kuku

The agent explained. A readable Rust agent SDK — understand the loop from source, own your sessions as files. No database, no black box.

[!WARNING]
kuku is in active development. APIs and file formats may change.

kuku is a terminal coding agent with a file-native architecture. No database, no server, no hidden state. Everything — config, memory, sessions, skills — is a file you can read, edit, and version-control.

Why kuku

Zero infra — no database, no server. All state lives in human-readable files under ~/.kuku/.
Inspect — config, skills, prompts, and memory are plain files. Nothing hidden.
No hidden state — runtime state lives on disk, no invisible in-memory caches.
Cache-first design — minimal system prompt (~3K tokens), built for maximum cache hit rate.

Engineering Comparison

	kuku	Claude Code	Codex	OpenCode
Size	~10 MB	~250 MB	~80 MB	~50 MB
Deps	~15	~80	~280	~100
Config	1 TOML	JSON + flags	9 layers	9 layers
Prompt	~3K	~30K	~9K	~15K
Memory	Markdown	MD + YAML	SQLite + JSONL	SQLite + JSON

[!NOTE]
Based on source code analysis as of May 2026. System prompt includes all tokens injected at session initialization — system instructions, tool definitions, and runtime context.

Features

Core

Agent loop (file-native)
Tools: read, search, edit, write, run
Skills system
Persistent memory (human-readable)
Subagents (isolated sessions)
Permission system (multi-level)
Multi-provider (Anthropic, OpenAI)
Streaming output

Interface

CLI
HTTP Server

Planned

MCP support
Extension system
Web UI
Desktop app

Quick Start

cargo install --git https://github.com/Cloud370/kuku
kuku run say hello

[!TIP]
You need an API key for your chosen provider. Set it via environment variable (ANTHROPIC_API_KEY or OPENAI_API_KEY) or in ~/.kuku/config.toml.

Documentation

Direction — project goals and design philosophy
Architecture — system overview
Agent Loop — how the loop works
Modules — crate structure
Code Style — conventions

License

Licensed under either of

MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)

at your option.

Contribution

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.