
    <script>            r/w:   tool script content

Session IDs are Unix nanosecond timestamps with a random suffix (e.g. 1744276689123456789-2b986c), so ls s/ sorted lexicographically gives creation order.

Building

mk

Installs olliesrv to $HOME/bin.

Usage

olliesrv start       # start daemon (backgrounds itself)
olliesrv fgstart     # start in foreground
olliesrv stop        # stop daemon
olliesrv status      # check if running

The server listens on a Unix socket in the Plan 9 namespace ($NAMESPACE/ollie) and optionally mounts via 9pfuse to $HOME/mnt/ollie (or $OLLIE_9MOUNT).

Sessions

Create a session

cat ~/mnt/ollie/s/new                # show required/optional KV pairs
echo "workdir=/home/lkn/src/myproject" > ~/mnt/ollie/s/new
echo "workdir=/home/lkn/src/myproject backend=ollama model=qwen3:8b" > ~/mnt/ollie/s/new

Valid keys: workdir (required), backend, model, agent.

A new session directory appears under s/.

Send a prompt

echo "what files are in the current directory?" > ~/mnt/ollie/s/<session-id>/prompt

Writes dispatch asynchronously on close, so the shell returns immediately. The agent runs in the background.

Read the conversation

cat ~/mnt/ollie/s/<session-id>/chat             # full history snapshot
tail -f ~/mnt/ollie/s/<session-id>/chat         # follow output as it arrives

The chat file is an append-only log of the full conversation.

Check agent state

cat ~/mnt/ollie/s/<session-id>/state
# idle | thinking | calling: <toolname>

Control a session

echo stop > ~/mnt/ollie/s/<session-id>/ctl          # interrupt the current turn
echo compact > ~/mnt/ollie/s/<session-id>/ctl        # summarize context
echo clear > ~/mnt/ollie/s/<session-id>/ctl          # clear session history
echo kill > ~/mnt/ollie/s/<session-id>/ctl           # kill session
echo "rn my-name" > ~/mnt/ollie/s/<session-id>/ctl   # rename session
echo "model qwen3:8b" > ~/mnt/ollie/s/<session-id>/ctl

ctl accepts stop, kill, rn <name>, or any command supported by the agent (the / prefix is added automatically).

Switch backend, model, or agent

echo ollama > ~/mnt/ollie/s/<session-id>/backend
echo qwen3:8b > ~/mnt/ollie/s/<session-id>/model
echo myagent > ~/mnt/ollie/s/<session-id>/agent

Writes to backend, model, and agent are rejected with an error when the agent is not idle. Writes via ctl are asynchronous and cannot return errors; if the agent is running, the command is silently rejected. Check state to confirm the change took effect.

Kill a session

rm -r ~/mnt/ollie/s/<session-id>

Rename a session

mv ~/mnt/ollie/s/<session-id> ~/mnt/ollie/s/my-friendly-name

Rename is rejected if the agent is running or the target name already exists. All open file handles into the session are updated automatically.

Example shell session

$ echo "workdir=/home/lkn/src/ollie" > ~/mnt/ollie/s/new
$ ls ~/mnt/ollie/s/
new
1744276689123456789-2b986c
$ cd ~/mnt/ollie/s/1744276689123456789-2b986c
$ tail -f chat &
$ echo "list the go files in /home/lkn/src/ollie" > prompt
user: list the go files in /home/lkn/src/ollie
assistant: -> execute_code({"code":"find /home/lkn/src/ollie -name '*.go'","language":"bash"})
= pkg/agent/core.go
pkg/agent/loop.go
...
assistant: The Go source files are: core.go, loop.go, ...
$ cat state
idle
$ mv ~/mnt/ollie/s/1744276689123456789-2b986c ~/mnt/ollie/s/ollie-demo
$ ls ~/mnt/ollie/s/
new
ollie-demo