pysilica 0.8.24

A command line tool for creating workspaces for agents on top of piku

Silica: Multi-Workspace Management for Agents

Silica is a command-line tool for creating and managing agent workspaces on top of piku.

Installation

Quick Install

For systems with Python 3.11+:

# Using uv (recommended)
uv pip install pysilica
playwright install chromium  # Install browser for web development tools

# Using pip
pip install pysilica
playwright install chromium  # Install browser for web development tools

Raspberry Pi Deployment

Silica automatically handles Python 3.11 installation on remote Raspberry Pi systems during workspace creation. The deployment process:

• Detects Raspberry Pi hardware
• Installs Python 3.11 via pyenv if needed
• Sets up virtual environment
• Installs Silica and dependencies
• Verifies the installation

For detailed deployment information, see the Raspberry Pi Deployment Guide.

Note: The package name is pysilica but the CLI command and import name is silica.

Requirements

• Python: 3.11 or higher (required)
• Package Manager: uv (recommended) or pip
• Playwright Browser: Required for web development tools (installed via playwright install chromium)
• OpenCV: Optional, required for webcam snapshot capabilities (installed via pip install opencv-python)
• ripgrep: Optional but recommended for enhanced file search performance

For complete installation instructions, see docs/INSTALLATION.md.

Optional: Install ripgrep for enhanced search performance

# macOS
brew install ripgrep

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install ripgrep

# Windows (chocolatey)
choco install ripgrep

Ripgrep provides faster file searching and is automatically used by the memory system when available.

What's New: Multi-Workspace Support

Silica now supports managing multiple concurrent workspaces from the same repository. This allows you to:

1. Create and maintain multiple agent workspaces with different configurations
2. Switch between workspaces easily without having to recreate them
3. Track configurations for all workspaces in a single repository

Key Features

• Multiple Agent Support: Support for different AI coding agents with YAML-based configuration
• Workspace Management: Create, list, and manage multiple agent workspaces
• Default Workspace: Set a preferred workspace as default for easier command execution
• Immutable Workspaces: Each workspace is tied to a specific agent type - create new workspaces for different agents

🤖 Integrated Agent

Silica is tightly integrated with heare-developer (hdev), an autonomous coding agent that includes:

• Autonomous engineering with the --dwr (Do What's Required) flag
• Configurable personas for different coding styles
• Integration with Claude for AI assistance
• Web search capabilities via Brave Search API
• GitHub integration for repository management

The agent is automatically installed when creating workspaces and configured for optimal performance.

Usage

Creating Workspaces

# Create a default workspace named 'agent' with heare-developer
silica create

# Create a workspace with a custom name
silica create -w assistant

# Create workspace for a specific project
silica create -w my-project

Managing Workspaces

# List all configured workspaces
silica workspace list

# View the current default workspace
silica workspace get-default

# Set a different workspace as default
silica workspace set-default assistant

Working with Specific Workspaces

Most commands accept a -w/--workspace flag to specify which workspace to target:

# Sync a specific workspace
silica sync -w assistant

# Sync with cache clearing to ensure latest versions
silica sync -w assistant --clear-cache

# Check status of a specific workspace
silica status -w assistant

# Enter a specific workspace's agent session
silica remote enter -w assistant

# Send a message to the workspace's agent
silica tell "Please analyze this code" -w assistant

Configuration Management

# View current configuration
silica config list

# Set configuration values
silica config set key=value

# Run interactive setup wizard  
silica config setup

Destroying Workspaces

# Destroy a specific workspace
silica destroy -w assistant

Configuration

Silica stores workspace configurations in .silica/config.yaml using a nested structure:

default_workspace: agent
workspaces:
  agent:
    piku_connection: piku
    app_name: agent-repo-name
    branch: main
    agent_type: hdev
    agent_config:
      flags: []
      args: {}
  assistant:
    piku_connection: piku
    app_name: assistant-repo-name
    branch: feature-branch
    agent_type: hdev
    agent_config:
      flags: ["--persona", "code_reviewer"]
      args: {}

Development

Running Tests

# Run all tests
pytest

# Run only fast tests (excludes slow integration tests)
pytest -m "not slow"

# Run with verbose output and show slowest tests
pytest -v --durations=10

The test suite includes markers for different test types:

• slow: Integration tests that take longer to run (tmux operations, subprocess timeouts)
• integration: Tests requiring external resources
• safe: Tests with no side effects

For faster development iteration, use pytest -m "not slow" to run only the fast tests (~43s vs ~82s for the full suite).

Compatibility

This update maintains backward compatibility with existing silica workspaces. When you run commands with the updated version:

1. Existing workspaces are automatically migrated to the new format
2. The behavior of commands without specifying a workspace remains the same
3. Old script implementations that expect workspace-specific configuration will continue to work