Aether

Artificial Ecology for Thought and Emergent Reasoning

$ npx aether-colony

The whole is greater than the sum of its ants. 🐜

Why Aether

Every AI coding tool now has "agents." Most of them are the same thing repackaged — a loop that plans, executes, and checks. That's not a colony. That's one ant doing laps.

Aether is different because it's modeled on how real ant colonies work: no central brain, no single agent trying to be everything. Instead, 24 specialized workers self-organize around your goal. A Builder writes code. When it hits something unfamiliar, it doesn't guess — it spawns a Scout to research. When code lands, a Watcher spawns to verify. A Tracker hunts bugs. An Archaeologist digs through git history. They work in parallel, in waves, across phases.

What actually makes this different:

🐜 Pheromone signals, not prompt engineering. You steer the colony the way a queen steers ants — with signals, not instructions. Drop a FOCUS signal on "security" and every worker weighs it. Drop a REDIRECT on "no raw SQL" and it becomes a hard constraint. The colony adapts without you rewriting prompts.

🐜 Memory that compounds. Learnings from one build become instincts for the next. Instincts promote to QUEEN.md wisdom. High-confidence wisdom flows to the Hive Brain and crosses into other projects on your machine. Your colonies get smarter over time.

🐜 Built to be fun. You set a goal, the colony builds it. You steer with signals, not micromanagement. You watch workers spawn workers. You seal the colony when it's done and start a new one. It feels like tending a garden, not writing tickets.

/ant:focus "security"              # 🐜 "Pay attention here"
/ant:redirect "no jQuery"          # 🐜 "Don't do this"
/ant:feedback "prefer composition" # 🐜 "Adjust based on this"

Quick Start

# Interactive setup (recommended)
npx aether-colony

# Or install globally
npm install -g aether-colony

Then in your project:

/ant:lay-eggs            # Set up Aether (one-time)
/ant:init "Build X"      # Start a colony with a goal
/ant:plan                # Generate phased roadmap
/ant:run                 # Autopilot: build, verify, advance all phases
/ant:seal                # Done — archive the colony

Five commands from zero to shipped.

Key Features

| | Feature | Description | |---|---------|-------------| | Agents | 24 Specialized Workers | Builders, Watchers, Scouts, Trackers, Archaeologists, Oracle, and more | | Commands | 45 Slash Commands | Full lifecycle management across Claude Code and OpenCode | | Signals | Pheromone System | Guide the colony with FOCUS, REDIRECT, and FEEDBACK signals | | Memory | Colony Wisdom | Learnings and instincts persist across sessions via QUEEN.md | | Sharing | Hive Brain | Cross-colony wisdom sharing with domain-scoped retrieval | | Skills | 28 Skills | 10 colony + 18 domain skills inject knowledge into workers | | Autopilot | /ant:run | Automated build-verify-advance loop with smart pause conditions | | Verification | 6-Phase Gates | Build, types, lint, tests, security, diff gates before advancing | | Quality | 4 Gate Agents | Security (Gatekeeper), quality (Auditor), coverage (Probe), performance (Measurer) | | Research | Oracle + Scouts | Deep autonomous research before task decomposition | | State | Pause/Resume | Full state serialization for context breaks |

Commands

| Command | Description | |---------|-------------| | /ant:lay-eggs | Set up Aether in this repo (one-time) | | /ant:init "goal" | Initialize colony with mission | | /ant:plan | Generate phased roadmap with domain research | | /ant:build N | Execute phase N with worker waves | | /ant:continue | 6-phase verification, advance to next phase | | /ant:run | Autopilot — build, verify, advance automatically | | /ant:patrol | Pre-seal audit — verify work against plan | | /ant:seal | Complete and archive colony | | /ant:entomb | Create chamber from completed colony | | /ant:pause-colony | Save state for context break | | /ant:resume-colony | Restore from pause |

| Command | Description | |---------|-------------| | /ant:focus "area" | FOCUS — "Pay attention here" | | /ant:redirect "pattern" | REDIRECT — "Don't do this" (hard constraint) | | /ant:feedback "note" | FEEDBACK — "Adjust based on this" | | /ant:pheromones | View active signals | | /ant:export-signals | Export signals to XML | | /ant:import-signals | Import signals from XML |

| Command | Description | |---------|-------------| | /ant:colonize | 4 parallel scouts analyze your codebase | | /ant:oracle "topic" | Deep research with autonomous loop | | /ant:archaeology <path> | Excavate git history for any file | | /ant:chaos <target> | Resilience testing, edge case probing | | /ant:swarm "problem" | 4 parallel scouts for stubborn bugs | | /ant:dream | Philosophical codebase wanderer | | /ant:interpret | Grounds dreams in reality | | /ant:organize | Codebase hygiene report |

| Command | Description | |---------|-------------| | /ant:status | Colony overview with memory health | | /ant:memory-details | Wisdom, pending promotions, recent failures | | /ant:watch | Real-time swarm display | | /ant:history | Recent activity log | | /ant:flags | List blockers and issues | | /ant:help | Full command reference |

| Command | Description | |---------|-------------| | /ant:council | Clarify intent via multi-choice questions | | /ant:flag "title" | Create project-specific flag | | /ant:data-clean | Remove test artifacts from colony data | | /ant:preferences | Add or list user preferences | | /ant:skill-create "topic" | Create custom domain skill | | /ant:update | Update system files from hub |

The 24 Agents

| Tier | Agent | Role | |------|-------|------| | Core | Builder | Writes code, TDD-first | | Core | Watcher | Tests, validates, quality gates | | Core | Scout | Researches, discovers | | Orchestration | Queen | Orchestrates phases, spawns workers | | Orchestration | Route-Setter | Plans phases, breaks down goals | | Orchestration | Architect | Architecture design | | Surveyor | surveyor-nest | Maps directory structure | | Surveyor | surveyor-disciplines | Documents conventions | | Surveyor | surveyor-pathogens | Identifies tech debt | | Surveyor | surveyor-provisions | Maps dependencies | | Specialist | Keeper | Preserves knowledge | | Specialist | Tracker | Investigates bugs | | Specialist | Probe | Coverage analysis | | Specialist | Weaver | Refactoring specialist | | Specialist | Auditor | Quality gate | | Niche | Chaos | Resilience testing | | Niche | Archaeologist | Excavates git history | | Niche | Gatekeeper | Security gate | | Niche | Includer | Accessibility audits | | Niche | Measurer | Performance analysis | | Niche | Sage | Wisdom synthesis | | Niche | Oracle | Deep research | | Niche | Ambassador | External integrations | | Niche | Chronicler | Documentation |

Architecture

.aether/                        Colony files (repo-local)
├── aether-utils.sh             Dispatcher (~5,500 lines, ~130+ subcommands)
├── utils/                      35 modular scripts
├── skills/                     28 skills (10 colony + 18 domain)
├── commands/                   45 YAML command sources
├── exchange/                   XML exchange modules
├── docs/                       Documentation
├── templates/                  12 templates
└── data/                       Colony state (local only)

~/.aether/                      Hub (cross-colony, user-level)
├── QUEEN.md                    Wisdom + preferences
├── hive/wisdom.json            Cross-colony wisdom (200 cap)
└── registry.json               All registered colonies

Works With

• Claude Code — 45 slash commands + 24 agent definitions
• OpenCode — 45 slash commands + agent definitions

Support

If Aether has been useful to you:

Sponsor on GitHub

| Network | Address | |---------|---------| | ETH | 0xE7F8C9BE190c207D49DF01b82747cf7B6Bd1c809 | | SOL | 6DVTdoZvvi9siUpgmRJZxk5Kqho8TZiN2ZzyVUVC9gX8 |

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License

MIT