ollie/AGENTS.md

AGENTS.md

Project-level context for AI agents working in this repository.

Project Overview

Ollie is an AI agent runtime inspired by Plan 9: agent state and behaviors are exposed as files in a 9P namespace. Orchestration, scheduling, and UIs are external — shell scripts, editors, web apps. The core is minimal; capabilities come from composing scripts.

Repository Layout

Monorepo with Git submodules. Each submodule has its own Go module (except el which is Elisp and kde which is C++/Qt).

ollie/                          ← you are here
├── agent/        (Go)          Agent loop, history, hooks, commands
├── toolsrv/      (Go)          Tool server, registry, sandboxed execution
├── session/      (Go)          Session lifecycle, config, persistence
├── fs/session/   (Go)          9P filesystem tree
├── cmd/          (Go)          Binaries (olliesrv, ollie-9p, ollie-remote)
├── tools/        (Go)          Tool implementations:
│   ├── builtin/                Built-in handlers (shell, reasoning, tool/skill registry)
│   └── lsp/                    LSP bridge + cmd/ binaries (definition, hover, rename, ...)
├── kde/          (C++/Qt6)     KDE integration: plasmoid, GUI, Kate plugin, KRunner, tray
├── contrib/elisp (Elisp)       Emacs frontend (ellie.el)
├── data/agents/                Agent config JSONs (loaded at runtime)
├── data/prompts/               System prompt templates (markdown)
├── data/tools/                 Tool executables + .meta sidecar files (installed to $OLLIE_TOOLS_PATH)
├── data/skills/                Domain knowledge modules (markdown)
├── sandbox/                    Landlock sandbox config YAML
├── doc/                        Architecture docs, usage guide
├── contrib/                    Community scripts
└── experiments/                Trial notes

Canonical source for prompts/tools/skills

Prompt and tool files live in data/. The just install-data target copies them to ~/.config/ollie/. Do not edit ~/.config/ollie/ directly — changes are overwritten on next install.

Location	Purpose	Deployed by
data/prompts/, data/tools/	Canonical source for all prompts, tools, and skills	just install-data
data/skills/	Domain knowledge modules (markdown)	just install-data
kde/	KDE-specific tool scripts (gui_*)	just install-kde

Build System

# Build everything:
just
# Individual targets:
just ninep        # olliesrv + ollie-9p
just acme         # acme frontend
just kde          # KDE integration (cmake with ~/.local prefix)
just ollie-remote # remote execution binary
# Install targets (run automatically by the top-level paths):
just install-data     # agents, prompts, tools, skills → ~/.config/ollie/
just install-scripts  # CLI scripts → ~/.config/ollie/scripts/
just install-contrib  # contrib scripts → ~/bin/
just install-kde      # KDE plugins, desktop file, env → ~/.local/
just install-el       # ellie.el → ~/.config/emacs/ellie/
# Test:
just test         # run all tests
just test-core    # core tests only
just test-9p      # 9p tests only
# Lifecycle:
just uninstall    # remove all installed files
just clean        # remove build artifacts

Requires just: cargo install just

Testing

# All Go tests:
go test ./...
# KDE has integration test scripts:
cd kde && ./test-e2e.sh

Language & Conventions

• Go (root module): Go 1.25+, standard library preferred, minimal dependencies.
• C++20/Qt6/KF6 (kde): CMake build, dual Qt5/Qt6 support where noted.
• Elisp (el): single file ellie.el.
• Tool scripts: Python 3, Bash, or compiled binaries. Must be executable. Metadata lives in a .meta sidecar JSON file (see data/tools/*.meta).

Code style

• Go: gofmt, short variable names, error returns (no panics), table-driven tests.
• Tool scripts: emit structured output (STATUS=ok, STATUS=error). Image/LSP tools return JSON content blocks.
• Prompts: markdown, concise, example-driven. Follow the pattern in existing tools-*.md files.

Architecture (key concepts)

1. **One integration surface: 9P filesystem (sessions at session/{id}/agent/{aid}/). Tools, skills, memory on physical filesystem via env vars.
2. Agent loop (agent/loop.go): Streaming LLM call → parse tool calls → dispatch → loop until no more tool calls or max steps.
3. Tool dispatch (toolsrv/): shell is built-in. All others are external scripts resolved from OLLIE_TOOLS_PATH.
4. Sandbox (sandbox/): Landlock-based. Config in sandbox/*.yaml defines filesystem access per profile.
5. Backends (backend/): Ollama, OpenAI-compatible, Anthropic, Copilot, Kiro, Gemini, CodeWhisperer. Selectable per-session.
6. Prompts assembled at runtime: Agent JSON prompt array specifies which prompt files to concatenate. Static prompt files can be included directly; the base system prompt is embedded in the binary and always prepended.

Key Files

What	Where
Agent loop	agent/loop.go
Tool server	toolsrv/server.go
Remote execution	toolsrv/remote.go, cmd/ollie-remote/
Sandbox enforcement	sandbox/
9P filesystem	fs/session/
Session management	session/session.go
System prompt template	Embedded in binary
Agent configs	agents/*.json
Standalone GUI	kde/gui/
Kate plugin	kde/kate/

Environment

Config lives in ~/.config/ollie/env. Key variables:

• OLLIE_BACKEND — default backend (ollama, openai, anthropic, copilot, kiro)
• OLLIE_MODEL — default model
• OLLIE_TOOLS_PATH — where tool scripts live (default: ~/.config/ollie/tools)
• OLLIE_MEMORY_PATH — persistent memory directory
• OLLIE_ENABLED_BACKENDS — backends available for routing

Adding a new tool

Script-based tool (Python/Bash)

1. Create an executable script in data/tools/<name>
2. Create data/tools/<name>.meta with JSON metadata:

   {"description":"...","prompt":"...","args":{...},"tier":"hot","readOnly":false}
   

3. Run just install-data to install

Compiled tool (Go)

1. Create a package under tools/<family>/cmd/<name>/main.go
   • Read JSON args from stdin, write result to stdout, exit 0/1
   • Share library code in tools/<family>/ (e.g. tools/lsp/)
2. Create data/tools/<name>.meta (same format as above)
3. Add a build target in the justfile that compiles to {{cfg}}/tools/<name>
4. Run just to build and install

Both paths produce the same result: an executable + .meta in $OLLIE_TOOLS_PATH. The registry doesn't distinguish between scripts and binaries.

Adding a new prompt

1. Write the markdown file in data/prompts/
2. If it should be loaded by default, reference it in agents/default.json
3. Run just install-data to install

Submodule workflow

The only remaining submodule is kde/. For KDE:

# Update KDE submodule:
git submodule update --remote --merge kde
# Work in the KDE submodule:
cd kde
# ... make changes, commit ...
git push
cd ..
git add kde
git commit -m "update kde submodule"

Each submodule has its own remote at ssh://lkn@lneely.de:44220/lkn/ollie-{name}.git. When cloning, use --recurse-submodules or run git submodule update --init --recursive.

Environment

The only remaining submodule is kde/. For KDE:

# Update KDE submodule:
git submodule update --remote --merge kde
# Work in the KDE submodule:
cd kde
# ... make changes, commit ...
git push
cd ..
git add kde
git commit -m "update kde submodule"

Each submodule has its own remote at ssh://lkn@lneely.de:44220/lkn/ollie-{name}.git. When cloning, use --recurse-submodules or run git submodule update --init --recursive.