Soulshack User Guide

Soulshack is an advanced IRC chatbot powered by LLMs, designed to bridge traditional chat with modern AI capabilities.

Features

• Multi-Provider Support: Works with OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, and Ollama.
• Unified Tool System: Supports shell scripts, MCP servers, and native IRC tools.
• Secure: Full SSL/TLS and SASL authentication support.
• Session Management: Configurable history, context window, and session TTL.
• Streaming: Real-time responses with IRC-appropriate chunking.
• Passive Mode: Optional URL watching and analysis.
• Runtime Configuration: Manage settings via IRC commands.

Quickstart

Option 1: Docker

docker build . -t soulshack:dev

Option 2: Build from Source

Prerequisites: Go 1.23+

1. Clone and Build:

   git clone https://github.com/pkdindustries/soulshack.git
   cd soulshack
   go build -o soulshack cmd/soulshack/main.go
   

2. Run:

   Configuration File (Recommended)

   Local Binary:

   ./soulshack --config examples/chatbot.yml
   

   Docker:

   # Mount config file to container
   docker run -v $(pwd)/examples/chatbot.yml:/config.yml soulshack:dev \
     --config /config.yml
   

   All Flags (Kitchen Sink)

   Local Binary:

   ./soulshack \
     --nick soulshack \
     --server irc.example.com \
     --port 6697 \
     --tls \
     --channel '#soulshack' \
     --saslnick mybot \
     --saslpass mypassword \
     --admins "admin!*@*" \
     --model openai/gpt-5.1 \
     --openaikey "sk-..." \
     --maxtokens 4096 \
     --temperature 1 \
     --apitimeout 5m \
     --tool "examples/tools/datetime.sh" \
     --tool "irc__op" \
     --thinkingeffort off \
     --urlwatcher \
     --verbose
   

   Docker:

   docker run soulshack:dev \
     --nick soulshack \
     --server irc.example.com \
     --port 6697 \
     --tls \
     --channel '#soulshack' \
     --saslnick mybot \
     --saslpass mypassword \
     --admins "admin!*@*" \
     --model openai/gpt-5.1 \
     --openaikey "sk-..." \
     --maxtokens 4096 \
     --temperature 1 \
     --apitimeout 5m \
     --thinkingeffort off \
     --urlwatcher \
     --verbose
   # Note: Local file tools/scripts require volume mounts to work in Docker
   

   Ollama (Local)

   Local Binary:

   ./soulshack \
     --server irc.example.com \
     --channel '#soulshack' \
     --model ollama/qwen3:30b \
     --ollamaurl "http://localhost:11434"
   

   Docker:

   # Use --network host to access Ollama on localhost
   docker run --network host soulshack:dev \
     --server irc.example.com \
     --channel '#soulshack' \
     --model ollama/qwen3:30b \
     --ollamaurl "http://localhost:11434"
   

   Anthropic

   Local Binary:

   ./soulshack \
     --server irc.example.com \
     --channel '#soulshack' \
     --model anthropic/claude-opus-4.5 \
     --anthropickey "sk-ant-..."
   

   Docker:

   docker run soulshack:dev \
     --server irc.example.com \
     --channel '#soulshack' \
     --model anthropic/claude-opus-4.5 \
     --anthropickey "sk-ant-..."
   

Configuration Flags

Flag	Default	Description
-n, --nick	soulshack	Bot nickname
-s, --server	localhost	IRC server address
-p, --port	6667	IRC server port
-c, --channel		Channel to join
-e, --tls	false	Enable TLS
--tlsinsecure	false	Skip TLS cert verification
--saslnick		SASL username
--saslpass		SASL password
-b, --config		Path to YAML config file
-A, --admins		Comma-separated admin hostmasks
-V, --verbose	false	Enable debug logging
--model	ollama/llama3.2	LLM model (provider/name)
--maxtokens	4096	Max tokens per response
--temperature	0.7	Sampling temperature
-t, --apitimeout	5m	API request timeout
--openaikey		OpenAI API key
--anthropickey		Anthropic API key
--geminikey		Google Gemini API key
--ollamaurl	http://localhost:11434	Ollama API endpoint
--tool		Path to tool definition (repeatable)
--thinkingeffort	off	Reasoning effort level: off, low, medium, high
--urlwatcher	false	Enable passive URL watching
--sandbox	false	Sandbox shell, bash, and MCP tools (see below)

YAML Configuration

Create a config.yml file:

server:
  nick: "soulshack"
  server: "irc.example.com"
  port: 6697
  channel: "#soulshack"
  tls: true

bot:
  admins: ["nick!user@host"]
  tools:
    - "examples/tools/datetime.sh"
    - "examples/mcp/filesystem.json"

Run with: ./soulshack --config config.yml

Commands

Command	Admin?	Description
/help	No	Show available commands
/version	No	Show bot version
/tools	No	List loaded tools
/tools add <spec>	Yes	Add a tool at runtime
/tools remove <pattern>	Yes	Remove a tool
/admins	Yes	List admins
/admins add <hostmask>	Yes	Add an admin
/set <key> <value>	Yes	Set config parameter
/get <key>	No	Get config parameter

Built-in Tools

Soulshack comes with native IRC management tools (permissions apply):

• irc_op, irc_deop: Grant/revoke operator status.
• irc_kick, irc_ban, irc_unban: User management.
• irc_topic: Set channel topic.
• irc_invite: Invite users to channel.
• irc_mode_set, irc_mode_query: Manage channel modes.
• irc_names, irc_whois: User information.

Sandboxing

With --sandbox (or sandbox: true in YAML, env SOULSHACK_SANDBOX), all shell scripts, the built-in bash tool, and MCP servers launched via --tool run inside a platform sandbox. Disabled by default.

Requirements: sandbox-exec on macOS, bwrap (bubblewrap) on Linux. If the backend isn't available the flag is ignored with a sandbox_unavailable warning and tools run as before.

Default policy (applied to every sandboxed tool):

• Writes allowed only under the OS temp directory.
• Outbound network blocked.
• Sensitive paths blocked from reads: ~/.ssh, ~/.gnupg, ~/.aws, ~/.azure, ~/.config/gcloud, ~/.kube, ~/.docker/config.json, ~/.npmrc, ~/.config/gh, ~/.netrc, ~/.git-credentials, macOS keychains, and other credential stores.
• Each sandboxed tool's description gets a [sandboxed] suffix so the model knows it's restricted.

Per-tool overrides — shell scripts declare a sandbox field in their --schema output; MCP server JSON files add it alongside command/args:

"sandbox": true
"sandbox": { "allowNetwork": true, "writablePaths": ["/tmp/data"] }
"sandbox": { "denyWrite": true }
"sandbox": { "allowEnv": ["HOME", "PATH"] }

false opts the tool out entirely (runs unsandboxed even when --sandbox is enabled). Absence of the field uses the default policy above. POLLYTOOL_* env vars are always stripped from sandboxed processes unless listed in allowEnv.

Native IRC tools (irc_op, irc_kick, etc.) run in-process and are unaffected.

The sandbox itself lives in pollytool — for the full config schema, merge semantics, and per-platform backend details see pollytool's Sandboxing section and API.md.

Documentation

• Contributing: Guide for adding commands and tools.
• Architecture: High-level system overview.

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Named as tribute to my old friend dayv, sp0t, who i think of often.