clawsome 2026.5.17

A lean Python harness for running persistent AI agents

Clawsome

A lean python harness for running persistent AI agents.

Clawsome is under early, active development. Expect rough edges, breaking changes, and missing features. Feedback and contributions are welcome.

Setup

Clawsome talks to a few external services (Ollama, SearXNG, a Matrix homeserver) — get those running first, then pip install -e . and point claw at a populated claw.yaml.

→ See docs/setup.md for prerequisites, install notes (including the macOS libolm wrinkle), and a first-boot checklist.

Architecture

A single clawsome process manages multiple agents, each with a workspace (state on disk) and one or more channels (inbound surfaces — Matrix is the shipped one). Per-turn, the agent loads its transcript, assembles a system prompt from injected identity files + retrieved memory, runs an Ollama tool loop, and replies. Background tasks (compaction, memory_flush, reindex, cron, session rotate) run off the user-reply path. An optional control plane lets allowlisted operators run in-band admin commands (%stop, %compact, %clear, …) that are intercepted before the model and never enter the transcript.

→ See docs/architecture.md for the full mental model, request lifecycle, and workspace file contract.

Configuration

claw.yaml is parsed once at startup; editing requires a restart. The shipped claw.example.yaml is a runnable template with inline comments.

→ See docs/configuration.md for the full key-by-key reference.

Operations

Background tuning, daily session rotate, memory retrieval cadence, Matrix bot first-deploy (token + cross-signing UIA + ghost-DM avoidance), the admin-command runbook (%stop/%compact/%clear/%subagents/ %verbose/%thinking), and log-based troubleshooting.

→ See docs/operations.md.

Extending

Three extension points: skills (workspace-local; markdown protocol + optional tool.py), built-in tools (in-tree; universal capability), channels (in-tree; new inbound surface). Skills cover 99% of cases.

→ See docs/extending.md.

Deployment

pip install exposes a claw console script that takes --config <path/to/claw.yaml> and runs in the foreground. Wire it into launchd / systemd / your process manager of choice as a long-lived service running under a dedicated user. This repo intentionally does not ship example service files — paths, log destinations, and label/unit names all depend on the host layout.

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Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome on GitHub.

Tests

pip install -e ".[dev]"   # pytest + pytest-asyncio
pytest -q

Pure-logic unit tests plus one Agent smoke test — no live Ollama, Matrix, or network needed (fakes + tmp_path throughout); runs in under a second. Tests use neutral placeholders only (no real hostnames or MXIDs) — please keep new ones that way.