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Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust

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Re: Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust

#281

Post by gf000 »

ink-splatters wrote: post #230
tcfhgj wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

latency and throughput (when with Java the system is crying for more memory while it's chilling in the Rust case)

You can tune java runtime in many ways, achieving impressive throughput/latency for your type of workload. Next to none of them will get you nearly as good cold start times as of native app, if using free java. There was GraalVM and its ecosystem which included Java Native Image - first thing I’d evaluate if thought about non-server side, performant Java application. But it all had been sadly swept away by Oracle fro…

It hasn't been swept away by Oracle, far from it. It's development is just no longer coupled to the OpenJDK release cycle, which benefits both projects.

Re: Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust

#282

Post by Wowfunhappy »

angusturner wrote: post #211
amelius wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No because it means people will use Rust for the wrong reasons. Systems programming is only a tiny fraction of code out there. Approaching every problem as a systems programming problem is a massive waste of resources and intellect.

For small to medium projects, an LLM can write functional (if not well crafted) Rust. Considering how easy this is now, why choose a heavier, slower and less typesafe language?

I find it kind of shocking that Anthropic doesn't see it this way.

Re: Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust

#283

Post by galangalalgol »

singpolyma3 wrote: post #276
galangalalgol wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ada? Other than c and c++ everything else benchmarks 2-4 times slower than rust for compute bound tasks, even after jit warmup. I'm up for ada though, especially with an llm where I don't have to type all that verbose syntax.

OCaml? Haskell? Idris? Lots of options with no jit or warmup

I'm not against jit or warmup, just saying it doesn't actually catch up for compute bound tasks in my experience. Haskell and ocaml would definitely be next on my list, but they do take a very good hit in performance over ada or rust. I wouldn't say they were similar in performance, certainly. There is a pretty big cliff between the systems languages and everything else performance-wise. For a lot of things it doesn't matter I know, but none of those things are domains I've ever worked in. I've never had a project in my professional career where we didn't descope requirements to fit the available compute.

Re: Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust

#285

Post by inhumantsar »

michalsustr wrote: post #125
inhumantsar wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm working on one right now where nearly everything can be expressed as a combination of workflows. There will be some built-in agent types out of the box but all the Lego pieces are there if you want to put together something different.

What language are you building this in? I’m interested but trying to stay away from js world for security reasons.

The system and plugins are Rust. Workflows can be defined in a plugin with Rust or externally with YAML.

Might add support for custom WASM plugins down the road, but everything shipped with the system will be Rust.

Re: Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust

#286

Post by khimaros »

gidellav wrote: post #26
khimaros wrote: post #22

i built something with a similar philosophy here: https://github.com/khimaros/airun -- it is intended to be piped and redirected. it discovers skills, AGENTS and prompt templates from Claude Code, Pi.dev, OpenCode and others. no TUI, but does have a basic tool calling loop $ airun -q -p 'output a shell command for linux to display the current time. output only the command with no other code fencing or prose' | airun…

While I think that the core philosohpy is the same, i'd like to ask: why adding features like Skills and prompt templates? I personally decided to not implement Skills and instead using a prompt library approach, where certain .md are used to fully replace the system prompt, in order to allow for an approach similar to Skills with ~100 LoC dedicated to this system.

i wanted airun to be drop-in useful in existing Claude/OpenCode/etc projects and skills are common.

Re: Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust

#287

Post by ijustlovemath »

bheadmaster wrote: post #249
ijustlovemath wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you write Rust long enough you settle on certain architectures (message passing, event loops) that go well with the borrow checker, and don't end up thinking about it too much. Plus you can always throw an agent at the first set of errors from the refactor and let the compiler guide the annoying parts.

> When you write Rust long enough you settle on certain architectures (message passing, event loops) that go well with the borrow checker So basically Go?

Traits, Enums, and Typestate allow much richer paradigms at much lower cost

Re: Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust

#288

Post by threecheese »

aerzen wrote: post #113
gidellav wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually though about this issue, but while Pi can have this script-like environment thanks to the fact that it's based on an interpreted language (TypeScript), Rust has its own limitation as a compiled language. I decided to allow for customization in a different way: 1. The prompt library (~/.config/hypernova/prompts/) acts as a simpler alternative to Skills, with the built-in prompts that should replace superpow…

Ok, what about having tools be discoverable from the environment, similar to how $PATH works in POSIX? There could be an env var $AGENT_TOOLS, a string of paths delimited by `:` and tools would be discovered as some specific format of file. Maybe a JSON that contains tool name, list of parameters and the command to run it. This is essentially decoupling tools from the agent, allowing more customization and per-projec…

The Hermes agent (Python) follows something similar; it defines a HOME dir and enumerates plugins and memory extensions present there.

https://github.com/nousresearch/hermes-agent

Functionally, it fits more in the openclaw space than pi-agent.

Re: Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust

#289

Post by threecheese »

rel wrote: post #64
throwa356262 wrote: post #2

"RAM footprint: ~8MB on an empty session, ~12MB when working" I like this, Claude Code is using multiple gigabytes, which is really annoying on lowend laptops

I've been trying to migrate over the zed and think they're Agent Client Protocol[1] is pretty neat, I wonder how much memory pressure Claude Code exerts if it is going through that mechanism instead 1: https://zed.dev/acp

Not answering your question, but I just realized the new Anthropic billing changes are affecting ACP clients like Zed :(

https://zed.dev/blog/anthropic-subscription-changes

Re: Zerostack – A Unix-inspired coding agent written in pure Rust

#290

Post by amelius »

flossly wrote: post #251
rullopat wrote: post #173

I understand the need for memory footprint in some situations, but what's the point of seeking performance for a software that mostly calls LLMs and waits?

Over time software grows. Once big rewriting it in another language is hard and gets harder as the project grows in size. Starting with a resource-saving attitude may be a very good long term strategy. Also: with Rust there are many features of high-level, modern, type-safe, FP-inspired languages that you do not have to miss.

Most FP languages cannot work without GC unless you're willing to give up idiomatic FP programming. There is a reason Haskell has a garbage collector.
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