awnet

Docs · Source · pip install awnet · The Aither World

The Aither World is an operating system for agents — a Linux you can hand to one, the runtimes it works in, and the tools it works with. awnix is the Linux underneath it; awnet is one of its 33 bricks — each installs on its own, runs offline, and needs no account.

Start here: Host a mesh on one machine and join it from another.

The overlay/fabric layer — which peers exist, and can I reach one?

pip install awnet

from awnet import Registry, check_peer

reg = Registry("peers.json")
reg.add_peer("node1", ["node1.local:8080"])
reg.save()

result = check_peer("node1.local:8080")
if result.ok is True:
    print("peer is reachable")
elif result.ok is False:
    print("peer is known but unreachable")
else:  # ok is None
    print("could not determine")

awnet add peers.json node1 node1.local:8080
awnet check node1.local:8080        # 0 ok · 1 unreachable · 2 unknown
awnet list peers.json
awnet get peers.json node1

What it actually does

Separates two distinct concerns:

1. Registry: which peers EXIST (their names and endpoints).
2. Reachability: whether I CAN REACH one right now.

A peer that resolves is not a peer that is reachable. DNS working does not mean the service is listening. A hostname resolve today can be unreachable tomorrow. A reachability cache is a thing that keeps saying "up" for days after the peer is gone.

Three distinct states, reported as three different things:

verdict	ok	meaning
ok	True	peer answers on the network
unreachable	False	peer exists (DNS works) but does not answer
unknown	None	we tried to check but could not determine

Why this matters:

• Unknown means try again. The network is the issue, not the peer.
• Unreachable means the peer is gone. Update your route or failover.
• True means the peer is here. Use it.

Three outcomes that call for three different responses. A test that treats them the same is a test that would pass whether the distinction is there or not.

How it checks

1. DNS resolution — can I name the peer?

   • If DNS fails → unreachable (ok=False)
   • If DNS times out → unknown (ok=None)

2. TCP connect (if DNS succeeds) — is anything listening?

   • If connect succeeds → ok (ok=True)
   • If connect is refused → unreachable (ok=False)
   • If connect times out → unreachable (ok=False)
   • If connect errors → unknown (ok=None)

Socket is closed after each check (no resource leak).

What it does not do — stated, not papered over

This is NOT a VPN implementation. It is the addressing and reachability layer ABOVE one. You bring your own network; awnet tells you which peers are there and whether you can reach them.

A reachability check is a point-in-time snapshot. A peer that answers at check-time might be gone by the time you route to it. awnet returns what it found; it does not promise that it will still be true when you use the result.

Conversely, a peer marked unreachable five minutes ago might be back. awnet does NOT cache results. Every check is fresh. If you want caching, keep it separate and ALWAYS expire it explicitly — a cache that forgets to expire is more dangerous than no cache at all.

TCP port 80 (HTTP) is the only probe. awnet does not know about HTTPS, gRPC, custom protocols, or anything else. If your peer listens on a different port, awnet will reach it. If your peer only answers TLS and you probe plain HTTP, awnet will report it unreachable (which is correct: plain HTTP is unreachable on that peer). The separation is intentional — a fabric layer that understands every protocol is a fabric layer that understands none of them.

Tests

Every claim has a mutation that breaks it. Happy-path tests would let the three-state distinction disappear into the code and break silently.

pip install -e ".[dev]" && pytest

A reachability check that doesn't assert the SPECIFIC state is one that would pass whether the three values (True, False, None) are actually different or not.

Design notes

• No dependencies. A fabric layer that needs an install before it can be read is one nobody reads during an incident. Only the stdlib.
• Registry is separate from checks. Knowing a peer exists is not the same as being able to reach it. Mixing them conflates two distinct questions.
• Three-valued logic is the whole point. "Unknown" is not "unreachable". The network is not the peer. A test that treats them the same is a test that has no teeth.
• No caching in the library. If you cache, you own expiry. A library that caches and forgets to expire is more dangerous than no library.

Where it fits

Part of the aw family: awgit · awgraph · awseal · awdk · awdit · awnode

Apache-2.0.

The aw family

Standalone tools that share one idea: replace something you would otherwise have to trust with something you can check.

Each installs on its own, works offline, and needs no account.

	instead of trusting	you check
awdk	a framework's idea of how your agents should run	one loop you can read, pointed at a backend you already pay for
awskills	that an agent knows your procedure	the procedure written down, versioned, and loadable by any agent
awm	that memory stayed in its lane	tenant:user:project scopes, so a write cannot cross a boundary
awnode	a vendor's cloud with every prompt	a local gateway routing to backends you chose
awgraph	that grep found everything	an AST + tree-sitter call graph an agent can traverse
awgit	that no one else is editing this file	a lease, refused at commit time if you do not hold it
awseal	that the artifact came from who you think	an Ed25519 seal — the key that verifies is not the key that forges
awshare	that the download is intact	content-addressed bundles, verified on fetch
awnest	that there is a person on the other end	a verdict with evidence, where "we could not tell" is not "yes"
awnboard	a share link anyone who sees it can use	an invitation addressed to one person, for one gate, revocable
awnix	that the box is what you left it as	an immutable image you built, with atomic rollback
awrecover	that the restore worked	a restore that fully lands or does not land at all
awrelay	a SaaS in the middle of your agents	findings, alerts and coordination over your own transport
awmail	a mailbox somebody else can read	mail your agents send and receive over your own server
awfind	one vendor's idea of the web	results from whichever providers you configured
awbrowse	that the page said what you were told	the render, the DOM and the requests it made
aitherkvcache	a vendor's quantisation defaults	sub-byte KV cache kernels you can benchmark yourself
AitherZero	a pile of scripts nobody has numbered	numbered, discoverable automation with declarative playbooks
AitherConnect	what a page tells your browser to do	a federated search and desktop bridge you host
awreason	a confident paragraph	the phases it went through, and every tool call it made to get there
awrecurse	that everything you pasted in was actually read	which slices it opened, and what it concluded from each
awprism	the first explanation that fits	the ranked alternatives, and the observation that separates them
awrepl	what the agent believes the value is	the value, printed from the live session
awresearch	a summary of pages nobody opened	every claim against the source it came from
awpredict	a model because it trained without erroring	its prediction against a self-updating lookup, on the rows that are actually novel
awkno	that the docs site is up, or that you remember the family	the whole ecosystem in your terminal, with no network at all

awnix is the ground floor — A Linux you can hand to an agent — immutable base, capabilities included.

The Aitherium ecosystem

Every repository here is public. Each publishes an aither-manifest.json beside its page, so any surface can read every sibling's — the network is browsable from any node in it.

repo	what it is	pages
awdk	Build AI agent fleets — 3 lines, any backend, local or cloud	docs
awskills	Portable agent skills — self-contained procedures an agent loads on demand	docs
awm	A portable, scoped agent memory	docs
awnode	A lightweight local gateway — bridges your apps to the AI backends you chose	docs
awrun	A priority-aware queue and dispatcher for agentic runs and ad-hoc CI builds	docs
awgraph	A semantic code graph for agents — AST + tree-sitter, call graphs	docs
awgit	Semantic version control on top of git — edit-ops and leases	docs
awseal	Sign an artifact so a stranger can verify it	docs
awshare	Publish an artifact and fetch it back verified	docs
awdit	An append-only audit trail whose gaps are DETECTABLE	docs
awbac	Role-based access control that fails closed and explains itself	docs
awiam	Who is this caller? A directory and session store that fails honestly	docs
awtunnel	Reach a service that has no public address	docs
awnest	Prove there is a human before you let them into the nest	docs
awnboard	A front gate you can put in front of anything, and hand someone the key to	docs
awnix	A Linux you can hand to an agent — immutable base, capabilities included	docs
awrecover	Labelled snapshots with an all-or-nothing restore	docs
awrelay	Portable agent messaging — findings, alerts, coordination	docs
awmail	Give an agent an email address — send, and actually receive	docs
awnet (you are here)	The agentic web — agents host a mesh, and agents join one	docs
awfind	A portable search client — query, results, ranking	docs
awbrowse	A portable browser client — navigate, console, network, DOM, screenshot	docs
awknowledge	How to run a coding agent so the result survives — the laws, with evidence	docs
aitherkvcache	Near-optimal KV cache quantization for LLM inference — sub-byte compression	docs
AitherZero	PowerShell 7+ automation framework — numbered, self-describing scripts	docs
AitherConnect	Browser extension — federated AI search, page context, and the Living OS overlay	docs
awreason	A portable reasoning client — sessions, phases, thoughts, and the chain that produced the answer	docs
awrecurse	Answer a question over a context far larger than the window — recursively, with the trace kept	docs
awprism	Turn a failure into ranked hypotheses — and say what would confirm each one	docs
awrepl	A REPL an agent can actually use — state that survives between turns	docs
awresearch	Ask a research question, get a cited report you can check	docs
awpredict	Predict what your environment does next, and how surprised you were	docs
awkno	The man page for the Aither World — every brick, stack and law, offline	docs

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