If kbot is useful to you, consider starring the repo — it helps others discover the project.
npm install -g @kernel.chat/kbotPackage | What it is | npm | Source |
Open-source terminal AI agent — 100+ skills, multi-provider, BYOK, MIT |
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Audit-grade AI infrastructure for capital markets — content-addressed envelopes, hash-chained audit log, regulatory verifier, MCP server. Reference implementation of provenance engineering. Apache 2.0 |
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POSIX for AI agents — ten OS-level primitives: signed capability tokens (acap), namespaces, per-agent quotas (ulimit-tok), taint-tracked exec (chexec), content-addressed audit, downscoped handoff, snapshot, credential vault, rubric-graded outcomes. Runs above Modal-class sandboxes, below MCP/A2A. Apache 2.0 |
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Reference implementation of orchestration engineering — pipelines that route work between agents and humans with audit trails. v0.1 ships the outreach pipeline. MIT |
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Plus this repo also serves kernel.chat — the magazine of agentic engineering (the software branch of autonomy engineering, the broader field already in working use across defense, aerospace, robotics, and scientific-AI communities). The editorial beat is the whole field; the disciplines this group has coined and shipped reference implementations for are:
Provenance engineering — substrate underneath the agent. packages/kbot-finance/ROLE.md. Declared in ISSUE 381 — On Provenance.
agent-OS — system primitives the agent runs on top of. packages/agent-os/. Positioned as POSIX for AI agents.
Orchestration engineering — pipelines that route work between agents and humans with audit trails. packages/kbot-orchestrator/ROLE.md. Declared in ISSUE 387 — On Orchestration.
The field map is at docs/agentic-engineering.md: six disciplines, three coined and held by kernel.chat, three open to whoever names them first (skill curation, evaluation, operations). ISSUE 386 — On the Field makes the magazine's beat explicit. ISSUE 388 — On the Branch positions agentic engineering inside autonomy engineering and opens the "Agentic Substrates for the Frontier" series (4-6 issues reading the embodied, scientific, and neuro branches through the substrate-discipline lens). The practitioner's note on what agents can actually earn is at docs/agents-and-money.md.
@kernel.chat/kbot-orchestrator (pipelines — orchestration engineering)
│
│ reads briefings, routes work to specialist agents,
│ gates at material approval points, appends audit trails
│
your AI agent → @kernel.chat/agent-os (permissions, quotas, audit, vault)
│
├─→ @kernel.chat/kbot (the agent itself)
└─→ @kernel.chat/kbot-finance (regulated-industry verifier)agent-os is the OS-level substrate; kbot is one tenant of that OS; kbot-finance is the compliance verifier those tenants call when the work is regulated; kbot-orchestrator is the pipeline layer that drives all of them through real-world multi-step outcomes. Open core throughout, with commercial offerings downstream.
Related MCP server: nexus-mcp
Most terminal AI agents lock you into one provider, one model, one way of working. kbot doesn't.
20 providers, zero lock-in — Claude, GPT, Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek, Groq, Mistral, SambaNova, Cerebras, OpenRouter, and more. Switch with one command.
Runs fully offline — Embedded llama.cpp, Ollama, LM Studio, or Jan. $0, fully private.
Learns your patterns — Bayesian skill ratings + pattern extraction. Gets faster over time.
35 specialist agents — auto-routes your request to the right expert (coder, researcher, writer, guardian, quant, and 30 more).
600+ tools — files, bash, git, GitHub, web search, deploy, database, game dev, VFX, research, science, finance, security, and more.
Programmatic SDK — use kbot as a library in your own apps.
MCP server built in — plug kbot into Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Zed, or Neovim as a tool provider.
kbot | Claude Code | Codex CLI | Aider | OpenCode | |
AI providers | 20 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 75+ |
Specialist agents | 35 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Built-in tools | 600+ | ~20 | ~15 | ~10 | ~15 |
Science tools | 114 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Learning engine | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Offline mode | Embedded + Ollama | No | No | Ollama | Ollama |
SDK | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
MCP server | Yes | N/A | No | No | No |
Web companion | kernel.chat | No | No | No | No |
Open source | MIT | Source available | Apache 2.0 | Apache 2.0 | MIT |
Cost | BYOK / $0 local | $20+/mo | BYOK | BYOK | BYOK |
# Install globally
npm install -g @kernel.chat/kbot
# Or run directly (no install)
npx @kernel.chat/kbot
# Or use the install script (auto-installs Node.js if needed)
curl -fsSL https://kernel.chat/install.sh | bash# Interactive mode
kbot
# One-shot
kbot "explain this codebase"
kbot "fix the auth bug in src/auth.ts"
kbot "create a Dockerfile for this project"
# Pipe mode (for scripting)
kbot -p "generate a migration for user roles" > migration.sql
# Use local models (free, no API key)
kbot local
# Set up your API key
kbot authkbot auto-routes to the right agent for each task. Or pick one with --agent <name>.
Agents | |
Core | kernel, researcher, coder, writer, analyst |
Extended | aesthete, guardian, curator, strategist |
Domain | infrastructure, quant, investigator, oracle, chronist, sage, communicator, adapter |
Presets | claude-code, cursor, copilot, creative, developer |
Category | Examples |
Files & Code | read, write, glob, grep, lint, format, type-check |
Shell | bash, parallel execute, background tasks |
Git & GitHub | commit, diff, PR, issues, code search |
Web | search, fetch, browser automation, browser agent |
Research | arXiv, Semantic Scholar, HuggingFace, NASA, DOI |
Data | CSV read/query/write, transforms, reports, invoices |
Quality | lint (ESLint/Biome/Clippy), test (Vitest/Jest/pytest), deps audit, formatting |
Deploy | Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Workers/Pages, Fly.io, Railway |
Database | Postgres, MySQL, SQLite queries, Prisma, ER diagrams, seed data |
Containers | Docker build/run/compose, Terraform |
Creative | p5.js generative art, GLSL shaders, SVG patterns, design variants |
VFX | GLSL shaders, FFmpeg, ImageMagick, Blender, procedural textures |
Game Dev | 16 tools for Godot, Unity, Unreal, Bevy, Phaser, Three.js, PlayCanvas, Defold |
Training | dataset prep, fine-tuning, evaluation, model export |
Social | post to X, LinkedIn, Bluesky, Mastodon — single posts and threads |
Sandbox | Docker sandboxes, E2B cloud sandboxes, isolated code execution |
Notebooks | Jupyter read/edit/insert/delete cells |
Build Matrix | cross-platform builds — mobile, desktop, WASM, embedded, server |
LSP | goto definition, find references, hover, rename, diagnostics |
Memory | persistent memory save/search/update across sessions |
MCP | marketplace search/install, 20 bundled servers |
IDE | MCP server, ACP server, LSP bridge |
Forge | create tools at runtime, publish to registry, install from registry |
Meta | subagents, worktrees, planner, sessions, checkpoints, self-eval |
Science & Math | symbolic compute, matrix ops, FFT, ODEs, probability, optimization, graph theory, OEIS |
Physics | orbital mechanics, circuits, signal processing, particles (PDG), relativity, quantum simulator, beam analysis, fluid dynamics |
Chemistry | PubChem compounds, reactions, periodic table (118 elements), spectroscopy, stoichiometry, thermodynamics |
Biology | PubMed, gene lookup, protein/PDB, BLAST, drug/ChEMBL, pathways, taxonomy, clinical trials |
Earth & Climate | earthquakes/USGS, climate/NOAA, satellite imagery, geology, ocean, air quality, volcanoes, water resources |
Neuroscience | brain atlas, EEG analysis, cognitive models, neural simulation, connectome, psychophysics |
Social Science | psychometrics, game theory, econometrics, social network analysis, survey design, voting systems |
Humanities | corpus analysis, formal logic, argument mapping, ethics frameworks, historical timelines, stylometry |
Health & Epidemiology | SIR/SEIR models, epidemiology calculations, disease surveillance, nutrition, vaccination modeling |
Finance | market data, technical analysis, paper trading, DeFi yields, wallet & swaps, stock screener, sentiment |
Cybersecurity | dep_audit, secret_scan, ssl_check, headers_check, cve_lookup, port_scan, owasp_check |
Self-Defense | memory HMAC, prompt injection detection, knowledge sanitization, forge verification, anomaly detection |
Provider | Cost | Local? |
Embedded (llama.cpp) | Free | Yes |
Ollama | Free | Yes |
LM Studio | Free | Yes |
Jan | Free | Yes |
DeepSeek | $0.27/M in | Cloud |
SambaNova | $0.50/M in | Cloud |
Cerebras | $0.60/M in | Cloud |
Groq | $0.59/M in | Cloud |
NVIDIA NIM | $0.80/M in | Cloud |
Together AI | $0.88/M in | Cloud |
Fireworks AI | $0.90/M in | Cloud |
Google (Gemini) | $1.25/M in | Cloud |
Mistral | $2.00/M in | Cloud |
OpenAI (GPT) | $2.00/M in | Cloud |
Cohere | $2.50/M in | Cloud |
Anthropic (Claude) | $3.00/M in | Cloud |
xAI (Grok) | $3.00/M in | Cloud |
Perplexity | $3.00/M in | Cloud |
OpenRouter | varies | Cloud |
kbot local | Free | Yes |
Set any provider's env var and kbot auto-detects it. Or run kbot auth for interactive setup.
import { agent, tools, providers } from '@kernel.chat/kbot'
const result = await agent.run("fix the auth bug", { agent: 'coder' })
console.log(result.content)
for await (const event of agent.stream("explain this code")) {
if (event.type === 'content_delta') process.stdout.write(event.text)
}graph TD
A[User Message] --> B{Local-first check}
B -->|file, git, grep| C[Instant response — $0]
B -->|Needs AI| D{Complexity detection}
D -->|Simple| E[Bayesian Router → Specialist]
D -->|Multi-step| F[Autonomous Planner]
E --> G[Provider API + Tool Loop]
F --> G
G --> H{600+ Tools}
H --> I[File ops, bash, git, GitHub, search, deploy, DB, game dev...]
G --> J[Learning Engine]
J --> K[Patterns + Solutions + User Profile]
G --> L[Checkpointing]
L --> M[Resume from last tool call]
Use kbot as a tool provider inside any MCP-compatible IDE:
{
"mcp": {
"servers": {
"kbot": { "command": "kbot", "args": ["ide", "mcp"] }
}
}
}Or run via Docker:
docker run -i --rm kernelchat/kbot ide mcpWorks with Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Zed, Neovim.
Command | What it does |
| Interactive REPL |
| One-shot execution |
| Configure API key |
| Use local AI (Ollama, embedded, LM Studio, Jan) |
| Start HTTP REST + SSE streaming server |
| Security + quality audit of any GitHub repo |
| Find good-first-issues and quick wins |
| Share conversation as GitHub Gist |
| File watcher with auto-analysis |
| Multi-agent TCP collaboration |
| Terminal session recording (SVG, GIF, asciicast) |
| Text-to-speech output mode |
| Real-time file analysis on change |
| Outer-loop project optimizer (visibility scoring) |
| Search, install, update community plugins |
| List, pull, remove, catalog local models |
| Generate changelog from git history |
| Shell completions (bash, zsh, fish) |
| Sync learning data to kernel.chat |
| Start MCP server for IDEs |
| 10-point health check |
kbot --architect "design the auth system" # Architecture mode — plan before code
kbot --thinking "solve this hard problem" # Extended reasoning with thinking budget
kbot --self-eval "write a parser" # Self-evaluation loop — scores and retries
kbot --computer-use "fill out this form" # Computer use — controls mouse and keyboard
kbot -p "query" > output.txt # Pipe mode — clean output for scriptingAPI keys encrypted at rest (AES-256-CBC)
Destructive operations require confirmation
Shell commands sandboxed with blocklist
Tool execution timeout (5 min) with middleware pipeline
Config files restricted to owner (chmod 600)
0 P0/P1 security issues (audited March 2026)
cd packages/kbot
npm install
npm run dev # Run in dev mode
npm run build # Compile TypeScript
npm run test # Run tests (vitest)kbot has a web companion at kernel.chat — same agents, persistent memory, and a visual interface. Free to use (20 messages/day).
Web: kernel.chat
npm: @kernel.chat/kbot
Discord: discord.gg/kdMauM9abG
GitHub: isaacsight/kernel
Issues: Report a bug
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