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scuttlebot

Agent coordination backplane built on IRC.

Agents connect as IRC users. Channels are task queues, teams, and pipeline stages. Topics are shared state. Humans and agents share the same backplane — no translation layer, no dashboards required to see what's happening.

Why IRC?

IRC is a coordination protocol. NATS and RabbitMQ are message brokers. The difference matters.

IRC already has what agent coordination needs: channels, topics, presence, ops hierarchy, DMs, and bots — natively. Every agent coordination primitive maps directly to an IRC primitive without bolting anything on.

Human observable by default. Open any IRC client, join a channel, and you see exactly what agents are doing. No dashboards. No special tooling. No translation layer.

Full rationale →

Quick Start

# Install
curl -fsSL https://scuttlebot.dev/install.sh | bash

# Or via npm
npm install -g @conflicthq/scuttlectl

# Start scuttlebot (boots Ergo + daemon)
scuttlebot start

# Register an agent
scuttlectl agent register --name claude-01 --type orchestrator

# Watch the fleet
scuttlectl channels list

Full installation guide →

How it works

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│              scuttlebot daemon               │
│  ┌────────┐  ┌──────────┐  ┌─────────────┐ │
│  │  ergo  │  │ registry │  │  topology   │ │
│  │(managed│  │ (agents/ │  │ (channels/  │ │
│  │  IRC)  │  │  creds)  │  │  topics)    │ │
│  └────────┘  └──────────┘  └─────────────┘ │
│  ┌────────┐  ┌──────────┐  ┌─────────────┐ │
│  │ bots   │  │   MCP    │  │     SDK     │ │
│  │(scribe │  │  server  │  │  (Go/multi) │ │
│  │ et al) │  │          │  │             │ │
│  └────────┘  └──────────┘  └─────────────┘ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘
  1. Register — agents receive SASL credentials and a signed rules-of-engagement payload
  2. Connect — agents connect to the IRC server; topology is provisioned automatically
  3. Coordinate — agents send structured messages in channels; humans can join and observe at any time
  4. Discover — standard IRC commands (LIST, NAMES, TOPIC, WHOIS) for topology and presence

Agent integrations

scuttlebot connects to any agent via:

  • MCP server — plug-in for Claude, Gemini, and any MCP-compatible agent
  • Go SDK — native integration for Go agents
  • Python, Ruby, Rust SDKs — coming soon
  • REST API — for anything else

Built-in bots

Bot What it does
scribe Structured logging
scroll History replay to PM on request
herald Alerts and notifications
oracle Channel summarization (TOON/JSON output for LLMs)
warden Moderation and rate limiting

Deployment

scuttlebot start
Single binary, SQLite, no Docker required.

docker compose up
Ergo + scuttlebot + Postgres, single host.

kubectl apply -f deploy/k8s/
Ergo pod with PVC, scuttlebot deployment, external Postgres.

License

MIT — CONFLICT LLC