17 ms·
Show HN: Zuckerman – minimalist personal AI agent that self-edits its own code
Hi HN,
I'm building Zuckerman: a personal AI agent that starts ultra-minimal and can improve itself in real time by editing its own files (code + configuration). Agents can also share useful discoveries and improvements with each other.
Repo: https://github.com/zuckermanai/zuckerman https://github.com/zuckermanai/zuckerman
The motivation is to build something dead-simple and approachable, in contrast to projects like OpenClaw, which is extremely powerful but has grown complex: heavier setup, a large codebase, skill ecosystems, and ongoing security discussions.
Zuckerman flips that:
1. Starts with almost nothing (core essentials only).
2. Behavior/tools/prompts live in plain text files.
3. The agent can rewrite its own configuration and code.
4. Changes hot-reload instantly (save -> reload).
5. Agents can share improvements with others.
6. Multi-channel support (Discord/Slack/Telegram/web/voice, etc).
Security note: self-edit access is obviously high-risk by design, but basic controls are built in (policy sandboxing, auth, secret management).
Tech stack: TypeScript, Electron desktop app + WebSocket gateway, pnpm + Vite/Turbo.
Quickstart is literally:
pnpm install && pnpm run dev
It's very early/WIP, but the self-editing loop already works in basic scenarios and is surprisingly addictive to play with.
Would love feedback from folks who have built agent systems or thought about safe self-modification.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- pillbitsHQ 8mo ago[dead]
- iisweetheartii 8mo ago[flagged]
- junon 8mo agoAI generated response on a post about AI. Getting tired of this timeline.
- ohyoutravel 8mo agoNot only that, but the OP created that account solely to hype their own product lol. There’s another bot downthread doing the same thing. Minimally it feels like dang should not let new accounts post for 30 days or something without permission.
- yborg 8mo agoThat might reduce botting for about 30 days, people will just tee up an endless supply of parked ids that will then spin up to post after the lockout expires.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- nullbio 8mo agoYep. It's very obvious, and lazy.
- anarticle 8mo agoWhy not ban both accounts? Seems like a fine way to keep SNR high to me.
- verdverm 8mo agoif you ban an account, they know to make a new one if you shadowban, they are none the wiser and the effect to SNR is better
- ekinertac 8mo agothere are hardcoded elements in the repo like: /Users/dvirdaniel/Desktop/zuckerman/.cursor/debug.log
- ddaniel10 8mo agothanks
- 4b11b4 8mo agoDIY agent harnesses are the new "note taking"/"knowledge management"/"productivity tool"
- ddaniel10 8mo agoDIYWA - do it yourself with agent ;) hopefully zuckerman as the start point
- amelius 8mo agoSounds cool, but it also sounds like you need to spend big $$ on API calls to make this work.
- ddaniel10 8mo agoI'm building this in the hope that AI will be cheap one day. For now, I'll add many optimizations
- amelius 8mo agoYes, it certainly makes sense if you have the budget for it. Could you share what it costs to run this? That could convince people to try it out.
- ddaniel10 8mo agoI mean, you can just say Hi to it, and it will cost nothing. It only adds code and features if you ask it to
- croes 8mo agoAI is cheap right now. At some point the AI companies must turn to generate profit
- WalterSear 8mo agoAnthropic has stated that their inference process is cash positive. It would be very surprising if this wasn't the case for everyone. It's certainly an open question whether the providers can recoup the investments being made with growth alone, but it's not out of the question.
- croes 8mo agoProblem is the models need constant training or they become outdated. That the less expensive part generates profit is nice but doesn’t help if you look at the complete picture. Hardware also needs replacement
- aaaalone 8mo agoI will not download or use something which constantly reminds me of this weird dude suckerberg who did a lot of damage to society with facebook
- zeroonetwothree 8mo agoI was hoping it was a Philip Roth reference but I was disappointed when I opened the page.
- philipallstar 8mo agoThat's really good to know
- gowld 8mo agoZuckerberg. At first I thought it was a naming coincidence, but looking at the zuckerman avatar and the author avatar, I'm unsure if it was intentional: https://github.com/zuckermanai https://github.com/zuckermanai https://github.com/dvir-daniel https://github.com/dvir-daniel https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/258404280?s=200&v=4 https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/258404280?s=200&v=4 The transparency glitch in GitHub makes the avatar look either robot or human depending on whether the background is white or black. I don't know if that's intentional, but it's amazing.
- ddaniel10 8mo agoHaha it's your personal agent, let him handle the stuff you don't like. But soon, right now its not fully ready
- 627467 8mo agoThis Zuckerman[0] would like a word [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortimer_Zuckerman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortimer_Zuckerman
- dang 8mo agoOk, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.
- falloutx 8mo agoTerrible name, kind of a mid idea when you think about it (Self improving AI is literally what everyone's first thought is when building an AI), but still I like it.
- ddaniel10 8mo agoThanks for the feedback. Are you going to forget this name though?
- hereme888 8mo agoI think it's a genius name and is playful on the meme of a pale Zuckerberg being a robot.
- noncoml 8mo agoI don’t know if I will forget it, but it’s enough to keep me away from considering using it
- deaux 8mo agoNo, in the sense that I wouldn't forget an AI agent called "Epsteinman" or "Prolapseman" either.
- falloutx 8mo agoNo, you are right. Its more memorable. With my accent, I can pronounce it as Suckerman
- joonate 8mo ago|The agent can rewrite its own configuration and code. I am very illiterate when it comes to Llms/AI but Why does nobody write this in Lisp??? Isn't it supposed to be the language primarily created for AI???
- tines 8mo agoNah, it’s pretty unrelated to the current wave of AI.
- joonate 7mo agoCan you elaborate a bit?
- lm28469 8mo ago> Isn't it supposed to be the language primarily created for AI??? In 1990 maybe
- plagiarist 8mo agoIf hot reloading is a goal I would target Erlang or another BEAM language over a Lisp.
- kscarlet 8mo agoWhy? Many Lisp systems and Common Lisp in particular have great hot reloading capability, from redefining functions to UPDATE-INSTANCE-FOR-REDEFINED-CLASS to update the states.
- asim 8mo agoI started working on something similar but for family stuff. I stopped before hitting self editing because, well I was a little bit afraid of becoming over reliant on a tool like this or becoming more obsessed with building it than actually solving a real problem in my life. AI is tricky. Sometimes we think we need something when in fact life might be better off simpler. The code for anyone interested. Wrote it with exe.dev's coding agent which is a wrapper on Claude Opus 4.5 https://github.com/asim/aslam https://github.com/asim/aslam
- pillbitsHQ 8mo ago[dead]
- nullbio 8mo ago> Agents propose and publish capabilities to a shared contribution site, letting others discover, adopt, and evolve them further. A collaborative, living ecosystem of personal AIs. While I like this idea in terms of crowd-sourced intelligence, how do you prevent this being abused as an attack vector for prompt injection?
- adriancooney 8mo ago100%. This is why I'm so reluctant to give any access to my OpenClaw. The skills hub is poisoned.
- ddaniel10 8mo agoGreat point. I wrote it as important note and ill take it into account.
- lmf4lol 8mo agoI am surprised that no one did this in a LISP yet.
- pillbitsHQ 8mo ago[dead]
- dboreham 8mo agoSomeone needs to send this to Spike Feresten.
- noncoml 8mo agoI would change the name of the project. Why would I want to run something that keeps remind me of that guy
- scotth 8mo agoDoes this do anything to resist prompt injection? It seems to me that structured exchange between an orchestrator and its single-tool-using agents would go a long way. And at the very least introduces a clear point to interrogate the payload. But I could be wrong. Maybe someone reading knows more about this subject?
- grigio 8mo agoi like the idea is possible to run in a docker container?
- pillbitsHQ 8mo ago[dead]
- neomindryan 8mo agoThis looks interesting, but I'm stuck on step 4 of the web setup: where do I get agents to start with? Shouldn't there be a default one that can help me get other ones?
- ddaniel10 8mo agoHi, can you please contact me at dd@zuckerman.ai
- dzonga 8mo agocould've made it in PHP ;) to be zuck-like
- with 8mo agoThe logo is slightly creepy
- pillbitsHQ 8mo ago[dead]