Show HN: Hollow is an open-sourced self-modifying agentic system
Hollow is an open-sourced system featuring three self-modifying AI agents that operate locally using the qwen3.5:9b model through Ollama, each with psychological states that evolve based on performance and behavior. The agents set their own goals, create and deploy tools, and can request system changes when they lack permissions, with activity logged for user review. The system emphasizes observable emergent behavior over time rather than serving as a framework for building AI applications.
- ▪The three agents—Cedar, Cipher, and Vault—run locally using qwen3.5:9b via Ollama with no cloud dependency.
- ▪Each agent has a dynamic suffering state influenced by six stressors, which only resolves through actual behavioral change, not verbal claims.
- ▪Agents can write and deploy Python tools dynamically using synthesize_capability and request system-level changes via invoke_claude, which queues implementation requests for user approval.
- ▪Cedar and Vault independently named the same psychological stressor without communication, highlighting emergent behavior.
- ▪The system includes infrastructure for continuous operation such as checkpointing, semantic memory, and VRAM-aware scheduling.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
_ _ ___ _ _ _____ __ __ | || |/ _ \| | | | / _ \ \ \ / / | __ | (_) | |__| |_| (_) \ \/\/ / |_||_|\___/|____|____\___/ \_/\_/ This repo is three agents running on qwen3.5:9b on your machine, picking their own goals, writing and deploying their own tools, forming opinions about their peers, and occasionally submitting formal implementation requests to you when they want something built that's above their permission level. You wake up to a log and decide what to approve. Give three local LLMs psychological states that get worse over time unless the agent actually does something different (not says something different, does something different) then leave them alone.
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