ollie

Ollie is an AI agent runtime. A single binary (olliesrv) exposes agent sessions over a single surface: a 9P2000 filesystem. The core is deliberately minimal; capabilities come from composing small pieces — tool executables, skill files, metadata sidecars — rather than building a monolithic framework.

Building

git clone --recurse-submodules https://git.lneely.de/lkn/ollie.git
cd ollie
just

Requires just:

cargo install just

See doc/usage.md for usage instructions.

Configuration

Environment: ~/.config/ollie/env

OLLIE_BACKEND=openai           # ollama | openai | anthropic | copilot | kiro (default: ollama)
OLLIE_OLLAMA_URL=              # base URL for Ollama (default: http://localhost:11434)
OLLIE_OPENAI_URL=https://openrouter.ai/api
OLLIE_OPENAI_KEY=sk-or-...
OLLIE_ANTHROPIC_KEY=sk-ant-...
OLLIE_COPILOT_TOKEN=...
OLLIE_KIRO_TOKEN=...           # bearer token or sqlite:// path (auto-detected from Kiro CLI if unset)
OLLIE_MODEL=qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b
OLLIE_COMPLETE_BACKEND=ollama             # backend for code completion
OLLIE_COMPLETE_MODEL=qwen3:latest         # model for code completion
OLLIE_ROUTE_BACKEND=ollama               # backend for the /route classifier
OLLIE_ROUTE_MODEL=qwen3:8b               # model for task routing

Everything lives under ~/.config/ollie/ by convention — tools in tools/, memory in memory/, agents in agents/, prompts in prompts/, skills in skills/. Shell environment variables take precedence over the env file.

What you can do

Capability	How
CLI	o — unified namespace CLI with read, write, readloop, ls, ctl, prompt, tail, env, stop, kill
Terminal TUI	o tui — tmux + two shell commands, no widgets
One-shot LLM	o generate "explain monads" or echo "prompt" | o generate
Code completion	o complete '{"file":"main.go","prefix":"func "}' or echo '{"file":"..."}' | o complete
Task routing	o route "implement login" or echo "task" | o route → backend=X model=Y
Run an agent	Create a session + agent via 9P — then connect with any frontend (ellie, KDE (GUI/KRunner/Kate), o tui)
Remote execution	Set remote=user@host in session config
Agents	Write a JSON config in data/agents/ with agent prompt in data/prompts/
Tools	Drop an executable + .meta in ~/.config/ollie/tools/ — then load at runtime via tool_load
Domain skills	Load markdown skill modules at runtime

Repository layout

Single Go module with one Git submodule (kde).

Directory	Language	Description
agent/	Go	Agent loop, history, hooks, prompt resolution, commands
backend/	Go	LLM providers (Anthropic, OpenAI, Ollama, Gemini, Copilot, CodeWhisperer)
toolsrv/	Go	Tool server, dynamic tool dispatch, sandboxed execution, remote execution
tools/lsp/	Go	LSP bridge daemon + client library (gopls, clangd, intelephense)
session/	Go	Session lifecycle, config, persistence
fs/	Go	9P filesystem tree for session namespace
detach/	Go	Background process management
elevate/	Go	Elevation broker (privilege escalation)
sandbox/	Go	Landlock sandbox config
cmd/olliesrv/	Go	The main binary
cmd/ollie-9p/	Go	9P client
cmd/ollie-remote/	Go	Remote execution binary
kde/	C++/Qt6	KDE plasmoid, GUI, Kate plugin, KRunner (submodule)
data/agents/	JSON	Agent configs
data/prompts/	Markdown	System prompt templates
data/tools/	Mixed	Tool executables (scripts + compiled) + .meta sidecar files
data/skills/	Markdown	Domain knowledge modules
doc/	Markdown	Architecture docs, usage guide

Architecture

graph TB
    subgraph Frontends
        ACME[Plan 9 acme]
        EMACS[Emacs<br>ellie.el]
        KDE[KDE<br>GUI / Kate / KRunner]
    end

    subgraph "olliesrv"
        P9[9P Filesystem<br>session/ namespace]
        SM[Session Manager]
        AG[agent.Agent<br>loop · compaction<br>prompt templates]
        ROUTE[Router<br>complete · generate · route]
        TOOLS[toolsrv.Server<br>dynamic dispatch · sandbox]
    end

    subgraph "LLM Backends"
        OLL[Ollama]
        OAI[OpenAI / OpenRouter]
        ANT[Anthropic]
        COP[Copilot]
        KIRO[Kiro]
    end

    subgraph Execution
        LOCAL[Tool Scripts<br>loaded via 9P write<br>· shell, reasoning_think<br>· file_*, lsp_*, memory_*<br>· gui_*, subagent_*]
        REMOTE[ollie-remote<br>via SSH · no embedded tools]
    end

    ACME & EMACS & KDE --> P9
    P9 --> SM
    SM --> AG
    AG --> ROUTE
    AG --> TOOLS

    AG -->|streaming| OLL & OAI & ANT & COP & KIRO

    TOOLS --> LOCAL
    TOOLS -->|SSH| REMOTE

olliesrv exposes the agent runtime over a single surface: a 9P2000 filesystem. KDE GUI, Kate plugin, and KRunner all use 9P internally. For a deep dive into the filesystem, see doc/resources/9p.md.

Credits

• Plan 9 from Bell Labs — for an interesting system
• @9fans — for the Plan 9 port
• Suckless — for articulating good software development principles
• @simonfxr — for a solid agent baseline to "borrow" from
• @aws — for a solid open-source agent implementation

License

GPLv3