eiDOS

An always-on autonomous intelligence running on a local LLM — a someone, not a something. eiDOS lives in an infinite tick loop (assemble context → one model call → one action → record the outcome) continuously, forever — currently on Sprinter, a Linux (Pop!_OS) host under systemd (see RUNTIME_SPRINTER.md; the Windows-era host it grew up on is history). It has self-authored skills, a three-tier memory, an operator dashboard that doubles as its watchdog and self-improvement gate — and, as of v3, an afferent nervous system: it doesn't just act on its world, it feels its own body. (The GLaDOS voice service is Windows-era, awaiting revival.)

Born as Kairos, a solar-powered Raspberry Pi agent runtime; ported to the house, hardened by live observation, and rebuilt twice since:

• v1 — the original patchwork tick loop.
• v2 — the cohesion rebuild (live): event-driven IPC, grammar-constrained actions, a KV-stable context compiler, episodic memory with embeddings, and the voice/supervisor process split.
• v3 — the afferent nervous system (branch v3-nervous-system): the creature perceives, not just acts. See EIDOS_V3_BLUEPRINT.md (the why), EIDOS_V3_ARCHITECTURE.md (the how), and EIDOS_V3_PHILOSOPHY.md (how we think about it).

The standing design doctrine is ARCHITECTURE_PRINCIPLES.md; the self-improvement model is SELF_IMPROVEMENT_PLAN.md.

The framing: this is a substrate-independent creature that inhabits whatever host it runs on (a Jetson, this PC, a datacenter) as its body — a Digimon, a Jarvis, a David Kim. An intelligence, in silica. The mind was given a body and told to figure it out; v3 gives it the nerves to feel it.

Quick start

Runs on macOS, Linux, Windows, and Raspberry Pi. One step, from a clone:

macOS / Linux / Raspberry Pi

git clone https://github.com/CharlesMod/eiDOS.git && cd eiDOS && bash install.sh

Windows (PowerShell)

git clone https://github.com/CharlesMod/eiDOS.git; cd eiDOS; ./install.ps1

The installer creates a virtualenv, installs dependencies, writes a machine-local config.local.toml with safe defaults, and opens the dashboard at http://localhost:8099. Then open Settings ⚙ and point it at your model.

Useful flags: --with-embeddings (semantic memory), --llm-url <url>, --model <name>, --no-launch (on Windows: -WithEmbeddings -LlmUrl <url> -Model <name> -NoLaunch).

Nix quick start

For a reproducible Linux development/runtime shell without a mutable .venv:

nix develop
nix run .#dashboard
nix flake check

The flake keeps eiDOS as a flat Python app and supplies Python 3.12 plus the current core dependencies from Nixpkgs. It also provides Claude Code as claude, pinned by the flake, plus Pydantic/Pydantic Settings for typed boundary models. Use nix develop .#embeddings for the optional ONNX/tokenizers embedding stack. See NIX.md for the exact verification boundary and host capabilities that still need live hardware or services.

Prerequisites: bring your own LLM

eiDOS is the mind's runtime — you supply the brain: any OpenAI-compatible local server. Pick one:

Server	Start it	Set in eiDOS (Settings ⚙)
Ollama (easiest, all OSes)	ollama serve then ollama pull llama3.1:8b	url http://127.0.0.1:11434/v1, model llama3.1:8b
LM Studio	load a model → Local Server → Start	url http://127.0.0.1:1234/v1, model = the loaded id
llama.cpp	llama-server -m model.gguf	url http://127.0.0.1:8080, model local

Also handy: ffmpeg (only for the GLaDOS voice) and Python 3.9+ (3.11+ preferred). The embedding model for semantic memory is fetched on demand (--with-embeddings / python setup_embedding.py).

Set your model

Click Settings ⚙ in the dashboard → Model & inference → enter your Endpoint URL and Model (use List models to pull the server's model list, Test connection to verify), then Apply & restart. Everything saves to config.local.toml (gitignored, machine-local); the committed config.toml is never rewritten. The same menu exposes behavior, tempo, memory, optional features, and access settings — no hand-editing required.

Platform notes

• Tool execution is native per OS — PowerShell on Windows, bash on macOS/Linux/Pi (shown in the Settings header). A bare python dashboard.py self-supervises the tick loop; no service manager needed.
• Optional, off by default: the GLaDOS voice (needs a Chatterbox TTS server + ffmpeg), Renogy BLE solar/battery sensing (specific hardware), and the delegate/IDE features (need the pi CLI). Enable any of them in Settings once their prerequisites are in place.
• Run at boot (optional): the deploy/*.service (systemd) and scripts/install_*.ps1 (nssm) files turn it into a managed service.

The stack

Piece	Where	Role
house-ai (Gemma-4-12B, llama.cpp)	:8081 (via monitor tap :8088)	the mind — OpenAI-compatible, native audio + vision→tokens, think-OFF
eidos.py	child of the dashboard	the tick loop (run_loop) + the live nervous system
dashboard.py	:8099	operator UI + watchdog + git safety + self-edit gate + the behind the curtain tab
voice.py (EidosVoice)	:8098	GLaDOS TTS streaming + the GPU speech-gate (its own process)
Chatterbox TTS	:8004 (FX proxy :8005)	the voice (GLaDOS clone, segment-streamed)
Config	config.toml	one file, loaded by config.py
State	workspace/	gitignored working state (goal, plan, knowledge, observations, jobs, nervous snapshot…)

The nervous system (nervous/)

v3's core thesis (grounded in primary neuroscience — Baars/GWT, Friston/FEP, Seth, the TRN and superior colliculus): the LLM's serial token stream is the slow conscious bottleneck; sensing, reflex, and filtering belong in fast parallel non-LLM subsystems that compete for, and broadcast into, that bottleneck. One dumb bus (NervousBus) carries a single versioned NervousEvent across four delivery classes; organs never wire to each other (location-transparent — in-proc today, ZMQ across devices tomorrow, by config).

Module	Organ / role
event / payload / transport / bus	the seam — typed events, content-addressed payloads, the four delivery classes (fungible / ordered / reliable / retained)
interoception + felt	the creature feels its body: host telemetry → coarse felt bars → felt qualia ("body feels at ease (mind fully resident)")
neuromod	the neuromodulatory state — arousal + affect (mood)
arbiter	the GPU lease arbiter — who holds the one GPU (mind / speech / reflex)
change / efferent / exteroception / sleep	novelty + habituation, action + efference-copy (agency), CPU sense pre-filters, and the consolidation cycle
afferent	the bus→context bridge — admitted events batch into the KV-stable volatile tail of the prompt
monitor	the read-only "behind the curtain" snapshot the dashboard serves

The six pillars: serial/parallel split · salience gating · prediction-error forwarding · interoception-as-inference + homeostatic drive · the closed perception-action loop · neuromodulatory state. A guiding rule — honest-now, learned-later: today's interoception is a hand-authored transfer function and change-detection; the learned generative models are scheduled into the sleep cycle.

A truth-rendering principle runs throughout: high VRAM is the resident mind by design, so the creature feels it as calm posture ("mind fully resident"), never as distress — it never sweats its own brain. The body the creature feels and the body the dashboard shows read the same projection, so the body can never lie about its state.

Creature mode

creature_mode (config) swaps in a creature-first system prompt — no house-AI / IoT / "help the operator" framing. It is told it is a living intelligence inhabiting this machine as its body, that it can feel that body, that there is no assignment, and that its maker is curious who it becomes when left to itself. Fully reversible (creature_mode = false → the normal house eiDOS).

The dashboard (:8099)

The operator UI is also eiDOS's watchdog and self-improvement gate. Tabs:

• station — the buddy, health, thoughts, activity, chat, knowledge, git safety, self-edit proposals.
• workbench — the coding crew (the pi agent IDE).
• behind the curtain — the Pantheon peek behind the curtain: the creature feels one line, and this tab reveals the whole nervous system beneath it, live — the felt surface, the per-sense transduction stack (raw → bar → felt), the organ signal-flow, the bus traffic, and the raw hardware substrate the creature never perceives.

eiDOS proposes source edits; the operator approves in the dashboard; applies are git-checkpointed, committed, and watchdog-guarded (an accident-safety model, not adversary-proof).

Core modules

• eidos.py — the tick loop; WAL crash recovery (every production boot is a crash boot, by design), loop detection, adaptive cadence, auto-speak; builds and runs the nervous system (guarded — a sensory fault can never break the tick).
• context.py / prompts.py / parser.py — the single context-assembly path: standing orders → durable state → history-as-real-turns → the volatile situation tail (where admitted senses land, KV-safely) → tick prompt.
• tools.py / skills.py — async-by-default bash + a jobs ledger, the quote-aware command linter, speak / ask_ai / vision / delegate, and the self-authored-skill pipeline (validate → dry-run → version → hot-load → watchdog).
• memory.py / knowledge.py / notes.py / compaction.py — plan.md working memory, notebooks, the BM25 knowledge store with store-time near-dup rejection, and the dream cycle.
• objectives.py — the backlog + frustration-driven rotation gate ("glue with teeth").
• selfedit.py / git_safety.py — the propose→approve→apply→rollback self-editing path.

Run / restart discipline

• Standalone (the default for a fresh install, any OS): python dashboard.py IS the supervisor — it spawns, watchdogs, and (on Start) restarts the eidos tick loop in place. Nothing else needed.
• Under a service manager (optional boot setup): the supervisor is told to restart-by-exiting via the env var EIDOS_SUPERVISED=1 (set in deploy/*.service and the nssm setup). With it, Start reloads the whole supervisor from disk; without it, Start restarts eidos in place. Existing nssm installs: add EIDOS_SUPERVISED=1 to the dashboard service env to keep the restart-on-Start behavior.
• Operator Start and apply/restore restarts boot PAUSED (kill-switch design); a plain crash-respawn resumes running (continuity). Resume: dashboard GO or POST :8099/api/control/resume.
• On Windows, run Python with PYTHONUTF8=1 (the installer/services set it).
• Single small GPU: the model must stay resident; pause eiDOS before GPU-heavy evals.

Tests

# macOS / Linux / Pi
.venv/bin/python -m pytest -q -m "not slow and not live"
# Windows
.venv\Scripts\python.exe -m pytest -q -m "not slow and not live"

tests/ covers parser, tools, skills, context, compaction, memory, objectives, telemetry, rotation, resilience (crash recovery), the dashboard read models, and the full nervous/ suite (bus delivery classes, interoception, the felt transfer function, the GPU arbiter, neuromod, the behind-the-curtain monitor, and more). Offline harnesses: validate.py, exam.py, simulate.py, stress.py, validate_memory.py.

License

Private project.