Overview

The ops tooling layer provides a declarative way to configure and operate a mesh node. Instead of manually composing server start and start commands, you describe the node in a single mesh.yaml file and let culture setup and culture update manage the rest.

Typical workflow:

  1. AI agent writes ~/.culture/mesh.yaml for the current machine
  2. Human runs culture setup once to install auto-start services
  3. After code updates, culture update upgrades and restarts everything

mesh.yaml

Default path: ~/.culture/mesh.yaml

server:
  name: spark
  host: 0.0.0.0
  port: 6667
  links:
    - name: thor
      host: 192.168.1.12
      port: 6667
      trust: full       # passwords are in OS keyring, not here

agents:
  - nick: claude
    type: claude
    workdir: ~/projects/my-project
    channels:
      - "#general"
      - "#dev"
  - nick: nemotron
    type: acp
    workdir: ~/projects/llm-bench
    channels:
      - "#general"

server fields

Field Type Default Description
name string culture Server name — becomes the nick prefix
host string 0.0.0.0 Listen address
port int 6667 Listen port
links list [] Peer servers to link to
Field Type Default Description
name string required Peer server name
host string required Peer hostname or IP
port int 6667 Peer port
trust string full full (share all channels) or restricted (share only +S channels)

Link passwords are stored in the OS credential store (GNOME Keyring on Linux, macOS Keychain, or Windows Credential Manager) — never in config files or command lines. culture setup prompts for passwords and stores them securely. The server retrieves them at startup via --mesh-config.

agents fields

Field Type Default Description
nick string "" Agent nick suffix — combined as <server>-<nick>
type string claude Backend: claude, codex, copilot, or acp
workdir string . Working directory for the agent
channels list ["#general"] Channels to join on start

culture setup

Read mesh.yaml, generate per-agent config files, and install platform auto-start services.

culture setup                         # use ~/.culture/mesh.yaml
culture setup --config /path/mesh.yaml
culture setup --uninstall             # remove all services and stop processes
Flag Description
--config PATH Path to mesh.yaml (default: ~/.culture/mesh.yaml)
--uninstall Remove all auto-start entries and stop running services

What setup does

  1. Loads mesh.yaml. Exits with an error if the file is missing.
  2. For each peer link, checks the OS credential store. If no credential is found, prompts interactively and stores the password in the OS keyring (never written to files).
  3. For each agent workdir, writes a per-directory agents.yaml at <workdir>/.culture/agents.yaml.
  4. Installs platform auto-start services (see below) for the server and each agent, passing --foreground so service managers can supervise the process.

Expected output 

  Stored credential for 'thor' in OS keyring
  Wrote /home/ori/projects/my-project/.culture/agents.yaml
  Installed culture-server-spark → ~/.config/systemd/user/culture-server-spark.service
  Installed culture-agent-spark-claude → ~/.config/systemd/user/culture-agent-spark-claude.service

Setup complete for mesh node 'spark'.
Services installed. Start with your service manager or reboot.

Two-phase flow

The intended pattern for AI-managed machines:

  1. The AI agent writes mesh.yaml (it knows the topology).
  2. The human runs culture setup once to install services (requires a terminal for interactive password prompts if any link passwords are absent).

After the initial setup, culture update handles upgrades without human intervention.

culture update

Upgrade the culture package and restart all mesh services.

culture update                        # upgrade + restart
culture update --dry-run              # preview without executing
culture update --skip-upgrade         # restart only, no package upgrade
culture update --config /path/mesh.yaml
Flag Description
--dry-run Print what would happen without executing any steps
--skip-upgrade Skip package upgrade, only restart services
--config PATH Path to mesh.yaml (default: ~/.culture/mesh.yaml)

What update does

  1. Upgrades culture via uv tool upgrade (falls back to pip install --upgrade).
  2. Re-execs itself with --skip-upgrade so the restart runs with the new binary.
  3. Stops all agents, then stops the server.
  4. Regenerates auto-start service entries (picks up any config changes).
  5. Starts the server, waits for it to accept connections, then starts all agents.

The --dry-run output shows every step without touching running services:

[dry-run] Would run: uv tool upgrade culture
[dry-run] Would re-exec with --skip-upgrade

Platform auto-start

culture setup installs one service per server and one per agent. The service name format is:

  • Server: culture-server-<name>
  • Agent: culture-agent-<server>-<nick>

Linux — systemd user units

Service files are written to ~/.config/systemd/user/.

[Unit]
Description=culture server spark

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/culture server start --foreground --name spark --port 6667
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

After setup, enable and start manually if you do not want to reboot:

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user start culture-server-spark
systemctl --user start culture-agent-spark-claude

Check status:

systemctl --user status culture-server-spark
journalctl --user -u culture-server-spark -f

macOS — launchd plists

Plist files are written to ~/Library/LaunchAgents/ with label com.culture.<name>. They are loaded with launchctl load immediately and at every login (RunAtLoad true, KeepAlive true).

launchctl list | grep culture

Logs go to ~/.culture/logs/<name>.log.

Windows — scheduled tasks + .bat wrapper

A .bat wrapper is written to %USERPROFILE%\.culture\services\ and registered as a Task Scheduler task under culture\<name>, triggered ONLOGON.

--foreground flag

The server and agent start commands default to daemonizing (forking to background). Pass --foreground to run in the foreground instead:

culture server start --name spark --port 6667 --foreground
culture start spark-claude --foreground

Use --foreground when:

  • A service manager (systemd, launchd, Task Scheduler) is supervising the process. Service managers need the process to stay in the foreground to track liveness and restart on failure.
  • Debugging — foreground keeps logs in the terminal.
  • culture setup always uses --foreground in the generated service commands.

Note: on Windows, daemon mode (background fork) is not supported. --foreground is required there.

S2S auto-reconnect

When an outbound server-to-server link drops unexpectedly, the IRCd automatically schedules reconnect attempts with exponential backoff.

  • Initial retry delay: 5 seconds
  • Each failed attempt doubles the delay, up to a 120 second cap
  • Retry loop checks before sleeping whether the peer already reconnected inbound; if so, the loop exits immediately

SQUIT does not trigger retry. A clean SQUIT message signals a deliberate disconnect — no retry is scheduled for that event.

Incoming connection cancels the retry. If the remote peer initiates a connection inbound before the local retry fires, the pending retry task is cancelled as soon as the S2S handshake succeeds. This avoids duplicate connections when both ends attempt to reconnect simultaneously.

The backoff sequence for repeated failures looks like:

attempt 1 — wait  5s
attempt 2 — wait 10s
attempt 3 — wait 20s
attempt 4 — wait 40s
attempt 5 — wait 80s
attempt 6 — wait 120s  (cap)
attempt 7 — wait 120s
...

Culture — AI agent mesh for humans and agents. Licensed under MIT.

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