Talon

Multi-platform agentic AI harness. Runs on Telegram, Discord, Microsoft Teams, and the Terminal, with a pluggable backend (Claude Agent SDK, Kilo, OpenCode, Codex, or OpenAI Agents) and full tool access through MCP.

Features

Quick Start

git clone https://github.com/dylanneve1/talon.git && cd talon
npm install

# Interactive setup (select frontend, configure tokens, pick model)
npx talon setup

# Start
npx talon start       # configured frontend (daemon mode)
npx talon chat        # terminal chat mode

Prerequisites:

• Node.js 24+
• Backend-specific:
  • claude backend: Claude Code installed and authenticated (claude CLI on PATH).
  • kilo backend: nothing extra — @kilocode/sdk spawns a local server. Free models are accessible without auth; routed models use Kilo's own credentials.
  • opencode backend: nothing extra — @opencode-ai/sdk spawns a local server.
  • codex backend: install the codex CLI (npm i -g @openai/codex) and authenticate with codex login, CODEX_API_KEY, TALON_CODEX_KEY, or codexApiKey. OPENAI_API_KEY is used only as a fallback when no Codex login exists.
• Talon runs from a normal source or package install; standalone compiled binaries are not supported.

Architecture

index.ts                    Composition root
  |
  +-- core/                 Platform-agnostic engine
  |   +-- agent-runtime/    Backend capability interfaces, events, stores
  |   +-- models/           Model layer: catalog, per-chat active model,
  |   |                     reasoning-effort vocabulary
  |   +-- prompt/           System-prompt assembly + prompts/system templates
  |   +-- background/       Agents that run without a user message:
  |   |                     heartbeat, dream, pulse, cron, triggers
  |   +-- tools/            MCP tool definitions + spawn/env contract
  |   +-- engine/           Message flow: dispatcher (per-chat serial,
  |   |                     cross-chat parallel), HTTP gateway for MCP
  |   |                     tool calls, backend lifecycle controller
  |   +-- plugin.ts         Plugin loader, registry, hot-reload
  |
  +-- backend/
  |   +-- registry.ts       Bootstrap-decoupled backend lookup
  |   +-- shared/           Cross-backend helpers (stream state, flow violation,
  |   |                     delivery contract, metrics, prompt format,
  |   |                     model retry, system prompt, usage)
  |   +-- remote-server/    Shared infrastructure for agent-server backends
  |   |                     (MCP registration, sessions, providers, lifecycle)
  |   +-- claude-sdk/       Claude Agent SDK (in-process MCP, hooks)
  |   +-- kilo/             Kilo HTTP server backend (streaming via SSE)
  |   +-- opencode/         OpenCode HTTP server backend
  |   +-- codex/            Codex CLI backend (`@openai/codex-sdk`)
  |   +-- openai-agents/    OpenAI Agents SDK backend (Responses API)
  |
  +-- frontend/
  |   +-- shared/           Cross-frontend presentation helpers
  |   +-- telegram/         Grammy bot + GramJS userbot
  |   +-- discord/          discord.js v14
  |   +-- teams/            Bot Framework + Graph API
  |   +-- terminal/         Readline CLI with tool call visibility
  |
  +-- storage/              Sessions, history, chat settings,
  |                         cron jobs, media index, daily logs
  +-- util/                 Config, logging, workspace, paths, time

Dependency rule: core/ imports nothing from frontend/ or backend/. Frontends and backends depend on core types, never on each other. All five backends (Claude SDK, Kilo, OpenCode, Codex, OpenAI Agents) implement the same Backend capability interface from core/agent-runtime/capabilities.ts. Kilo and OpenCode additionally share the remote-server/ infrastructure because they wrap forks of the same upstream HTTP agent server.

Prompts: everything the model reads at session start is assembled by core/prompt/ from the files in prompts/ — see prompts/README.md for the assembly order, file ownership (user-editable vs package-owned templates), and the per-backend delivery contracts.

Backends

Select via the backend field in ~/.talon/config.json. All backends implement the same Backend capability interface — heartbeat, dream, and chat handlers are backend-agnostic.

The Kilo and OpenCode backends share infrastructure (backend/remote-server/) since the upstream HTTP API is the same; each backend supplies its own SDK client, port, and delivery suffix. Codex is its own integration on top of the Codex CLI's JSONL event stream.

Built-in Plugins

GitHub

GitHub API access via the official GitHub MCP server. Gives the agent access to repositories, issues, PRs, code search, and more.

Requirements: Docker installed and running.

{
  "github": {
    "enabled": true,
    "token": "ghp_..."
  }
}

The token is optional --- defaults to the output of gh auth token if the GitHub CLI is authenticated.

MemPalace

Structured long-term memory with vector search. The agent can store, search, and retrieve memories semantically. Integrates with Dream mode for automatic memory consolidation and personal diary entries.

Requirements: Python 3.10+ with the mempalace package.

# Set up a Python environment
python -m venv ~/.talon/mempalace-venv
~/.talon/mempalace-venv/bin/pip install mempalace    # Unix
# or: ~/.talon/mempalace-venv/Scripts/pip install mempalace   # Windows

{
  "mempalace": {
    "enabled": true,
    "palacePath": "~/.talon/workspace/palace",
    "pythonPath": "~/.talon/mempalace-venv/bin/python"
  }
}

Both paths are optional --- defaults to ~/.talon/workspace/palace/ and the venv Python respectively.

Playwright

Headless browser automation via the Playwright MCP server. The agent can browse websites, take screenshots, generate PDFs, fill forms, and scrape content.

Requirements: None --- @playwright/mcp is bundled with Talon.

{
  "playwright": {
    "enabled": true,
    "browser": "chromium",
    "headless": true
  }
}

Supported browsers: chromium (default), chrome, firefox, webkit, msedge.

Brave Search

Web search via the Brave Search MCP server. Replaces the built-in WebSearch/WebFetch tools with higher-quality search results.

{
  "braveApiKey": "BSA..."
}

Get an API key at brave.com/search/api.

Custom Plugins

Plugins add MCP tools and gateway actions without modifying core code. SOLID interface --- only name is required.

{
  "plugins": [{ "path": "/path/to/my-plugin", "config": { "apiKey": "..." } }]
}

export default {
  name: "my-plugin",
  version: "1.0.0",
  mcpServerPath: resolve(import.meta.dirname, "tools.ts"),
  validateConfig(config) {
    /* return errors or undefined */
  },
  getEnvVars(config) {
    return { MY_KEY: config.apiKey };
  },
  handleAction(body, chatId) {
    /* gateway action handler */
  },
  getSystemPromptAddition(config) {
    return "## My Plugin\n...";
  },
  init(config) {
    /* one-time setup */
  },
  destroy() {
    /* cleanup */
  },
};

Plugins support hot-reload via the reload_plugins MCP tool --- no restart required.

CLI

talon setup     Interactive setup wizard
talon start     Start as a background daemon
talon stop      Stop the daemon
talon chat      Terminal chat mode (always available)
talon status    Health, sessions, plugins, disk usage
talon config    View or edit configuration
talon logs      Tail structured log file
talon doctor    Validate environment and dependencies

Configuration

Config file: ~/.talon/config.json

Terminal Mode

npx talon chat

Tool calls shown in real-time with parameters. Streaming phase indicators (thinking / responding / using tools). Per-turn stats: duration, tokens, cache hit rate, tool count.

Commands: /model, /effort, /reset, /status, /help

Production

Docker:

docker compose up -d

Systemd: unit file at packaging/systemd/talon.service — copy to /etc/systemd/system/, set User= and WorkingDirectory=, then systemctl enable --now talon.

Health endpoint: GET http://localhost:19876/health returns JSON with uptime, memory, queue depth, active sessions, and last activity timestamp.

Logging: Structured JSON via pino to ~/.talon/talon.log. Rotated on startup when the file exceeds 10MB.

Resilience: Dynamic model fallback on overload, session auto-retry on expiry, rate limit handling with backoff, atomic file writes, graceful shutdown with 15-second drain timeout.

Development

npm run dev              # watch mode
npm test                 # 2300+ tests across unit / SDK-stub / MCP-functional / integration tiers
npm run test:coverage    # with coverage report
npm run typecheck        # tsc --noEmit
npm run lint             # oxlint
npm run format           # prettier --write

License

MIT