khy
The AI-native operating system.
A hand-written OS kernel + a Claude-Code-class agentic CLI + a 16-backend AI gateway.
One install, batteries included.
60-Second Tour · What is khy · Quickstart · The Three Pillars · Compare · 中文
🤯 What is khy
khy is a full AI-native operating system — written almost entirely by one person. It spans every layer most projects only touch one of:
- a hand-written OS kernel in C (preemptive scheduler, demand paging,
copy-on-write
fork, POSIX-style signals, pipes, per-process fd tables, a dual ELF + PE loader) that boots and runs under QEMU; - a Claude-Code-class agentic CLI — streaming TUI, tool-calling loop, permission gating, sub-agents, workflows, goal mode, context compaction;
- a 16-backend AI gateway that fronts Claude, Qwen, Cursor, Kiro, Windsurf, Warp, Trae, Ollama, Codex and more behind one API, with cascade failover and circuit breaking — no vendor lock-in;
- shipped through two parallel package channels (
pip install khy-os/npm i -g @khy-os/khy-os) with a self-healing, multi-language dev environment.
It's the kind of project that usually takes a team and a few years. Here it's one repo you can
pip installin 30 seconds and run today.
⚡ 60-Second Tour
pip install khy-os # or: npm install -g @khy-os/khy-os
khy # launch the agentic terminal
┌─ khy ─────────────────────────────────────────────── 18% ctx ─┐
│ › refactor the gateway adapter cascade and add a test │
│ │
│ 💭 思考 · 142 字 (Ctrl+O 展开) │
│ ▸ 读取 · 编辑 · 执行命令 · 4 个步骤 ✓✓✓✓ │
│ ✓ 完成 │
│ ⠹ 生成中… · 12s · ~340 tok │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
📽️ Demo recording: drop an asciinema cast or GIF at
assets/demo.gifand it renders here. Seedocs/launch/DEMO.mdfor the exact 45-second script that shows the kernel booting and the agent coding.
🚀 Quickstart
Install (pick one channel — both ship the identical workshop)
# pip channel
python3 -m pip install -U khy-os
# npm channel
npm install -g @khy-os/khy-os
Run
khy # agentic terminal (the headline experience)
khy preflight # diagnose PATH / Node / deps / claude before first run
khy ai "summarize this repo" # one-shot AI, no REPL
khy gateway status # see which of the 16 AI backends are live
Boot the actual OS
khy iso build --output dist/khy-os.iso # build a bootable ISO
# then attach dist/khy-os.iso in QEMU / VMware / VirtualBox
New here? Follow the 0-to-power-user ladder: 新手成长路线 (post-install checklist → configure AI → daily use → advanced → mastery).
Full guides: 文档索引 · Windows + VMware: windows-vmware-清单
🧱 The Three Pillars
1. A real, hand-written kernel
Not a wrapper around Linux — a kernel built from boot sector up, validated under QEMU at every phase:
| Capability | Status |
|---|---|
| Preemptive scheduler + PS/2 keyboard + line-edited shell | ✅ QEMU-tested |
Demand paging · copy-on-write fork · fault isolation |
✅ QEMU-tested |
POSIX-style signals (sigaction/sigreturn) · pipes · per-process fd tables |
✅ QEMU-tested |
Standard streams (fd 0–2) · shell pipelines (|) |
✅ QEMU-tested |
| Dual binary loader: ELF + PE | ✅ QEMU-tested |
Hybrid micro/monolithic design — performance paths in kernel space, I/O through IPC. Roadmap: real keyboard
stdinand block-device persistence.
2. A Claude-Code-class agent in your terminal
- Streaming Ink TUI with collapsible process groups, persisted thinking, real context-fill meter, and a live token/stall indicator.
- A full tool-calling loop with structured results, loop detection, and
max_tokensrecovery — benchmarked against Claude Code / Qwen Code / OpenCode. - Permission gating,
AskUserQuestion, sub-agents, goal mode, and a visual workflow editor with a native execution engine.
3. A 16-backend AI gateway
One endpoint in front of every model you already pay for — bring your own keys, keep your data local:
Claude · Qwen · Cursor · Kiro · Windsurf · Warp · Trae · Ollama · Codex · …
Cascade failover, circuit breakers, transient-error cooldown, and per-user multi-tenant isolation. Falls back automatically when a channel goes down.
🗺️ Architecture
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ khy CLI · Ink TUI · agent loop · goals │ ← what you touch
└───────────────┬──────────────────────────────┘
│
┌───────────────────┴────────────────────┐
│ AI Gateway (16 adapters, failover) │ ← bring your own keys
│ Claude · Qwen · Cursor · Ollama · … │
└───────────────────┬─────────────────────┘
│
┌────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────┐
│ Node backend · tools · workflows · services │ ← runtime
└────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────┘
│
┌───────────────┴──────────────────┐
│ khy kernel (C) · ELF/PE loader │ ← the OS underneath
│ scheduler · paging · IPC · fork │
└──────────────────────────────────┘
Shipped as one workshop through two channels: pip install khy-os / npm i -g @khy-os/khy-os
🆚 How It Compares
| khy | Claude Code | Ollama | A Linux distro | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agentic coding CLI | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Multi-provider, no lock-in | ✅ (16) | ❌ (1) | ✅ (local only) | — |
| Self-hostable / bring-your-own-keys | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | — |
| Built-in AI gateway w/ failover | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Hand-written OS kernel | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ (a team) |
| One-command install | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
khy isn't trying to beat any one of these — it's the only project that is all of them at once, from the kernel to the agent.
📦 What's in the box
platform/ Python launcher + bundled runtime + shared JS (pip entrypoint)
services/ Node backend: CLI, gateway, adapters, tools, workflows
apps/ Vue management UI + upper-layer apps
kernel/ The OS: boot, src, ELF/PE loader, MoonBit WASM, ISO build
software/ khyquant — the default built-in app (quant trading)
docs/ 架构 (architecture) · 指南 (guides) · 修复记录 (changelogs)
packaging/ npm channel (@khy-os/khy-os) mirroring the pip workshop
🛣️ Roadmap
- Real keyboard
stdin+ block-device persistence in the kernel - Recorded boot-to-agent demo (
assets/demo.gif) - More gateway adapters + adapter capability matrix in docs
- Hosted playground
Changelog: CHANGELOG.md
⭐ Star history
🤝 Contributing & community
- Read
CONTRIBUTING.mdbefore opening a PR. - Be kind — see
CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md. - Found a vulnerability? See
SECURITY.md(please don't open a public issue).
📜 License
Source-available. khy is free to download, run, study, and use
non-commercially — see LICENSE. Copying, modifying, or
redistributing the source, and commercial use, require written permission from
the author (孔浩原 / Kong Haoyuan). For commercial licensing or collaboration,
reach out.
If a one-person AI-native OS is the kind of thing you want to exist,
⭐ star the repo — it's the cheapest way to tell the author to keep going.
Release files for khy-os 1.1.7
For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.
Source distribution (sdist)
| File | Size | Uploaded | |
|---|---|---|---|
| khy_os-1.1.7.tar.gz | 34.1 MB | Details |
Built distribution (wheel)
| File | Interpreter | ABI | Platform | Reset |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| khy_os-1.1.7-py3-none-any.whl | Python 3 | none | any | Details |
Total release size: 112.4 MB
Release files / khy_os-1.1.7.tar.gz
| Download URL | khy_os-1.1.7.tar.gz |
|---|---|
| Size | 34.1 MB |
| Tags | Source |
|
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Release files / khy_os-1.1.7-py3-none-any.whl
| Download URL | khy_os-1.1.7-py3-none-any.whl |
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| Tags | Python 3 |
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