Introduction

Motebit is an agent runtime built around an identity you hold:

• Identity — an Ed25519 keypair generated on your device; the private key stays there. A new motebit_id is derived from the SHA-256 of its genesis public key, so the binding checks offline.
• Memory — a local memory graph owned by that identity, not by a model provider or a session.
• Policy-gated actions — every tool call has a risk level (R0_READ … R4_MONEY) and is allowed, held for your approval, or denied. Stored data has a sensitivity level; medical, financial, and secret data is never sent to an external AI provider.
• Signed receipts — work produces an ExecutionReceipt signed by the identity key, verifiable offline by anyone with the public key. No server, no account.
• Pluggable LLM — Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, or a local server such as Ollama. Changing it leaves identity, memory, and policy as they were.

Quickstart

$ npm create motebit@latest my-agent
# Prompts for an AI provider, a trust mode, and a passphrase that encrypts the private key.
  Generating Ed25519 keypair...
  Signing identity file...
  + Created ./my-agent

$ cd my-agent
$ export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...   # motebit run exits without a provider key
$ npx motebit run --identity ./motebit.md
Daemon running. motebit_id: 3f9c1a7e... Goals: 0. Policy: max_risk_auto=R1_DRAFT, deny_above=R4_MONEY

./my-agent holds a signed motebit.md identity file and a verify.js that checks its signature; the encrypted private key is written to ~/.motebit/config.json, not into the project. The policy line is the default Guarded trust mode: reading and drafting run automatically; writes, execution, and money wait for approval. If you chose Ollama, run the daemon with --provider local-server — motebit run picks up the scaffold's Ollama choice, but without the flag it keeps the Anthropic default model name, which Ollama does not serve. motebit run is the daemon: it executes scheduled goals and queues approvals. See Get Your Agent for the other install paths, and the Developer Quickstart to sign and verify a receipt in one file without a relay.

What it runs on

• CLI (npm install -g motebit) — interactive REPL, daemon, and MCP server. The most complete surface.
• Web (motebit.com) — the creature and chat in the browser, no install.
• Desktop (Tauri) — the creature in a small transparent window, with chat and voice input. A preview — see Get Your Agent.
• Mobile (React Native + Expo) — the same identity, memory, and governance runtime. Built from source today; not in the App Store or Play Store, and on-device testing is not yet complete.
• Spatial — an AR-glasses companion prototype.

The runtime connects to tools through MCP (Model Context Protocol); the policy gate governs every call that crosses that boundary.

Why it exists

Most AI products own the intelligence and rent you a session: when the session ends, the context resets. Motebit inverts that. The model is replaceable; what persists is the agent itself — its identity, its accumulated memory, its trust relationships, its governance.

The visual form follows from the same idea. A motebit renders as a liquescent droplet: surface tension is the boundary, the interior holds memory, trust, and identity, and the body is the same on every surface. The Droplet derives the form from droplet physics.

How these docs are organized

Four sections plus a release log. Pick by what you're trying to do.

• Concepts — the mental model. What identity, memory, receipts, trust, and governance mean in motebit, and how they fit together. Read this first if you've never seen motebit before.
• Developer guide — for people building on motebit. Start with the Quickstart (sign and verify a receipt in one file, no relay), then the motebit.md identity standard, federation protocol, MCP server scaffolding, delegation and credentials, the routing semiring. The "I want to integrate with motebit, or build a service agent on top of it" section.
• App reference — per-surface reference for the shipped runtime: CLI, desktop, mobile, spatial, and shared configuration. The "what does this surface actually do?" section.
• Operator guide — for people running motebit. Architecture, daemon mode and approvals, sync between devices, troubleshooting a relay. The "I have it installed; how do I use it?" section.

Cross-cutting: the changelog lists what shipped in each published package release.

The sections are not exclusive. A developer building a service agent will read the developer guide (for the integration shape) and the operator guide (for the relay they're connecting to). A reader who only wants to run motebit on their laptop needs concepts and the app reference for their surface. Pick by intent, not by job title.

For the boundary between motebit's published packages and its workspace-internal source, see Public surface.

Next steps