Changes between Version 4 and Version 5 of Sllim

Timestamp:

10/04/26 00:52:31 (12 days ago)

Author:

Eli Carter

Comment:

Real overview

Sllim

@@ +1 @@
+= Sllim =
+
 [[Image(wordmark-black-on-white.svg)]]
 
-Sllim is a command-line interface for running AI agents and interacting with LLM APIs.
+Sllim is a command-line interface (a CLI, not a TUI) for running AI agents and interacting with LLM APIs.
+
+It talks to Ollama and OpenAI-compatible endpoints, whether from an API provider (such as fireworks.ai) or !DwarfStar on a local DGX Spark running !DeepSeek-v4-Flash.
+The central agentic tool of Sllim is a real bash shell, generally sandboxed in a VM with filtered networking and scoped filesystem access.
+
+== Why I built it ==
+
+I've spent much of my career building tools for software engineering, and I'm a CLI kind of guy: my "IDE" is a grid of terminals, and I reach for `grep` over a code-navigation tool.
+When I first saw an Open Source model with a `bash` tool write a full-page Python script, properly escaped to execute in bash, and it worked, I knew I wanted to harness that.
+The existing harnesses didn't fit my hand; most are TUIs claiming to be CLIs, and it seems all take a wrong-headed approach to sandboxing.
+
+When it comes to sandboxing, most tools look at the command the LLM wants to run, decide if it's "safe", and execute it.
+That doesn't even pass a security sniff test.
+You want the agent to write test cases and run them, which means you want it to run arbitrary code.
+So you must constrain what it can do instead: scoped access to specific directories, whitelist-filtered internet through a proxy, harness code that runs outside the sandbox, and LLM actions that execute inside it.
+Anything short of that eventually ends in `sudo rm -rf /*`, or worse.
+
+== What it does ==
+
+Each level of AI interaction is supported:
+
+ * `sllim ask` is non-agentic: one prompt, one response. Great for code review - feed it a git diff with context plus a task description, and get back a list of concerns.
+ * `sllim act` is agentic: the model gets a shell tool and can spawn sub-agents, looping until it stops.
+ * `sllim goal` wraps `act` in a loop with an evaluation command before each attempt. Define what "goal met" means, hand it off, and let it cook.
+
+== Features ==
+
+ * Multiple sandbox options: `host` (dangerous), `remote` over ssh, `container` via podman with configured volume mounts, and, most powerfully, `vm` with virtiofs-based shared directories and filtered networking. The VM proxy whitelist grants access to specific URL patterns and HTTP verbs.
+ * Transparent; no spinner hiding the action.  It streams responses as they arrive, and shows tool calls being built up token-by-token so you see the command stream in, then the output stream back.
+ * Logging to text-based formats (YAML, JSON, JSONL) building up a pile of data you can mine later for test cases, debugging, or even model training.
+ * Conversation history that lets you resume any session with `--continue` or `--continue-from`.
+ * Cost accounting. Per-turn tokens and dollars, including cached tokens and sub-agent totals.
+ * A single self-contained binary.  A shiv-built zipapp (~25 MB) that runs on any Python 3.11+ Linux box, with no virtualenv or package install on the target.
+ * Loop detection, with retry, so a spiraling model stops burning tokens instead of running forever.
+
+== Quick start ==
 
 {{{
 git clone https://retracile.net/git/sllim.git
+cd sllim
+./run-all            # lint + tests + build the binary
+cp output/sllim ~/bin/sllim
 }}}
 
-See the [blog:2026/08/08/18.00 original announcement] for an overview of motivation and how to get started.
+Point it at a local model server and ask something:
+
+{{{
+sllim provider create local --type dwarfstar --base-url http://spark-0000.lan:8888/v1
+sllim model-config create default --provider local --model deepseek-v4-flash
+sllim ask "Explain TCP vs UDP in one paragraph"
+}}}
+
+For the agentic part, create a profile with a sandbox:
+
+{{{
+sllim profile create agent \
+    --model-config default \
+    --sandbox-type vm \
+    --base https://mirror.servaxnet.com/fedora/linux/releases/44/Cloud/x86_64/images/Fedora-Cloud-Base-Generic-44-1.7.x86_64.qcow2 \
+    --add-vol "$HOME/agent-workspace:$HOME/agent-workspace" \
+    --network filtered \
+    --dnf-mirror https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org \
+    --yolo
+cd ~/agent-workspace
+sllim act "List the files here and tell me what each is for"
+}}}
+
+== Going further ==
+
+ * The [[https://retracile.net/blog/2026/08/08/18.00|announcement post]] tells the story in more detail, and other posts about Sllim can be found in [[https://retracile.net/blog/category/sllim|the Sllim catagory]].
+ * [[/browser/sllim|Browse the source]] for the full picture.
+ * [[https://retracile.net/git/sllim.git|Clone the repository]] and give it a try.