taracodlabs/aiden

Aiden — Autonomous AI agent that operates your computer with prompts: browser control, terminal execution, workflows, tools, recovery systems, and persistent memory. Built solo. AGPL-3.0.

Aiden – an autonomous AI work engine

What it is – Aiden is an open‑source, Node‑based AI agent that can take a high‑level goal (e.g., "fix the failing tests in this repo" or "research a topic and write a report") and carry out the whole workflow on your own machine. It plans, runs commands, interacts with the browser, calls APIs, manipulates files and Git repositories, and finally produces verifiable evidence that the job succeeded. All of this happens under a TUI/CLI that lets you approve risky steps, set budgets, and inspect a durable log of what was done.

Why it matters – Most chat‑based tools stop at giving advice. Aiden bridges the gap between "what should I do?" and "do it for me" while keeping you in control and providing an audit trail. It is designed to be a general‑purpose “worker” that can be plugged into any development or automation environment.

Core capabilities

Capability	What it does
Goal‑to‑execution	Accepts a natural‑language goal, creates a multi‑step plan, and executes it across the OS, terminal, browser, APIs, and version‑control systems.
Durable state & evidence	Every action is recorded as a Job → Attempt → Effect → Evidence → Verification → Proof chain stored in SQLite, so you can resume after a crash and verify results later.
Risk‑tiered approvals	You can set trust levels (Observer/Assistant/Partner) that require explicit approval before destructive actions (e.g., committing code, sending network requests).
Multi‑provider LLM support	Works with OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Groq, Ollama and any custom endpoint (BYOK).
Sub‑agents	Large jobs can be split into isolated sub‑agents whose outputs must be proven before being accepted.
Daemon / triggers	Optional background mode watches files, schedules, email or webhooks and launches autonomous runs automatically.
Rich channels	Interact via the built‑in TUI, Discord, Slack, Telegram, email, or generic webhooks.
Codebase mode	Takes a repository snapshot, analyses its structure, makes safe file changes, runs tests/builds, and records Git actions as verifiable effects.
Workbench UI	A web‑based workbench (`aiden web`) lets you design visual, typed workflows that compile to the same execution contracts.

Technology stack

Language / runtime – TypeScript 5 targeting Node 20/22, delivered as an ESM npm package (aiden-runtime).
Bundler – esbuild.
Persistence – SQLite with FTS5 via better-sqlite3.
Browser automation – Playwright (headless Chromium).
Container sandbox – optional Docker support for isolated runs.
Communication – Server‑Sent Events (SSE) for streaming output; optional daemon mode.
Model‑Context Protocol (MCP) – a custom 1.0 protocol for consistent model interaction.
Cross‑platform – works on Windows 11, Linux, WSL, and macOS (API‑only mode).

Getting started (≈60 seconds)

# install the runtime globally
npm install -g aiden-runtime
# start the interactive CLI (Operator TUI)
aiden

Or run a one‑off instance without installing:

npx aiden-runtime@latest

The first launch walks you through a quick setup wizard, then drops you into a REPL where you can type a goal, e.g.:

> research the latest Rust async patterns and output a markdown summary

You’ll see the plan, approve any privileged steps, and finally receive a markdown file plus a verification log.

Typical use cases

Scenario	Example prompt
Codebase maintenance	"Find why the CI tests are failing, fix the bug, run the test suite, and commit the change with a signed commit."
Research & reporting	"Collect recent papers on transformer quantization, compare their results, and produce a structured report."
Web automation	"Log into example.com, fill the signup form with my data, download the confirmation PDF, and store it in ~/Downloads."
Background automation	"Watch ~/Inbox for new .txt files and automatically summarize their contents to a Google Doc.*"
Multi‑agent orchestration	"Generate a UI mockup, then ask a sub‑agent to write the React component, finally combine both into a repo."

Maturity & community

Version – stable v4.21.1 (released via npm latest).
License – AGPL‑3.0 (open source, requires source distribution of any modifications).
Activity – regular releases (monthly), detailed changelogs, and an active Discord community.
Installation footprint – a single npm package plus optional Docker for sandboxed runs; no heavyweight binaries.
Known limitations – third‑party account connections need manual provider setup; some cosmetic issues on aggressive terminal resizing; Windows installer is not bundled (runtime only).

Quick reference links

npm package – https://www.npmjs.com/package/aiden-runtime
Docs – docs/v4.5/ in the repo (covers CLI commands, model switching, skill extensions, etc.)
Discord community – https://discord.gg/CU5wshJW4F
Release notes – see RELEASE-NOTES-v4.21.1.md and earlier tags.

Bottom line – Aiden is a full‑stack autonomous AI agent that moves beyond chat, letting developers and power users give a single goal and have a verifiable, recoverable workflow executed on their own machine. It is a genuine, actively maintained software project in the AI‑agent space.