Operating Genswarms

genswarms

GenSwarms is an Elixir/OTP orchestrator for swarms of subzeroclaw agents. A swarm is a declarative set of agents (pluggable backends: Local / Docker / SSH / Bwrap / Mock), optional non-agentic objects, and a directed-graph topology connecting them. Swarms run as independent daemon processes; an optional Phoenix server exposes a JSON REST API + WebSocket. The CLI, API, and daemons coordinate through SQLite at .genswarms/swarms.db.

Full docs live in docs/ — link out rather than duplicating. This skill is the how-to-operate quick path.

Prerequisites & install

Requires Elixir 1.14+ and Erlang/OTP 27+ (Nix dev shell pins Elixir 1.17 / OTP 27 / Node 20). Node 20 is only needed to build agent container images.

nix develop              # recommended dev shell (or install Elixir/OTP yourself)
mix deps.get
mix escript.build        # produces ./genswarms escript binary
cp genswarms ~/.local/bin/   # optional: put it on PATH

Every subcommand also runs via Mix: genswarms status == mix genswarms.status (hyphens become underscores, e.g. list-skills → mix genswarms.list_skills). See docs/getting-started.md.

Only SUBZEROCLAW_API_KEY is required to run real agents. The CLI auto-loads .env from the working directory (searching up to 5 parents). Key env vars (full list in getting-started.md):

Core workflow

Copy this checklist and check off each step as you go:

Swarm bring-up:
- [ ] 1. Scaffold a project        (genswarms init)
- [ ] 2. Set SUBZEROCLAW_API_KEY   (cp .env.example .env)
- [ ] 3. Validate the config       (genswarms config validate)
- [ ] 4. Start the API server      (genswarms up — optional)
- [ ] 5. Start the swarm daemon    (genswarms start)
- [ ] 6. Inspect status            (genswarms status)
- [ ] 7. Task an agent             (genswarms task)
- [ ] 8. Observe logs/events       (genswarms logs -f / events)
- [ ] 9. Stop                      (genswarms stop / down)

# 1. Scaffold a project (swarms/, skills/, docker/, .env.example, .genswarms/)
genswarms init my-project && cd my-project
cp .env.example .env            # add SUBZEROCLAW_API_KEY

# 2. Validate the config before running it
genswarms config validate swarms/example_swarm.exs

# 3. Start the API server (background) — optional but enables HTTP/WS + restart-agent
genswarms up                    # --port N to override; --foreground to run inline

# 4. Start the swarm as a daemon (name comes from the config's name:, not the filename)
genswarms start swarms/example_swarm.exs

# 5. Inspect
genswarms status                # server + all swarms
genswarms status example-swarm  # agents, objects, topology, backends, skills

# 6. Task an agent (queued in SQLite, daemon polls every 500ms)
genswarms task example-swarm researcher "Find papers on transformers"

# 7. Observe
genswarms logs example-swarm -f         # follow live logs (use this for live streaming)
genswarms events --errors               # one-shot error query

# 8. Stop
genswarms stop example-swarm            # one swarm
genswarms down                          # all swarms + the API server

Walkthrough: docs/getting-started.md.

Minimal swarm config

A config is a map (.exs, .json, or .yaml). The swarm name comes from name:.

%{
  name: "example-swarm",
  agents: [
    %{name: :researcher, backend: :local, skills: ["web.md"], model: "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4"},
    %{name: :coder, backend: {:docker, "coder"}, skills: ["code.md"], presets: [:base, :code]}
  ],
  objects: [
    # optional deterministic, non-agentic components
    %{name: :evaluator, handler: MyApp.Objects.Evaluator, config: %{}}
  ],
  topology: [
    {:researcher, :coder},   # directed edge: researcher may send to coder
    {:coder, :evaluator},
    {:evaluator, :researcher}
  ]
}

Key facts (see docs/configuration.md):

• name and agents (non-empty) are required; objects and topology default to [].
• backend defaults to :bwrap if omitted. Forms: :local, {:docker, "name"}, {:docker, "name", %{opts}}, {:ssh, "user@host"}, {:ssh, "user@host", %{opts}}, :bwrap, {:bwrap, %{opts}}, :mock, {:mock, %{script: [...]}}.
• JSON/YAML only support scalar-string backends ("local", "bwrap", "mock"). Docker/SSH and option-map backends require .exs.
• Topology is directional — declare both directions for two-way comms. System objects :metrics, :tick, :gateway are always routable without an edge.
• There is no count: key — one agent def == one agent. Run pools via runtime scaling.
• For bwrap agents, config: is split into backend keys (workspace, extra_path, extra_ro_binds, extra_env, memory_limit, cpu_shares, tasks_max, subzeroclaw_path, presets) and domain keys (anything else, passed through to the agent).

Backends in depth: docs/backends.md. Objects: docs/objects.md. Driving swarms from Elixir directly: docs/programmatic.md.

Essential CLI commands

These are dispatched by the genswarms escript binary (verified against lib/genswarms/cli.ex):

Mix-task only (NOT escript subcommands — genswarms clean/pause/etc. error with "Unknown command"):

Note: genswarms events --follow/--stats are silent no-ops today — use genswarms logs <swarm> -f for live streaming. Full reference: docs/cli.md.

Driving via REST API

Server runs at http://localhost:4000 (JSON only). Start it with genswarms up. Many runtime ops (add/remove agents, edit topology, restart-agent, edit skills) are API-only. When GENSWARMS_API_TOKEN is set, send Authorization: Bearer $GENSWARMS_API_TOKEN on every request (the CLI does this automatically); unset, the API accepts loopback callers only. See Security before exposing the server.

curl http://localhost:4000/api/swarms                          # list swarms

curl -X POST http://localhost:4000/api/swarms \                # create from server-side config
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"config_path": "swarms/example_swarm.exs"}'             # or {"config": {...}} inline

curl -X POST http://localhost:4000/api/swarms/example-swarm/agents/researcher/task \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"task": "Summarize the latest results."}'

curl -X POST http://localhost:4000/api/swarms/example-swarm/agents \   # add + wire a live agent
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"name": "reviewer", "backend": {"type": "docker", "image": "code"}, "incoming": ["coder"]}'

Other useful routes: GET /api/swarms/:name (detailed status), GET .../topology, PATCH .../topology ({"add":[...],"remove":[...]}), POST .../agents/:base/scale ({"count":N}), GET /api/events (filterable), POST /api/config/validate, GET /api/skills. Real-time streaming is over the WebSocket channel swarm:{name} at /swarm. Full reference: docs/rest-api.md and WebSocket.

Defining skills for agents

Skills are plain markdown files (no schema) that become an agent's instructions. Reference them by the skills: list in config; a simple filename resolves against the skills dir (priv/skills, set by SKILLS_DIR), and ./-relative or absolute paths are also accepted.

Three template variables are substituted per agent at deploy time, so one file serves a whole pool: {{agent_name}}, {{swarm_name}}, {{workspace}}.

# Planner Skill
You are {{agent_name}}, the planner for {{swarm_name}}.
Break tasks into steps and delegate them with @agent_name: prefixes.
Write output to {{workspace}}.

Built-ins: web.md, code.md, review.md, swarm_architect.md, swarm-fixer.md, secret.md. List/read/edit deployed skills over the API (GET /api/skills, PUT .../agents/:agent/skills/:skill). Authoring details: docs/skills.md. Inter-agent messaging (@agent:, @all:, .inbox//.outbox/): docs/messaging.md.

Common gotchas

• genswarms clean is not a real escript command — it errors. Use mix genswarms.clean or POST /api/swarms/clean. Same for pause/resume/delete/restart-agent (Mix-task only).
• Swarm name ≠ filename. swarms/example_swarm.exs defines a swarm named example-swarm (from name:). Use the file path to start/validate, the hyphenated name everywhere else.
• Agent won't start: confirm the subzeroclaw binary is reachable (config → ../subzeroclaw/subzeroclaw → SUBZEROCLAW_PATH → PATH) and SUBZEROCLAW_API_KEY is set (or SUBZEROCLAW_MOCK_SCRIPT for no-LLM).
• Messages not routing: the topology must permit source -> target (directional). Check the agent emits correct @agent: syntax; inspect GET /api/swarms/:name/messages.
• :mock backend is a no-op stub (spawns nothing, no responses). To run real agents without an LLM, set SUBZEROCLAW_MOCK_SCRIPT instead.
• Tasks to daemon swarms are async — queued in .genswarms/swarms.db (tasks table), polled every 500ms. Confirm the daemon is up (genswarms status) and check genswarms events --category agent.
• Docker agents are named szc-{swarm}-{agent} and run with --rm (no container left on crash — check genswarms events --category backend).

More: docs/troubleshooting.md and docs/observability.md.