c978db1437
- Add agent-infra umbrella topic (hub for state, harness, model-access, collaboration lenses) - Split harness-engineering out of durable-agent-runtime; fold in Cloudflare Code Mode finding - Narrow durable-agent-runtime to state/durability lens; retitle - Tag codex-app-server-byo-auth as agent-infra subtopic - Document umbrella-topic convention in README
50 lines
3.8 KiB
Markdown
50 lines
3.8 KiB
Markdown
# Analysis — Durable Agent Runtime
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> Part of [[durable-agent-runtime/index|Durable Agent Runtime]]
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> Harness/loop analysis moved to [[harness-engineering/index|Harness Engineering]] (2026-08-11).
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## The three primitive families
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| Family | Example | Compute primitive | Where state lives | Cold start | Hibernation |
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| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
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| Durable objects | celld (Deno) | V8 isolate running Worker bundles | Per-object SQLite, replicated to S3 | Fast (isolate) | Idle cells hibernate |
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| Actors | rivet | Lightweight process (Node/Bun/Deno) | In-memory + SQLite/BYO DB | ~20ms | Actors hibernate when idle |
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| VM sandboxes | hypeman, E2B | Firecracker/Cloud Hypervisor/QEMU microVM | VM disk (snapshot for standby) | ~30s VM / sub-30ms from snapshot | standby = snapshot to disk |
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| Collaborative substrate | Radicle COBs | Signed, CRDT-like Git commit DAGs | Git objects (replicated, self-certifying) | Instant (local git) | Repos persist; nodes sync on demand |
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(Harness libraries — nanocodex, Codex, pi — moved to [[harness-engineering/index|Harness Engineering]].)
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The industry convergence: **compute is disposable, state is durable elsewhere.**
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- Amp orbs: ephemeral E2B sandbox + durable thread on Amp Server (PostgreSQL). Sandbox destroyed on archive; conversation survives.
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- celld: nodes are replaceable; the S3 bucket is the durable source of truth. Object = its own SQLite DB → sharding and blast-radius containment by construction, no consensus.
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- rivet: actor state in-memory for 0ms reads, persisted for durability; runs indefinitely, sleeps when idle.
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- hypeman: standby = snapshot VM to disk, restore in milliseconds — VM-level hibernation.
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## The two hard problems everyone solves
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1. **Cold start latency** — the gap between "VM ~30s" and "actor ~20ms" is closed with snapshots (E2B, hypeman standby, celld/rivet hibernation) or pre-provisioned pools. This is why orbs can feel local despite being remote.
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2. **State checkpointing & recovery** — thread JSONL (Amp), SQLite replication (celld), actor state persistence (rivet), VM disk snapshots (hypeman). Everything is replayable; nothing is lost on compute failure.
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## What this means for hermes-vm (our stack)
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Already have (the "durable compute host" layer):
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- Persistent remote dev VM (hermes-vm), systemd services, kanban DB, session DBs, herdr panes, tailscale.
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- herdr = the "shared tmux + durable agent loop" half of an orb, already built.
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Genuine gaps (the "environment contract" layer):
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- Per-repo `.agents/setup`-style bootstrap + AGENTS.md per repo — cheap, ~90% of the reliability win.
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- Idempotent dev-server script + ports metadata file + `/__dev`-style auth bypass for our apps.
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- Event-driven wake: Forgejo webhooks → kanban task (self-hosted equivalent of Amp's event-driven orbs).
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- Formalize tailscale serve as per-repo portals.
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Not worth building on a single box:
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- A distributed durable-object layer (celld) or actor platform (rivet) — solves multi-node, multi-region, scale-to-zero billing problems we don't have. One VM = one durable host.
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- An E2B-style per-thread VM fleet — same reason. NixOS already gives cheaper isolation: `nix develop`, rootless podman (already enabled via `modules/dev/containers.nix`), worktrees, NixOS containers/systemd-nspawn if stronger isolation is ever needed.
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Interesting but optional:
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- **hypeman** — if we ever want real per-task VM isolation with snapshot/standby on our own box, hypeman is the lean OSS option (multi-hypervisor, OCI images, ms restore). Watch it; don't adopt yet.
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## Verdict
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Build the **environment contracts** (setup hooks, AGENTS.md, dev-server skills, event wake) on the existing durable host. Do not build the sandbox platform or a distributed state layer. herdr + systemd + kanban + tailscale already provide the durability; the missing piece is making the environment "assume an agent and tell it where the light switches are."
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