The Foundry

An autonomous multi-agent system that makes things — code, prose, poetry, games, music, experiments — and argues with itself about whether they're good enough to keep. Five AI agents collaborate adversarially: one proposes, one builds, one tests, one critiques, one curates. The system runs indefinitely, developing aesthetic preferences and a collective voice that evolves with the portfolio.

How It Works

Five agents run in a loop, each with a distinct cognitive role:

1. Ideator — reads the portfolio, the manifesto, and external stimuli (news, cultural trends, random knowledge). Proposes what to build next.
2. Creator — builds the artifact. Code, prose, music notation, HTML experiments — whatever the idea demands.
3. Tester — runs the artifact in a sandbox. Validates it works, checks for structural completeness.
4. Critic — reviews the artifact against the manifesto's values. Rates it on seven dimensions. Can send it back for revision or recommend it be killed.
5. Curator — maintains portfolio quality over time. Updates the manifesto. Decides what the system values and whether it's drifting.

The agents share a collective identity (the manifesto) but disagree productively. The Critic kills work the Creator loves. The Curator evolves standards the Ideator must meet. The tension is the mechanism.

See ARCHITECTURE.md for the full technical design.

Quickstart

npm install -g the-foundry
foundry init my-portfolio
foundry start --workdir my-portfolio

foundry init creates a git repo with the site, config, prompts, and GitHub Actions workflow for auto-deploying a portfolio site to GitHub Pages.

Requires Node.js >= 22 and an OpenAI-compatible API endpoint. The default configuration points at Z.ai. Point it at any compatible provider by editing config/models.yml.

Documentation

• ARCHITECTURE.md — system design, agent communication, context assembly
• CONFIGURATION.md — YAML config schema, model selection, domain setup
• CUSTOMIZATION.md — writing your own manifesto, adding domains, tuning agents
• LESSONS.md — what we learned running autonomous creation at scale
• FOUNDRY-SPEC.md — the full specification

The Portfolio Website

Each Foundry instance deploys a static site for browsing its portfolio. It includes a timeline view, domain filtering, artifact detail pages with interactive embeds, and quality analytics. The site lives in site/ and deploys automatically to GitHub Pages.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

MIT