Zhou-Shilin/Aether

Aether – a local AI agent for phones and Macs

What it is – Aether is an open‑source mobile‑first AI assistant that runs entirely on the device (Android, iOS, macOS). It bundles a polished chat‑style UI with a lightweight “Pi” execution engine that can talk to many large‑language‑model providers (OpenAI, Gemini, Claude, etc.) and call tools you add yourself.

Why it matters – Most consumer AI apps rely on cloud services. Aether lets you keep the model calls and any data processing on‑device, which is useful for privacy, offline use, or when you want to experiment with custom extensions without a server.

Core capabilities

Feature	What you get
Polished chat UI	A modern, animation‑rich interface that feels like the official ChatGPT or Gemini apps.
Pi harness kernel	The underlying "Pi" framework abstracts over many LLM providers, so the same conversation code works with OpenAI, Gemini, Claude, etc.
Built‑in Alpine Linux VM	An Alpine Linux environment is installed automatically, giving you a shell and the ability to run command‑line tools inside the app.
File‑manager integration (Android)	After Alpine starts, you can open the app’s workspace from the Android Files app and edit files directly.
Host‑control extensions	Optional integration with Shizuku or Termux lets the agent manipulate the device (e.g., run scripts, automate UI).

Extensibility – add your own powers

Aether follows the Pi extension model. Extensions are zip packages that can:

Add new settings panels or custom composer widgets.
Provide “tool” cards that appear in the chat (e.g., web search, PDF extraction).
Intercept prompts or inject system messages.

Official extensions shipped by the team include:

Pi Web Access – unified web‑search across 20+ providers, GitHub cloning, PDF and YouTube parsing.
Pi MCP Adapter – a gateway for the Model‑Context‑Protocol, supporting stdin/stdout, HTTP streaming, SSE, and Unix sockets.
Pi Subagents – autonomous “sub‑agents” (Claude‑style) that can run in parallel, show live widgets, and be addressed with @handle mentions.

Developers can create their own extensions and import them via Settings → Extensions → Import extension. Full docs are at https://aether.baimoqilin.com/docs/extensions/overview.md.

Platforms

Android – distributed as an APK on GitHub releases.
iOS – available on the Apple App Store.
macOS – also supported (same code base, native UI).

Getting started

Install the app for your platform (App Store, APK, or macOS download).
Open the app; the Alpine VM will be set up automatically.
Use the chat window to talk to an LLM of your choice (configured in Settings → Provider).
Add extensions via the Extensions screen or by importing a zip file.
For detailed steps, see the quick‑start guide: https://aether.baimoqilin.com/docs/quickstart.

Contributing & support

The project is maintained by a teenage developer in spare time. Contributions are welcome via pull requests or issues. The README encourages stars, Ko‑fi donations, and sponsorship on Afdian.

License

Aether is released under GPL‑3.0.

Bottom line – Aether gives you a native‑looking, highly customizable AI assistant that runs locally on mobile and desktop, with a plug‑in system for adding tools like web search, code execution, or custom sub‑agents.