Recursus

A durable, full-access runtime agent that can remember, compute, delegate, resume, verify, and finish.

Recursus is the product and assembly layer for an OpenCnid agent runtime built on DeepSeek Harness. DeepSeek Harness remains the control plane: it owns the agent loop, sessions, tools, approvals, policy, lineage, cancellation, and telemetry. Recursus composes independently versioned capabilities around that core and will add durable run state, execution supervision, verification-driven completion, coordinated delegation, bounded context compilation, and adaptive model routing.

Recursus intentionally runs with the host access granted by its operator. It is designed as a capable agent on a trusted development machine, not as a security sandbox. Irreversible external actions still require explicit gates, exact targets, and durable evidence.

Runtime composition

flowchart TD
    operator["Operator"] --> recursus["Recursus product and run layer"]
    recursus --> dsh["DeepSeek Harness control plane"]
    dsh --> codex["OpenAI Codex model provider"]
    dsh --> rlm["Persistent RLM compute and native recursion"]
    dsh <--> honcho["Honcho cross-session memory"]
    rlm --> artifacts["Project-local exact artifacts"]
    artifacts --> dsh
    dsh --> dovetail["Dovetail workflows and evaluation skills"]
    dsh --> truth["Git, files, tests, CI, and durable run state"]

Component	Responsibility	Repository
DeepSeek Harness	Agent loop, tools, sessions, policy, lineage, cancellation, UI	OpenCnid/deepseek-harness
OpenAI Codex adapter	ChatGPT-subscription model provider	OpenCnid/deepseek-openai-codex
DeepSeek RLM	Persistent IPython, snapshots, recursive DSH children, Python tool bridge	OpenCnid/deepseek-rlm
DeepSeek Honcho	Cross-session memory, exact artifacts, sanitized experiment cards	OpenCnid/deepseek-honcho
DeepSeek Dovetail	Prompting, delegation, evaluation, self-play, steering, and handoff workflows	OpenCnid/deepseek-dovetail

Exact revisions and license boundaries are recorded in manifests/components.json and THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

Assembly contract status

manifests/assembly.json extends the accepted component pins with the versioned Milestone 1 source lock: license status, acquisition method, exact package manager and lockfile digests, component-owned verification/build/pack commands, package selectors, public DSH profile contributions, platform support, and compatibility constraints. Its strict schema is manifests/assembly.schema.json, and manifests/profile-lock.yaml freezes the assembled profile's third-party dependency resolution under pnpm 11.19.0.

The private packages/assembly package defines the provider-neutral lifecycle, read-only Git acquisition, exact component command execution, bounded npm-tarball inspection, isolated DSH profile lifecycle, and assembled smoke runner. An operator supplies an absolute Recursus work root; all source, package-manager, dependency, Python, distribution, and package output state remains below it. The inspector rejects that exact root in archive text, including slash-normalized and escaped forms. manifests/package-integrity.json and the Windows package, profile, default-smoke, and opt-in live-smoke reports preserve path-free evidence for the preceding Harness pin. They are intentionally stale against the newly reviewed source lock and must not be relabeled. Linux acceptance remains absent until the complete §20.6 workflow regenerates evidence at the new pin. See docs/ASSEMBLY.md for the workflow, verified behavior, and remaining limitations.

What Recursus will own

• a reproducible, one-command runtime assembly;
• authoritative durable task and run state;
• persistent process, kernel, CI, and wakeup supervision;
• machine-readable completion contracts;
• dependency-aware multi-agent coordination;
• bounded context compilation with trust and freshness labels;
• model, reasoning-effort, and RLM routing;
• operator status, pause, resume, cancel, and approval controls;
• end-to-end compatibility, packaging, evaluation, and releases.

What Recursus will not own

• a second agent loop beside DSH;
• another transcript store or general memory system;
• current-code truth inside Honcho;
• artifact bytes inside Honcho;
• hidden relicensing or copied component histories;
• claims of official endorsement by any upstream project.

Standing on the shoulders of giants

Recursus exists because many projects made the hard parts legible and reusable. We are especially grateful to:

• DeepSeek AI and the DeepSeek Harness contributors for the plugin-first agent control plane;
• the Cordis and associated framework contributors for spatiotemporal service composition;
• OpenAI and the Codex ecosystem for the model experience used through our provider adapter;
• Mario Zechner, the Pi ecosystem, and @earendil-works/pi-ai contributors for the direct provider and OAuth substrate;
• the Prime Agent contributors for persistent-kernel and recursive-agent techniques adapted by DeepSeek RLM;
• Project Jupyter and IPython for the computational substrate;
• Honcho and Plastic Labs for cross-session reasoning and the official Honcho SDK;
• Matthew Murphy, Lexideck, the SPARK authors, and all OpenCnid Dovetail contributors whose methods inform the workflow layer;
• every maintainer of the libraries and tools recorded in the component lockfiles and notices.

Credit is not a license substitution. Each dependency and component retains its own copyright and terms. See THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

Roadmap

The implementation order is defined in GAMEPLAN.md:

1. reproducible runtime assembly;
2. durable run state;
3. execution supervision;
4. verification-driven completion;
5. coordinated delegation;
6. bounded context compilation;
7. adaptive model and compute routing;
8. operator experience, evaluation, and release.

The normative product boundaries and Definition of Done are in SPEC.md. The component topology is explained in docs/ARCHITECTURE.md.

To continue implementation in a fresh Codex session, use the maintained kickoff in NEXT_SESSION_PROMPT.md. It directs the session to the normative specification and the first unfinished milestone.

Repository verification

Use Node.js 22.19.0 or a supported Node.js 24 release and pnpm 11.19.0:

pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
pnpm check

node scripts/verify.mjs remains the dependency-free check for the component pins plus the implemented Milestone 1 schema, source lock, package/profile evidence, smoke reports, and notice closure. During this deliberate pin transition it validates the accepted predecessor evidence against its explicit historical identity and validates the current source lock independently. A passing repository verifier does not make the historical reports current or complete Milestone 1; the full package, profile, smoke, Linux, and §20.6 evidence set must still be regenerated and accepted at the new source lock.

License

Original Recursus code and documentation are licensed under the MIT License. Referenced and later assembled components retain their own licenses. Recursus is an independent OpenCnid project and is not an official DeepSeek, OpenAI, Honcho, or Prime product.