INIT — the coding agent that rewrites its own harness

An open-source coding agent from INIT Labs It rewrites its own harness. Grows with every model. The harness is everything around the model: its prompts, tools and loop. INIT rewrites its own, tests each change and swaps it in, mid-conversation. A Root it can never touch can undo any change. code the model may rewritea change in flightthe Root: never rewritten, undoes any change diagram gen 41 cells rewritten 0 rolled back 0 Root moved never +01THE AGENT, TAKEN APART Take an agent apart. One layer it can never touch. An AI agent is a model plus a harness.

INIT may rewrite every layer. Except one.

A new core, through four gates.

Same conversation.

If a change does harm, the Root rolls it back. A fixed harness becomes a ceiling.

INIT grows.

one cell = one real file · INIT v0.3.3 Assembled: the model, a frosted plate with no files, sits on four harness plates (prompts and skills, tools, compiled core, kernel), all standing on the amber Root. Exploded: every layer lifts away from the Root. INIT may rewrite the harness; the kernel only at higher autonomy, and still checked. The Root never moves and is never written by the model. Rewrite: a candidate copy of the compiled core slides into its own lane. One real file, src/loop/mod.rs, lifts out and is rewritten, rides through four gates (build and tests 439 s, self-map 1.5 s, boots beside the live one 19 s, can still edit itself 322 s) and drops back into its slot: swapped in within 4.3 s, in the same conversation. Rollback: a change to src/tools/bash.rs turns red and is refused; the Root's snapshot of the old file rises back into its slot, and the signed record ticks seq 88, 89, 90 (2026-10-21). Grows: beside a fixed harness, whose growing model overhangs a hard ceiling, INIT's harness widens to fit each new model. The Root stays the same size, in the same place.

Diagram.

One cell is one real file of INIT v0.3.3: 7 prompt and skill files, 5 tool files and 124 compiled-core files. The kernel is drawn as a texture, not counted. Gate and swap times are measured, and the rollback is a real signed record (2026-10-21, seq 88 to 90). Motion, and all of step 5, are illustrative.

+02THE BODY This is INIT's actual body. One cell per file.

The Body · live dataThis is INIT's actual body.One cell per real file at v0.3.3, the last measured release.

Coloured: files INIT changed itself.

136files508ktokens3changes prompts & skillstoolscompiled corekeptrolled backin flighthover a cell ROOTkeys · the record · undo · the off switch — never written by the model +03THOUGHT EXPERIMENT A fixed harness pays for each friction every day.

INIT pays once.

thought experiment · illustrative, not measuredSame job, same models, three weeks. The fixed agent trips on the same problems every day.

INIT fixes each one once.

useful workfriction, paid againin flight: changing itselfkeptrolled back 4frictions the fixed harness still pays, every day, on day 210for INIT: it paid each one once day 21 surprises nobody planned for 2 +04EVERY CHANGE CAN BE UNDONE Freedom, with an undo button. The model may rewrite almost all of itself. One thing it can never touch: the Root, which holds the keys, the record and the undo. Where the line is · the model may rewriteprompts & skills · tools · compiled core · kernelsandboxed · no API key · one socket to the Root every model call, every change ↓ metered and recorded ROOT · nobody rewritesAPI keys · signed record · snapshots + undo · harm signals · stop · resource floorsseparate service · outside the sandbox · holds the signing key +05THE NUMBERS Seeing is believing. Each number links to its log.Measured on v0.3.x, before this preview. 87.9%of the prompt cache kept when it swaps its core, so the chat carries on 51sfrom install to first reply $0.0005/turnper live DeepSeek turn 4.3sto swap in a new core, mid-conversation 13.1minfor its first core change, every check included 1,897runstest runs in one CI pass, 0 failed Real model · gated mode · 2026-10-21A rollback, signed. 1A change to its own shell tool scored 5 points lower, inside the noise.2The gate refused it.39 seconds later it was rolled back.

Every record is signed.

Refused, not proven harmful · why refuse it? → The change scored lower.seq 88 · sealed_g4by root · 08:32:33.794Zcandidate2efd6c39…d_permille−50statusinferiorprev ← seq 87sha256 chained25519 +0.063 s · hash links to seq 88 The gate refused it.seq 89 · gateby kernel · 08:32:33.857Zverdictrejectreasonscore_inferiorprev ← seq 88sha256 chained25519 +8.722 s · hash links to seq 89 It was rolled back, and signed.seq 90 · body_rollbackby kernel · 08:32:42.579Zfromc88be5f…toaaf07b7…prev ← seq 89audit-verify: lineage oked25519 lineage.jsonl records 88–90 · fields verbatim, abridged · m7-results.md +06RESEARCH Four open problems.

One instrument to study them.

INIT Labs builds the agent and studies what it does to itself. Every change it makes is signed, tested and undoable: a dataset for the questions below. nestfoodtrail, laid by antsant carrying food R1 · Swarms · openColonies, not committees.Today's agent "swarms" are a manager with assistants. A bee swarm has no manager.Open: can agents following only local rules solve what one agent, or the best of many, cannot? genesmutationcrossoverdied out R2 · Evolution · openAgents with DNA.From agents that edit their own code to agents that inherit, recombine and evolve, with no human-written score.Open: is there a genome for agents, where mutation makes variation instead of collapse? the agentits forecast of itselfa failure it saw comingone it missed R3 · Metacognition · openAn agent that sees its own mistakes coming.Today's agents notice an error after they make it. Minds forecast their own failures, and change course first.Open: can an agent model itself well enough to foresee its own failures, and act on that in time? new changedetectorslipped through R4 · Immunity · openAn immune system for self-improving AI.An agent that upgrades itself can be infected by its own upgrades. Nothing guards against that yet.Open: can it tell self from non-self in its own changes, without attacking the healthy ones? Why INIT LabsThe record is the dataset.Every change INIT makes to itself is signed, tested and undoable. Each one is a data point for all four questions.signed · gated · reversible Open problems, not results. We will publish what fails, too. +07TRY IT One line to install.

$curl -fsSL https://github.com/nagisanzenin/INIT-Agent/releases/latest/download/get.sh | sh