Many agents. One runtime. Separate lives.

Distinct AI agents from one local install — each with its own soul, memory, secrets, skills, workspace, and autonomy. Nothing leaks between them.

Why · Quickstart · Docs · Learning · Lodestar

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Run separate AI agents for work, clients, side projects, and experiments from one local install — each with its own soul, memory, secrets, skills, workspace, event log, and autonomy level. Agents run alone by default. When they collaborate, they do it through explicit connections — never shared memory or shared credentials.

Why

Tools like OpenClaw and Hermes are powerful, but they're naturally centered on one long-lived agent identity at a time. The moment you want several distinct agents, you end up duplicating runtimes, configs, workspaces — sometimes whole VMs — just to keep their memory, secrets, and credentials apart. You're doing systems administration instead of building.

Asterism makes a distinct agent a first-class thing you create in one command. Each agent is its own body — its own soul, memory, secrets, workspace, and autonomy — and nothing crosses between them unless you say so. A soul is nothing exotic: a small persona file defining an agent's voice, values, and operating style.

The name is the idea. The stars in an asterism aren't bound to each other; they can sit light-years apart and only form a pattern from where you're standing. That's the model: agents that are genuinely separate, organized and navigated as one grouping from a single runtime.

Unlike multi-agent orchestration frameworks — which coordinate agents to finish a task and share context freely — Asterism starts with identity and boundaries. Collaboration is a later, explicit, permissioned connection, not the default and never implicit shared state.

Quickstart

npx @qmilab/asterism init     # Node 20+   (Bun: bunx --bun @qmilab/asterism init · Deno: deno run -A npm:@qmilab/asterism init)

# create two agents with distinct souls and autonomy
asterism new writer  --soul casual-helper       --trust autonomous
asterism new client  --soul careful-consultant  --trust propose

# scoped secrets and skills — never shared across agents
asterism secrets add client GITHUB_TOKEN
# a skill is just a markdown file you write
echo "# Blog style: sentence-case headings, active voice" > blog-style.md
asterism skill   add writer blog-style.md

# run them (needs a configured model — see Installation)
asterism run writer "tighten the draft in posts/launch.md"
asterism run client "summarize the meeting and tidy the notes folder"

# inspect what each one knows and did
asterism memory inspect writer
asterism events tail client

What you'll see — writer's memory never appears in client, and client's GITHUB_TOKEN can't be read from writer; those boundaries hold the moment the agents exist. The autonomy you set governs the rest — propose hands you a plan, notify and autonomous act on their own, and at every level an agent pauses for confirmation before anything destructive. The gate acts on an agent's tools: the shipped CLI registers a default catalog of workspace-scoped file tools (read_file, write_file, delete_file) behind it, so with a configured model an ordinary edit runs under autonomous while a deletion pauses — proven end to end in the five-claims walkthrough.

Documentation

Full docs live in docs/:

• Installation — install, initialize, and configure a model.
• Concepts — agents, souls, trust, memory, and what "separate" means today.
• Command reference — every command and option.
• Five-claims walkthrough — the separation guarantees proven end to end.
• Local HTTP endpoint — serve one agent over HTTP.

Continuous, reviewable learning

asterism reflect writer --review

Proposed memory writes:
  [convention] This blog uses sentence case in headings.   confidence 0.86
  [procedural] Run a spell pass before saving.             confidence 0.78
  [negative]   Don't rewrite quotes inside blockquotes.    confidence 0.91
Accept? edit? reject?

Each agent grows with use — but on its own track, inside its own boundary. Every memory it forms is typed, scoped to that agent, and yours to approve; nothing is written silently. Continuity, but plural: many agents growing separately, not one assistant growing around you.

Pairs with Lodestar

A lodestar is the single star you steer by. An asterism is the grouping you navigate within. Asterism runs your agents and keeps them apart; Lodestar is the layer that makes each one trustworthy — what it knows, believes, and is allowed to do.

Status

Phase 0 (Core) — in active development. Local CLI + HTTP, per-agent scoping (memory, secrets, skills, workspace), souls and roles, trust profiles, reviewable memory. Richer cognition, collaboration, and stronger execution isolation come in later phases.

Contributing & security

Contributions are welcome — start with CONTRIBUTING.md and the Code of Conduct. Found a way for one agent to reach another's memory, secrets, or skills? Please report it privately first — see SECURITY.md.

License

Apache-2.0 © QMI Lab — see LICENSE.