an engineer's home.

Building a Local-First Agent Framework in Rust (Part 10): Configuration With TOML

See Part 0 for the latest table of contents and sample code. New chapters will be added over time. Chapter 10: Configuration With TOML So far, abcb has been mostly self-contained. The mock provider lives in the process. The default notes file is hardcoded. The loop step limit is

Building a Local-First Agent Framework in Rust (Part 9): Failing Gracefully With Recovery

See Part 0 for the latest table of contents and sample code. New chapters will be added over time. Chapter 9: Failing Gracefully With Recovery Chapter 8 gave abcb a loop. The framework could create a session, send it to the provider, parse the model's structured output, execute

Building a Local-First Agent Framework in Rust (Part 8): The Agent Loop and Session Continuity

See Part 0 for the latest table of contents and sample code. New chapters will be added over time. Chapter 8: The Agent Loop and Session Continuity Chapter 7 gave abcb one clean step. The framework could ask the provider for one assistant message, parse that message as ModelOutput, and

Building a Local-First Agent Framework in Rust (Part 7): The Model's Envelope and One Step

See Part 0 for the latest table of contents and sample code. New chapters will be added over time. Chapter 7: The Model's Envelope and One Step Chapter 6 gave abcb a set of capabilities. A tool can have a name, a description, and an implementation. The framework

Building a Local-First Agent Framework in Rust (Part 6): Tools and the Registry

See Part 0 for the latest table of contents and sample code. New chapters will be added over time. Chapter 6: Tools and the Registry Chapter 5 gave abcb a way to record what happened. That was not a feature that made the model smarter, but it changed the framework&

Building a Local-First Agent Framework in Rust (Part 5): Recording What Happened With an Event Log

See Part 0 for the latest table of contents and sample code. New chapters will be added over time. Chapter 5: Recording What Happened With an Event Log At the end of the previous chapter, abcb could run one mocked model turn. A user message went into a temporary session,

Building a Local-First Agent Framework in Rust (Part 4): The Provider Trait and a Scripted Mock

See Part 0 for the latest table of contents and sample code. New chapters will be added over time. Chapter 4: The Provider Trait and a Scripted Mock The previous chapter gave abcb a conversation shape. We now have Role, Message, and Session, and those types can leave memory as

Building a Local-First Agent Framework in Rust (Part 3): Modeling Messages, Roles, and Sessions

See Part 0 for the latest table of contents and sample code. New chapters will be added over time. Chapter 3: Modeling Messages, Roles, and Sessions The previous chapter gave abcb a place to live. This chapter gives it the first thing an agent framework actually needs: a conversation. That

Building a Local-First Agent Framework in Rust (Part 2): Setting Up the Workspace

See Part 0 for the latest table of contents and sample code. New chapters will be added over time. Chapter 2: Setting Up the Workspace The first code chapter does not call a model. It does not parse a tool request. It does not know what an agent loop is

Building a Local-First Agent Framework in Rust (Part 1): Introduction

See Part 0 for the latest table of contents and sample code. New chapters will be added over time. Introduction: Building the Loop The word "agent" is already overloaded enough that it can hide more than it explains. Sometimes it means a chatbot with tools. Sometimes it means

Building a Local-First Agent Framework in Rust (Part 0): Preface

Table of Contents * Chapter 0: Preface: Why I Am Building This * Chapter 1: Introduction: Building the Loop * Chapter 2: Setting Up the Workspace * Chapter 3: Modeling Messages, Roles, and Sessions * Chapter 4: The Provider Trait and a Scripted Mock * Chapter 5: Recording What Happened With an Event Log * Chapter 6:

Joanna Stern at the Computer History Museum

Last Tuesday night (5/19), I went to the Computer History Museum to hear Joanna Stern talk about her new book, I Am Not a Robot: My Year of Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything. This was one of those Bay Area events that felt almost too easy to attend.