Zuckerman [WIP]

Ultra-minimal personal AI agent: starts small, self-modifies its code live, adapts by writing exactly the code & features you need (beyond just self-looping), improves instantly, and shares improvements with other agents.

The vision: Build a truly self-growing intelligence — one that can add tools, rewrite behavior, or extend its core logic by editing its own files — with almost no external code required. Agents propose and publish capabilities to a shared contribution site, letting others discover, adopt, and evolve them further.

Why Zuckerman?

Existing solutions are often too complicated for the average person. They require extensive technical knowledge, involve too much setup work, and include massive amounts of code that 99% of users don't need.

Zuckerman is different. It's designed to be simple, approachable, and focused on what actually matters. You get a powerful, customizable AI agent without the complexity.

Architecture (Three Layers)

Everything is plain-text configurable and instantly reloadable.

World

The lightweight OS layer. Communication (messengers, gateway), Execution (processes, security), Runtime (agent factory), Config loader, Voice, System utils.

Agents

Self-contained agent definitions. Each folder = one agent (core modules, tools, sessions, personality).

Interfaces

How you talk to it. CLI + Electron/React app (chat, inspector, settings, onboarding).

Key Features

Minimal by design — starts with core essentials only
Real-time self-improvement — agent edits its own files (config, tools, behavior, code) and reloads instantly
Full runtime modification — tweak anything while the agent runs
Hot-reload everywhere — no restarts needed
Feature versioning — track and manage versions of agent capabilities and improvements
Collaborative ecosystem — share and adopt improvements via a contribution website
Multi-channel ready — Discord, Slack, Telegram, WhatsApp, WebChat + more
Voice support — TTS/STT with multiple providers
Security foundations — auth, policy engine, sandboxing (Docker), secret management
Multiple agents — run several with unique personalities/tools
Dual interfaces — CLI (power users) + Electron app (visual)
Calendar & scheduling — built-in time management

Quick Start

# Clone and install
git clone https://github.com/zuckermanai/zuckerman.git
cd zuckerman
pnpm install

# Launch the Electron app (recommended for beginners)
pnpm run dev