kbot

npm install -g @kernel.chat/kbot

Why kbot?

Most terminal AI agents lock you into one provider, one model, one way of working. kbot doesn't.

• 20 providers, zero lock-in — Claude, GPT, Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek, Groq, Mistral, SambaNova, Cerebras, OpenRouter, and more. Switch with one command.
• Runs fully offline — Embedded llama.cpp, Ollama, LM Studio, or Jan. $0, fully private.
• Learns your patterns — Bayesian skill ratings + pattern extraction. Gets faster over time.
• 35 specialist agents — auto-routes your request to the right expert (coder, researcher, writer, guardian, quant, and 30 more).
• 787+ tools — files, bash, git, GitHub, web search, deploy, database, game dev, VFX, research, science, finance, security, music production, iPhone control, and more.
• Programmatic SDK — use kbot as a library in your own apps.
• MCP server built in — plug kbot into Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Zed, or Neovim as a tool provider.

Highlights

Dream Engine — Your AI Remembers You

After each session, kbot "dreams" — consolidating what it learned about you into durable insights using local Ollama models. $0 cost. Insights feed back into future sessions automatically.

kbot dream run        # Trigger consolidation
kbot dream status     # See what kbot learned
kbot dream journal    # Full insight history
kbot dream search     # Find specific memories

7-tier memory: pattern cache -> solution index -> user profile -> dream journal -> passive scanner -> music production -> desktop behavior. All tiers feed each other bidirectionally through the dream engine. Dream insights automatically evolve kbot's prompts so it gets better at being your specific tool.

Always-On System Manager

kbot runs 24/7 in the background, managing your entire development environment:

kbot watchdog             # Service dashboard — CPU, RAM, disk, all services
kbot wd --restart email   # Restart a crashed service
kbot dream status         # What kbot learned about you

• Service watchdog — health-checks all background services, auto-restarts crashes
• Morning briefing — daily email with downloads, stars, emails, dream insights, service health
• Behavior learning — observes which apps you use and when, dreams about your workflow patterns
• Companion memory — email agent remembers every user's preferences, goals, and conversation history
• Proactive follow-ups — checks in with users who go quiet, referencing their specific context

Your Buddy — Terminal Companion

Every kbot user gets a unique ASCII buddy that evolves with them:

  [=====]       /\  /\       {o,o}       /\_/\
  |[o o]|      (  ..  )      |)__)      ( o.o )
  |  _  |       )    (       -"-"-       > ^ <
  |_____|      (______)\     -|-|-      (_/|\_)
   || ||         || ||      _// \\_       | |
  Robot          Fox          Owl         Cat

• 8 species — deterministic based on your machine. Same user = same buddy always.
• 4 evolution levels — levels up with XP from sessions, dreams, tool usage
• 18 achievements — First Dream, Centurion, Tool Master, Night Owl, and more
• Dream narration — buddy tells you what it dreamed on startup
• Chat mode — kbot buddy chat to talk directly to your buddy via local Ollama ($0)
• Leaderboard — kernel.chat/#/leaderboard

iPhone Control

Control your iPhone from the terminal:

kbot phone_message --to "mom" --message "on my way"   # Send iMessage
kbot phone_notify                                       # Read notifications
kbot phone_shortcut --name "Morning Routine"            # Run Shortcuts
kbot phone_call --number "555-1234"                      # FaceTime call
kbot phone_clipboard --action write --text "hello"      # Universal Clipboard

Music Production — Ableton Live Integration

kbot produce_beat --genre trap --instruments roland     # Full beat in Ableton
kbot generate_drum_pattern --genre house --bpm 124      # MIDI drum pattern
kbot music_idea "late night drive through Tokyo"        # Creative blueprint
kbot ableton_load_effect --track 2 --name "Saturator"   # Load any plugin

Programmatic control of Ableton Live 12 — create tracks, load plugins (including Roland Cloud, Serum 2), write MIDI, set device parameters, fire clips. All from the terminal.

Financial Analysis

kbot market_analysis --ticker AAPL         # 5-perspective coordinated analysis
kbot portfolio_review --holdings '[...]'   # MAGI impact, risk scoring
kbot market_briefing                       # Morning market summary

Cyber Threat Intelligence

kbot threat_feed                           # Latest CVEs matched to your stack
kbot ioc_check --indicator "1.2.3.4"      # Check IPs/domains/hashes
kbot attack_surface_scan --domain x.com    # Passive recon + security headers
kbot incident_response --type ransomware   # Generate IR playbook

Audit Any Repo in One Command

kbot audit facebook/react
kbot audit --share vercel/next.js   # Creates a public Gist
kbot audit --badge your/repo        # Badge for your README

Checks security, documentation, code quality, CI/CD, community health, and DevOps. Scored out of 100, graded A-F. Add the badge to your README.

How it compares

| | kbot | Claude Code | Codex CLI | Aider | OpenCode | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | AI providers | 20 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 75+ | | Specialist agents | 35 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | | Built-in tools | 787+ | ~20 | ~15 | ~10 | ~15 | | Science tools | 114 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | | Memory system | 7-tier bidirectional | File-based | No | No | No | | Dream engine | Yes ($0 local) | Cloud API | No | No | No | | Service watchdog | Yes | No | No | No | No | | Behavior learning | Yes | No | No | No | No | | Buddy companion | Yes (8 species) | No | No | No | No | | iPhone control | Yes | No | No | No | No | | Music production | Ableton Live | No | No | No | No | | Financial analysis | Multi-agent | No | No | No | No | | Threat intelligence | Yes | No | No | No | No | | Buddy leaderboard | kernel.chat | No | No | No | No | | Offline mode | Embedded + Ollama | No | No | Ollama | Ollama | | SDK | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | | MCP server | Yes | N/A | No | No | No | | Web companion | kernel.chat | No | No | No | No | | Open source | MIT | Source available | Apache 2.0 | Apache 2.0 | MIT | | Cost | BYOK / $0 local | $20+/mo | BYOK | BYOK | BYOK |

Quick Start

# Install globally
npm install -g @kernel.chat/kbot

# Or run directly (no install)
npx @kernel.chat/kbot

# Or use the install script (auto-installs Node.js if needed)
curl -fsSL https://kernel.chat/install.sh | bash

# Interactive mode
kbot

# One-shot
kbot "explain this codebase"
kbot "fix the auth bug in src/auth.ts"
kbot "create a Dockerfile for this project"

# Pipe mode (for scripting)
kbot -p "generate a migration for user roles" > migration.sql

# Use local models (free, no API key)
kbot local

# Set up your API key
kbot auth

Specialists

kbot auto-routes to the right agent for each task. Or pick one with --agent <name>.

| | Agents | |---|---| | Core | kernel, researcher, coder, writer, analyst | | Extended | aesthete, guardian, curator, strategist | | Domain | infrastructure, quant, investigator, oracle, chronist, sage, communicator, adapter | | Presets | claude-code, cursor, copilot, creative, developer |

686+ Tools

| Category | Examples | |----------|---------| | Files & Code | read, write, glob, grep, lint, format, type-check | | Shell | bash, parallel execute, background tasks | | Git & GitHub | commit, diff, PR, issues, code search | | Web | search, fetch, browser automation, browser agent | | Research | arXiv, Semantic Scholar, HuggingFace, NASA, DOI | | Data | CSV read/query/write, transforms, reports, invoices | | Quality | lint (ESLint/Biome/Clippy), test (Vitest/Jest/pytest), deps audit, formatting | | Deploy | Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Workers/Pages, Fly.io, Railway | | Database | Postgres, MySQL, SQLite queries, Prisma, ER diagrams, seed data | | Containers | Docker build/run/compose, Terraform | | Creative | p5.js generative art, GLSL shaders, SVG patterns, design variants | | VFX | GLSL shaders, FFmpeg, ImageMagick, Blender, procedural textures | | Game Dev | 16 tools for Godot, Unity, Unreal, Bevy, Phaser, Three.js, PlayCanvas, Defold | | Training | dataset prep, fine-tuning, evaluation, model export | | Social | post to X, LinkedIn, Bluesky, Mastodon — single posts and threads | | Sandbox | Docker sandboxes, E2B cloud sandboxes, isolated code execution | | Notebooks | Jupyter read/edit/insert/delete cells | | Build Matrix | cross-platform builds — mobile, desktop, WASM, embedded, server | | LSP | goto definition, find references, hover, rename, diagnostics | | Memory | persistent memory save/search/update across sessions | | MCP | marketplace search/install, 20 bundled servers | | IDE | MCP server, ACP server, LSP bridge | | Forge | create tools at runtime, publish to registry, install from registry | | Meta | subagents, worktrees, planner, sessions, checkpoints, self-eval | | Science & Math | symbolic compute, matrix ops, FFT, ODEs, probability, optimization, graph theory, OEIS | | Physics | orbital mechanics, circuits, signal processing, particles (PDG), relativity, quantum simulator, beam analysis, fluid dynamics | | Chemistry | PubChem compounds, reactions, periodic table (118 elements), spectroscopy, stoichiometry, thermodynamics | | Biology | PubMed, gene lookup, protein/PDB, BLAST, drug/ChEMBL, pathways, taxonomy, clinical trials | | Earth & Climate | earthquakes/USGS, climate/NOAA, satellite imagery, geology, ocean, air quality, volcanoes, water resources | | Neuroscience | brain atlas, EEG analysis, cognitive models, neural simulation, connectome, psychophysics | | Social Science | psychometrics, game theory, econometrics, social network analysis, survey design, voting systems | | Humanities | corpus analysis, formal logic, argument mapping, ethics frameworks, historical timelines, stylometry | | Health & Epidemiology | SIR/SEIR models, epidemiology calculations, disease surveillance, nutrition, vaccination modeling | | Finance | market data, technical analysis, paper trading, DeFi yields, wallet & swaps, stock screener, sentiment | | Cybersecurity | dep_audit, secret_scan, ssl_check, headers_check, cve_lookup, port_scan, owasp_check | | Self-Defense | memory HMAC, prompt injection detection, knowledge sanitization, forge verification, anomaly detection |

20 Providers

| Provider | Cost | Local? | |----------|------|--------| | Embedded (llama.cpp) | Free | Yes | | Ollama | Free | Yes | | LM Studio | Free | Yes | | Jan | Free | Yes | | DeepSeek | $0.27/M in | Cloud | | SambaNova | $0.50/M in | Cloud | | Cerebras | $0.60/M in | Cloud | | Groq | $0.59/M in | Cloud | | NVIDIA NIM | $0.80/M in | Cloud | | Together AI | $0.88/M in | Cloud | | Fireworks AI | $0.90/M in | Cloud | | Google (Gemini) | $1.25/M in | Cloud | | Mistral | $2.00/M in | Cloud | | OpenAI (GPT) | $2.00/M in | Cloud | | Cohere | $2.50/M in | Cloud | | Anthropic (Claude) | $3.00/M in | Cloud | | xAI (Grok) | $3.00/M in | Cloud | | Perplexity | $3.00/M in | Cloud | | OpenRouter | varies | Cloud | | kbot local | Free | Yes |

Set any provider's env var and kbot auto-detects it. Or run kbot auth for interactive setup.

SDK

import { agent, tools, providers } from '@kernel.chat/kbot'

const result = await agent.run("fix the auth bug", { agent: 'coder' })
console.log(result.content)

for await (const event of agent.stream("explain this code")) {
  if (event.type === 'content_delta') process.stdout.write(event.text)
}

Architecture

graph TD
    A[User Message] --> B{Local-first check}
    B -->|file, git, grep| C[Instant response — $0]
    B -->|Needs AI| D{Complexity detection}
    D -->|Simple| E[Bayesian Router → Specialist]
    D -->|Multi-step| F[Autonomous Planner]
    E --> G[Provider API + Tool Loop]
    F --> G
    G --> H{686+ Tools}
    H --> I[File ops, bash, git, GitHub, search, deploy, DB, game dev...]
    G --> J[Learning Engine]
    J --> K[Patterns + Solutions + User Profile]
    G --> L[Checkpointing]
    L --> M[Resume from last tool call]

MCP Server

Use kbot as a tool provider inside any MCP-compatible IDE:

{
  "mcp": {
    "servers": {
      "kbot": { "command": "kbot", "args": ["ide", "mcp"] }
    }
  }
}

Or run the MCP server via Docker:

docker run -i --rm kernelchat/kbot ide mcp

Works with Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Zed, Neovim.

Commands

| Command | What it does | |---------|-------------| | kbot | Interactive REPL | | kbot "prompt" | One-shot execution | | kbot auth | Configure API key | | kbot local | Use local AI (Ollama, embedded, LM Studio, Jan) | | kbot serve | Start HTTP REST + SSE streaming server | | kbot audit <repo> | Security + quality audit of any GitHub repo (A-F grade) | | kbot dream run | Consolidate session learnings into durable insights | | kbot dream status | See what kbot has learned about you | | kbot dream journal | Full insight history | | kbot dream search | Find specific memories | | kbot watchdog | System dashboard — services, CPU, RAM, disk, Ollama, dreams | | kbot wd --restart <svc> | Restart a crashed background service | | kbot contribute <repo> | Find good-first-issues and quick wins | | kbot share | Share conversation as GitHub Gist | | kbot pair | File watcher with auto-analysis | | kbot team | Multi-agent TCP collaboration | | kbot record | Terminal session recording (SVG, GIF, asciicast) | | kbot voice | Text-to-speech output mode | | kbot watch | Real-time file analysis on change | | kbot bootstrap | Outer-loop project optimizer (visibility scoring) | | kbot plugins | Search, install, update community plugins | | kbot models | List, pull, remove, catalog local models | | kbot changelog | Generate changelog from git history | | kbot completions | Shell completions (bash, zsh, fish) | | kbot cloud | Sync learning data to kernel.chat | | kbot ide mcp | Start MCP server for IDEs | | kbot doctor | 10-point health check |

Power-User Flags

kbot --architect "design the auth system"    # Architecture mode — plan before code
kbot --thinking "solve this hard problem"    # Extended reasoning with thinking budget
kbot --self-eval "write a parser"            # Self-evaluation loop — scores and retries
kbot --computer-use "fill out this form"     # Computer use — controls mouse and keyboard
kbot -p "query" > output.txt                 # Pipe mode — clean output for scripting

Security

• API keys encrypted at rest (AES-256-CBC)
• Destructive operations require confirmation
• Shell commands sandboxed with blocklist
• Tool execution timeout (5 min) with middleware pipeline
• Config files restricted to owner (chmod 600)
• 0 P0/P1 security issues (audited March 2026)

Development

cd packages/kbot
npm install
npm run dev          # Run in dev mode
npm run build        # Compile TypeScript
npm run test         # Run tests (vitest)

Web Companion — kernel.chat

kbot has a web companion at kernel.chat — same agents, persistent memory, and a visual interface. Free to use (20 messages/day).

Community

• Web: kernel.chat
• npm: @kernel.chat/kbot
• Discord: discord.gg/kdMauM9abG
• GitHub: isaacsight/kernel
• Issues: Report a bug

License

MIT — kernel.chat group