Artificial Ecology for Thought and Emergent Reasoning
The whole is greater than the sum of its ants.
Every AI coding tool now has "agents." Most are them are the same repackaged — a loop that plans, executes, and checks. That's not a colony. That's one ant doing laps.
Aether is different because it'm 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 verifies. A Tracker hunts bugs. An Archaeologist excavates git history. They work parallel, in waves, across phases.
What makes this different: Pheromone signals, — not prompt engineering — Guide workers with FOCUS, REDIRECT, and FEEDBACK. The colony adapts without rewriting prompts
Memory that compounds - Learnings from one build become instincts. Instincts promote to QUEEN.md wisdom. High-confidence wisdom flows to the Hive Brain and crosses to other projects. Skills - 28 skills inject knowledge into workers
Autopilot - /ant:run - Automated build-verify-advance across phases
Option 1: Go binary (recommended)
# Install the Go binary
go install github.com/calcosmic/Aether@latest
# Set up the hub in your project
aether install # Populates ~/.aether/ with system files
aether setup # Sync companion files to local repo
# Start a colony
/ant:lay-eggs # One-time setup
/ant:init "Build X" # Start colony with goal
/ant:plan # Generate phased roadmap
/ant:build 1 # Execute phase with worker waves
/ant:continue # Verify, learn, advance
/ant:seal # Done — archive theFive commands from zero to shipped.
| Feature | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| Agents | 24 Specialized Workers | Builder, Watcher, Scout, Tracker, Archaeologist, Oracle, and more |
| Commands | 45 Slash Commands | Full lifecycle for Claude Code and OpenCode |
| Signals | Pheromone System | FOCUS, REDIRECT, FEEDBACK — guide colony attention |
| Memory | Colony Wisdom | Learnings and instincts persist via QUEEN.md |
| Hive Brain | Cross-colony | Domain-scoped wisdom sharing |
| Autopilot | /ant:run |
Build-verify-advance loop with smart pause |
| Skills | 28 Skills | 10 colony + 18 domain knowledge for workers |
| Research | Oracle + Scouts | Deep autonomous research before task decomposition |
| Quality Gates | 6-phase verification before advancing | |
| Platforms | Claude Code + OpenCode | Binary + agent support |
.aether/ Colony files (repo-local)
├── commands/ 45 YAML command sources
├── agents-claude/ Claude agent definitions
├── skills/ 28 skills (10 colony + 18 domain)
├── exchange/ XML exchange modules
├── docs/ Documentation
├── templates/ 12 templates
└── data/ Colony state (local only)
~/.aether/ Hub (cross-colony, user-level)
├── system/ Companion file source (populated by install)
├── QUEEN.md Wisdom + preferences
├── hive/wisdom.json Cross-colony wisdom (200 cap)
Runtime: Go 1.22+
Distribution: GoReleaser (Linux, macOS, Windows / amd64 + arm64)
Package: aether-colony on npm (companion files only)
- Claude Code - 45 slash commands + 24 agent definitions
- OpenCode - 45 slash commands + agent definitions
If Aether has been useful to you:
Crypto
| Network | Address |
|---|---|
| ETH | 0xE7F8C9BE190c207D49DF01b82747cf7B6Bd1c809 |
| SOL | 6DVTdoZvvi9siUpgmRJZxk5Kqho8TZiN2ZzyVUVC9gX8 |
MIT