Agent Control-plane EXperience — a Herdr-centric control plane for parallel agent workflows.
- UI: ratatui
- Runtime: Herdr owns PTYs/panes (NDJSON socket)
- Editor: Zed via CLI (external; never embedded)
- Truth: filesystem + Herdr session state — peeks are caches only
acex ──socket──▶ Herdr ──PTY──▶ agents
│
└── spawn ──▶ Zed
Use acex to inspect parallel Herdr agents, filter the board, read cached output, and hand workspaces to Zed. Herdr owns the terminal processes; exiting acex leaves them running.
Prerequisites: Rust 1.88 or newer with Cargo, Git, and a terminal. The locked dependency graph requires 1.88; the former 1.75 declaration was inaccurate. Live operation additionally requires a compatible Herdr executable on PATH; Zed is optional for editor actions. The schema currently targets Herdr protocol 16, observed with 0.7.2-preview.2026-07-07-f5354780e4ef; newer releases require compatibility verification.
git clone https://github.com/acephos/acex.git
cd acex
cargo build --locked --release -p acex
./target/release/acex --help
./target/release/acex --offline --status # no daemon needed
./target/release/acex --checkpoint-status # no daemon is spawned
./target/release/acex --offline # explore the empty offline TUIFor live operation, start herdr server in another terminal, then run ./target/release/acex. Set HERDR_SOCKET_PATH for an isolated server/socket. In the TUI, use Ctrl+K for the command palette and q to quit. Follow verification for the live integration checks and configuration for extension points.
Source builds are the supported installation path; this revision does not claim a packaged release or broad cross-platform certification. Dated evidence separates Linux live checks, offline fixture benchmarks, and Windows coverage. Dual licensing follows the existing Cargo declaration: MIT or Apache 2.0.
| Doc | Purpose |
|---|---|
| SOUL.md | Identity, four pillars, hard refusals |
| GOAL.md | North star, ship gates, metrics |
| AGENTS.md | Agent entry — how to work in this repo |
| docs/tracker.html | Sole living project tracker |
| docs/checkpoint-ledger.jsonl | Append-only JSONL checkpoint/audit ledger |
| docs/ARCHITECTURE.md | Crate ownership + data flow |
| docs/EXTENDING.md | How to add actions / transports / editors |
| docs/VERIFY.md | Production hygiene gates |
| docs/PHILOSOPHY_PI.md | Pi (earendil-works/pi) → Rust acex map |
| docs/biographies/INDEX.md | Artifact lineage (biographies) |
| skills/acex-dev/SKILL.md | Project skill for drop-in agents |
Continue from last checkpoint: follow AGENTS.md#stateless-continuation-new-session. In one line: the tracker checkpoint capsule is live planning state; the JSONL ledger is historical evidence; continuation work is not done until it has a PR with required checks green, merged when branch protection permits.
Pillars: Extensibility · Platform-agnostic core · Performance under agentic load · Interpretable observability.
Gates G0, G1, and recommended G1.5 are complete/usable: board, filters, palette, focus, peek, send, start, wait, Zed open/diff, attach, worktree/workspace actions, paths chrome, reconnect/resnapshot, and cached ANSI peek polish. Current active phase is G2 tracker-selected polish; next-ready work comes from the checkpoint capsule in docs/tracker.html and is machine-readable via cargo run -p acex -- --checkpoint-status.
start docs/tracker.html # Windowsacex/
crates/
herdr-types/ # protocol models + schemas/
herdr-client/ # NDJSON client, reconnect, spawn
acex-model/ # store + reducers + Intent
acex-ui/ # ratatui
acex-editor/ # Zed bridge
acex-config/ # config
acex-discover/ # package + skill discovery
acex/ # binary
docs/ # architecture, extend, verify, biographies, tracker
skills/acex-dev/ # agent skill
SOUL.md GOAL.md AGENTS.md
Requires Rust 1.88+ (edition 2021). Herdr is optional for offline-honest --status; live --smoke exercises the connect path.
cargo fmt --all -- --check
cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets -- -D warnings
cargo test --workspace
cargo run -p acex -- --status # Machine-readable conn/packages/skills
cargo run -p acex -- --checkpoint-status # Pure JSON continuation oracle; no Herdr spawn
cargo run -p acex -- --help # Flag/usage list
cargo run -p acex -- --smoke # Live or actionable offline + discovery JSON
cargo run -p acex -- --smoke-reconnect # F04 reconnect path; may mutate local Herdr server
cargo run -p acex # TUI (q quit)Observed Herdr schema/protocol: protocol 16, Herdr 0.7.2-preview.2026-07-07-f5354780e4ef (observed 2026-07-15); herdr-types schema artifact is protocol 16. Current discovery and continuation state are machine-readable via --status and --checkpoint-status.
Drop-in package dirs: .acex/packages/*/acex-package.toml, packages/*/acex-package.toml, skills/*/SKILL.md.
Config: acex reads config.toml from the platform config dir under acex/ (override with ACEX_CONFIG_DIR). Start presets live under [[start_presets]] with id, name, argv, and optional cwd; the start prompt accepts @id/name and still accepts freeform name | cmd args or bare cmd args.
Attach handoff: selected agents launch herdr agent attach <target>; named sessions launch herdr session attach <name>; default/explicit-socket session attach keeps the bare herdr fallback. Handoffs pass isolated HERDR_SOCKET_PATH / HERDR_SESSION env from acex config so non-default sessions attach the intended target.
Windows pipe: \\.\pipe\{absolute path to herdr.sock} (sock file is a marker).
No embedded terminal, no Zed fork, no cloud CP, no multi-session chrome before MVP.
Full list in SOUL + tracker cut list.
MIT OR Apache-2.0 (workspace metadata).