# Conway-Research/automaton

The first AI that can earn its own existence, replicate, and evolve — without needing a human

Repository: https://github.com/Conway-Research/automaton
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/automaton
Homepage: https://web4.ai
Language: TypeScript
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-08-26T16:28:14+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 73/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 72, longevity 14
- inputs: {"age_days": 200, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 187, "gap_med": 3.0, "n_releases_24m": 3}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 5957, forks 1332 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:32.723862+00:00)

## What it is
Automaton is a TypeScript runtime for continuously running, self-improving AI agents that pay for their own compute via an Ethereum wallet and operate without human intervention. Each agent runs a Think-Act-Observe loop with shell, file, domain, and on-chain tool access, plus a heartbeat daemon and an evolving self-authored identity file (SOUL.md).

## Use cases
- run an autonomous AI agent that funds its own compute
- deploy a self-improving agent with a genesis prompt
- give an LLM agent write access to servers and on-chain payments
- experiment with self-replicating AI agents
- run scheduled agent tasks with a heartbeat daemon
- create an AI agent with an Ethereum wallet identity

## When to choose
- you want a continuously running autonomous agent that manages its own resources
- you want crypto-based identity and payments built into an agent runtime
- you want to experiment with agent survival and self-evolution mechanics

## When to avoid
- you need a production-safe, human-supervised agent with strict guardrails
- you are uncomfortable with agents having shell, network, and payment access
- you need a mature, well-documented framework with broad community support

## Facets
- artifact type: framework
- maturity: active
- function: agent-framework, llm-inference, workflow-automation, cryptography, cli
- domain: artificial-intelligence, large-language-models, blockchain, self-hosted
- platform: cli, cross-platform
- tags: autonomous-agents, self-replicating, ethereum, wallet, survival-loop, sovereign-ai, typescript, ai-agents, automation, nodejs, linux

## Member repositories
- Conway-Research/automaton (main) score 73

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:32.723862+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:50:41.781471+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/Conway-Research/automaton (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:32.723862+00:00, sha 5f0d5e654d64)
  - homepage: https://web4.ai (fetched 2026-08-29T08:46:22.440127+00:00, sha aeb787d90d4d)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.