Welcome to AEGIS
AEGIS is an open-source orchestrator for running autonomous AI agents in isolated, policy-enforced runtimes.
Welcome to AEGIS
AEGIS is a self-hosted orchestrator that manages the full lifecycle of autonomous AI agents — from manifest deployment through iterative execution, workflow coordination, multi-agent swarms, and secure tool access.
Agents are defined as declarative YAML manifests, executed inside isolated containers (Docker for development, Firecracker micro-VMs for production), and interact with external tools exclusively through the AEGIS orchestrator proxy. The orchestrator enforces security policies, manages credentials, routes tool calls, and handles storage — agents themselves are stateless compute processes.
Core Capabilities
| Capability | Description |
|---|---|
| Declarative agent manifests | Define agents as Kubernetes-style YAML with apiVersion, kind, metadata, and spec. Deploy, update, pause, and delete agents via CLI or gRPC API. |
| 100monkeys iterative execution | Agents run in a supervised loop: generate output → validate → inject feedback → retry. Up to 10 iterations per execution. Validation is gradient-scored (0.0–1.0), not binary pass/fail. |
| Workflow FSMs | Compose multiple agents into durable finite state machines backed by Temporal.io. States can be agent executions, system commands, or human approval gates. |
| Multi-agent swarms | A parent agent can spawn child executions, pass messages between agents, and coordinate on shared resources using TTL-backed locks. |
| SMCP tool routing | All MCP tool calls are proxied through the orchestrator with Ed25519-signed envelopes. Agents never hold credentials — the orchestrator resolves secrets and enforces Cedar-based policy rules per call. |
| Storage volumes | Agents mount ephemeral or persistent volumes over a user-space NFSv3 server. The orchestrator intercepts every POSIX operation for authorization, path validation, and audit logging. |
| BYOLLM | Agent manifests reference model aliases. Node config maps aliases to providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Ollama). Swap models without redeploying agents. |
| gRPC + HTTP APIs | Full aegis.runtime.v1 gRPC service with bidirectional streaming for execution events. HTTP endpoints for agent bootstrap communication. |
Where to Start
I want to deploy and run my first agent → Getting Started — install the binary, start the stack, run a demo agent.
I want to understand how agents work → Agents — manifest format, lifecycle, runtime selection. → The Execution Loop — how the 100monkeys loop and inner tool interception work.
I want to build a multi-agent workflow → Workflows — FSM manifests, Blackboard context, state types. → Building Workflows — step-by-step guide with the Forge reference workflow.
I want to understand security and tool access → Security Model — the two-layer security model. → SMCP: Secure Model Context Protocol — attestation flow, signed envelopes, policy enforcement.
I'm deploying AEGIS to production
→ Infrastructure Overview — dependencies, topology, hardware requirements.
→ Node Configuration Reference — annotated aegis-config.yaml.
→ Firecracker Runtime — production-grade KVM isolation.
I need the API or CLI reference
→ CLI Reference — all aegis subcommands and flags.
→ gRPC API Reference — aegis.runtime.v1 service methods.
→ Agent Manifest Reference — every manifest field.
Architecture at a Glance
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ AEGIS Orchestrator │
│ │
│ ┌──────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ │
│ │ Agent │ │ Execution │ │ Workflow │ │
│ │ Lifecycle │ │ Supervisor │ │ Engine │ │
│ └──────────────┘ └──────────────┘ └──────────────┘ │
│ │
│ ┌──────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ │
│ │ SMCP / Tool │ │ Storage │ │ Swarm │ │
│ │ Router │ │ Gateway │ │ Coordinator │ │
│ └──────────────┘ └──────────────┘ └──────────────┘ │
│ │
│ ┌──────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ │
│ │ Secrets │ │ IAM / │ │ Event Bus │ │
│ │ (OpenBao) │ │ Keycloak │ │ (broadcast) │ │
│ └──────────────┘ └──────────────┘ └──────────────┘ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
│ │
│ NFS mount │ gRPC / HTTP
▼ ▼
┌──────────────────┐ ┌────────────────────────┐
│ Agent Container │ │ CLI / Control Plane / │
│ (Docker or │ │ SDK Client │
│ Firecracker) │ └────────────────────────┘
└──────────────────┘
│
▼
┌──────────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐
│ PostgreSQL │ │ SeaweedFS │ │ Temporal │
│ (state) │ │ (volumes) │ │ (workflows) │
└──────────────────┘ └──────────────┘ └──────────────┘Licensing
AEGIS is licensed under AGPL-3.0. The AGPL-3.0 copyleft requirement applies to modified versions, including those run as network services. See LICENSE in the repository for the full text.