Etz Chaim AI
A cognitive operating system for LLM agents. Apache 2.0 · Multi-provider · Standards-first · Anthropic-optimized
In the SOAR / ACT-R / CLARION / LIDA lineage, Etz Chaim AI gives LLM agents 10 cognitive faculties, 13 rectifiers, 11 adversarial probes, 22 typed paths, 1696 primary-source specs with E1–E6 confidence labels, and a nightly auto-improve daemon that mutates its own specifications based on observed failures.
It works on Anthropic Claude, OpenAI GPT-5.5, Google Gemini 3, and local models via Ollama — switch in <30 minutes. See PORTABILITY.md.
Why Etz Chaim AI?
Today's coding agents are powerful but ahistorical. They forget. They repeat the same mistakes. They have no model of what they don't know, no way to detect when they're drifting from spec, no nightly housekeeping that consolidates yesterday's failures into tomorrow's improvements.
Etz Chaim AI fills that gap with composable cognitive primitives that plug into Claude Code, Codex CLI, Cursor, Windsurf, Antigravity, OpenCode, or your own custom harness via the open Agent Skills + MCP standards.
Installation — choose your tier
We support three install tiers based on your budget and trust model.
🥉 Bronze — local & private ($0)
Fully local. No external API calls. Privacy-first.
# Prerequisites: Python 3.12+, Docker (for pgvector + TimescaleDB)
# Recommended local model: qwen3:72b or llama3.3:70b
ollama pull qwen3:72b
pipx install etzchaim
etzchaim init --provider ollama --model qwen3:72b
etzchaim doctor # validates the install
Use cases: privacy-sensitive research, education, OSS contributors, air-gapped. Trade-offs: slower inference; smaller context; some features (Auto Mode, Channels, Routines, Managed Agents) unavailable.
🥈 Silver — pay-per-token API ($5–50/month typical)
API key from any provider. Most flexible.
pipx install etzchaim
export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-... # or ANTHROPIC_API_KEY or GEMINI_API_KEY
etzchaim init --provider openai --model gpt-5.5
etzchaim doctor
Supported providers (via LiteLLM, 100+): Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Vertex / Gemini, AWS Bedrock, Azure OpenAI, xAI, Mistral, Cohere, DeepSeek, Groq, Together, Fireworks, OpenRouter, Perplexity, NVIDIA NIM, Cloudflare AI, Replicate, vLLM, LM Studio.
Use cases: most contributors; teams evaluating Etz Chaim; multi-provider experiments.
🥇 Gold — Anthropic Pro/Max + Managed Agents ($20–200/month)
Full Etz Chaim experience with the Anthropic-bonus layer wired in.
# Open in VS Code or GitHub Codespaces and "Reopen in Container"
gh repo clone yohanpoul/etz-chaim-ai
code etz-chaim-ai
# F1 → "Dev Containers: Reopen in Container"
# (or open in Codespaces — free 60h/month tier works)
Unlocks:
- Auto Mode (Max/Team/Enterprise) — Sonnet 4.6 classifier on every tool call
- Channels — Telegram / Discord / iMessage push alerts for drift events
- Claude Code Routines — nightly auto-improve loop runs on Anthropic infrastructure (your laptop doesn't need to be on)
- Managed Agents + Dreaming + Outcomes + Multiagent orchestration — the 11 malakhim adversaries as parallel specialist sub-agents with persistent memory
- Cowork Dispatch — assign work to Etz Chaim from your phone, work finishes on your desktop
If you maintain an active OSS project, apply for the
Claude for Open Source Program
— 6 months of Claude Max free for approved OSS maintainers. Deadline:
June 30, 2026. See scripts/apply-oss-program.md
for our application template.
Quick start
After install, in your project directory:
# 1. Run the doctor
etzchaim doctor # 20 health checks should pass
# 2. Try a faculty
etzchaim faculty causal-pearl \
--query "Does drinking coffee cause better focus?"
# 3. Run the bidirectional spec↔code audit
etzchaim verify-bidirectional
# 4. (Optional) trigger the auto-improve loop manually
etzchaim improve --once
# 5. Connect a coding agent
# Claude Code: just run `claude` in this directory; .claude/ and skills/ are pre-wired
# Codex CLI: run `codex` — reads AGENTS.md and .codex/skills/
# Cursor: open the folder — .cursor/rules/etz-base.mdc references AGENTS.md
The architecture in 30 seconds
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ 10 facultés cognitives │
│ exploration · judgment · causal · dissensus · insight │
│ selfmodel · selfmap · epistememory · failuretoinsight · intent │
└─────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────┘
│ compose via 22 sentiers (typed paths)
▼
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ 6 mature configurations │
│ diagnose · explore · judge · synthesize · audit · learn │
└─────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────┘
│ policed by
▼
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ 13 rectifiers + 11 malakhim adversaries │
│ Background daemons detecting drift, contradictions, decay │
└─────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────┘
│ feed into
▼
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Nightly auto-improve daemon (Karpathy pattern) │
│ Read failure traces → propose spec mutations → verify → PR │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
The full architecture: memory/ARCHITECTURE.md.
Why standards-first?
Etz Chaim is built on open standards, not vendor-specific APIs:
- Agent Skills — 13 portable SKILL.md files, work in Claude Code, Codex CLI, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Antigravity, OpenCode, goose, Letta, Amp, Devin (35+ platforms)
- Model Context Protocol —
etzchaim-mcpserver consumable by any MCP client (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Windsurf, ChatGPT Dev Mode) - AGENTS.md (Linux Foundation AAIF) — single
source of truth, symlinked to
CLAUDE.md/.codex/AGENTS.md - LiteLLM — 100+ LLM providers via OpenAI-compatible interface
Switching from Anthropic Claude to OpenAI GPT-5.5 is one line in
litellm.config.yaml. The cognitive engine, the rectifiers, the spec
corpus, the daemon — all keep working. See PORTABILITY.md.
Contributing
Etz Chaim follows the Boris Cherny workflow adapted for cognitive-architecture work:
- Start in Plan mode (Shift+Tab×2 in Claude Code) for any spec mutation
- Run the
verify-specsubagent before marking complete (the 2-3× quality boost insight) - Every mistake →
memory/MISTAKES.mdrule (/mistake-to-rule) - For batch changes →
/batch-migration(parallel worktree workers) - For adversarial validation →
/adversarial-probe(11 malakhim in parallel) - CLAUDE.md is a symlink to AGENTS.md — edit AGENTS.md only
Behavioral rules and Boris references in AGENTS.md.
Full anti-pattern catalog in memory/MISTAKES.md.
See memory/DECISIONS.md for our Architecture
Decision Records (ADRs) — particularly:
- ADR-0001: Standards-first architecture
- ADR-0003: Boris's verify-spec subagent pattern
- ADR-0004: Skills + 5 subagents (Barry Zhang's thesis applied)
Documentation
AGENTS.md— agent instructions (source unique)memory/ARCHITECTURE.md— system invariants & faculty contractsmemory/MISTAKES.md— anti-patterns (living doc)memory/DECISIONS.md— ADRsdocs/PORTABILITY.md— cross-provider switchingdocs/CODE_WITH_CLAUDE_2026.md— Anthropic 2026 features mapdocs/REFERENCES.md— full external reference index
Roadmap
| Sprint | Focus | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Standards-first foundation + Claude for OSS application | 🟢 Active (May 2026) |
| 1 | Prompt caching, Opus 4.7, Batch API, Citations API | 🔵 Next |
| 2 | 13 Skills (cross-tool, agentskills.io standard) | 🔵 Planned |
| 3 | 5 subagents (Boris pattern, isolation: worktree) | 🔵 Planned |
| 4 | Hooks + Sandbox + Auto Mode + DevContainer | 🔵 Planned |
| 5 | MCP server etzchaim-mcp (npm + PyPI) |
🔵 Planned |
| 6 | Plugin distribution (5 marketplaces) | 🔵 Planned |
| 7 | Cloud asynchrone (Routines + Channels + Webhooks) | 🟡 Anthropic-only |
| 8 | Managed Agents + Dreaming + Outcomes + Multiagent | 🟡 Anthropic-only |
| 9 | arXiv paper, Code with Claude talks, v1.0 | 🟢 Q3 2026 |
License
Apache 2.0 — see LICENSE.
Citation
If you use Etz Chaim AI in research, please cite:
@software{etz_chaim_ai_2026,
author = {Yohan Poul},
title = {Etz Chaim AI: A Cognitive Operating System for LLM Agents},
year = {2026},
url = {https://github.com/yohanpoul/etz-chaim-ai},
license = {Apache-2.0}
}
Acknowledgments
Etz Chaim AI builds directly on the work of:
- Anthropic for the Skills + MCP + Auto Mode foundations, and the engineering papers that shaped the architecture
- Boris Cherny (creator of Claude Code) whose workflow patterns are encoded throughout this project — thread
- Barry Zhang & Mahesh Murag for the "Don't build agents, build skills" thesis we apply
- Erik Schluntz for the Building Effective Agents patterns
- Andrej Karpathy for the autonomous research loop concept that underlies our nightly daemon
- Sun, Anderson, Newell, Franklin, Pearl for the cognitive architecture lineage Etz Chaim sits in
- The Linux Foundation AAIF for stewarding the AGENTS.md and MCP standards
- The agentskills.io community for the cross-tool skills standard
- The LiteLLM team for making provider-agnostic LLM dispatch routine
Full reference index: docs/REFERENCES.md.
1 maintainer
Metadata
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