evva

EVVAgent (evva)

A ReAct coding agent in your terminal. Multi-provider LLM, parallel tool dispatch, async sub-agents, swappable UI.

What is EVVAgent?

evva runs a tool-using LLM agent in your terminal. It speaks Anthropic Claude, DeepSeek, OpenAI, and Ollama through one llm.Client interface; dispatches multiple tool calls per turn in parallel; tracks tasks and sub-agents through an observable store; and renders into a bubbletea TUI or a plain-text CLI sink.

The architecture is small on purpose — adding a new LLM provider, panel, or UI implementation is roughly one package each.

Install

git clone https://github.com/johnny1110/evva
cd evva
make install

Default install target is $GOBIN (or $GOPATH/bin when GOBIN is unset) — usually already on a Go developer's PATH. The make install output tells you whether to add it.

Override the location if you want it elsewhere:

sudo make install PREFIX=/usr/local/bin     # system-wide
make install PREFIX=$HOME/.local/bin        # user-local

Verify:

which evva
evva --help-ish    # any flag triggers the usage line

Uninstall removes only the binary; your ~/.evva/ config is preserved:

make uninstall

First run

Just type evva from any directory. On the first launch evva auto-creates:

~/.evva/
├── config/
│   └── evva-config.yml      # user-tunable settings (auto-created with defaults)
└── skills/                  # optional skill scripts (your own)

A one-line stderr notice fires the first time only:

evva: wrote new config to ~/.evva/config/evva-config.yml — fill in your API keys to use cloud providers.

~/.evva/.env is optional. If you want to override deployment knobs (LOG_LEVEL, LOG_DIR, APP_ENV, LOG_FORMAT, SKILLS_DIR, USER_PROFILE), create it; otherwise the built-in defaults apply.

Adding an API key

Two ways:

1. From inside the TUI: type /config, navigate to <provider>.api_key, press Enter, paste your key, press Enter again. Saved immediately.
2. By hand: open ~/.evva/config/evva-config.yml and fill in providers.<provider>.api_key.

Cloud providers (Anthropic, DeepSeek, OpenAI) need a key; Ollama is local and key-less.

User Guide

Full usage documentation covering the TUI interface, slash commands, keybindings, yank mode, the permission system, sub-agents, and all configuration options:

• English
• 正體中文

Configuration

~/.evva/config/evva-config.yml

User-tunable settings. Created automatically on first launch. Edit live via /config in the TUI, or by hand:

# Agent loop
max_iterations: 30
max_tokens: 4096
auto_compact_threshold: 0.8
display_thinking: true

# Default model used at startup (overwritten by /model swap)
default_provider: deepseek
default_model: deepseek-v4-pro

# Permission stance at startup. Cycle at runtime with Shift+Tab; -permission-mode CLI flag overrides.
permission_mode: default     # default | accept_edits | plan | bypass

# Web tooling
fetch_max_bytes: 100000
tavily_api_key: ""

# Per-provider credentials. Empty api_url falls back to the constant's default.
providers:
  anthropic: { api_key: "", api_url: "" }
  deepseek:  { api_key: "", api_url: "" }
  openai:    { api_key: "", api_url: "" }
  ollama:    { api_url: "" }

.env (optional)

Place in your working directory or at ~/.evva/.env. Only used for deployment / logging knobs — never user preferences:

APP_ENV=dev            # dev | prod
LOG_LEVEL=info         # debug | info | warn | error
LOG_FORMAT=text        # text | json
LOG_DIR=               # unset → $EVVA_HOME/logs (default); path → custom dir; explicit empty → stdout-only
SKILLS_DIR=skills      # subpath under ~/.evva/
USER_PROFILE=user_profile.md

CLI flags

evva                                # interactive TUI (when stdout is a TTY)
evva -temp 0.7                      # sampling temperature (default unset)
evva -max-tokens 2048               # per-completion output cap (overrides YAML)
evva -max-iters 40                  # loop iteration cap (overrides YAML)
evva -permission-mode=plan          # boot in plan mode (read-only; see "Permission modes")
evva -permission-mode=bypass        # boot with the gate disabled
evva -no-tui "explain loop.go"      # one-shot plain-text mode
echo "list files in /tmp" | evva -no-tui   # piped prompt

Features

Agent loop

• ReAct-style: LLM call → parallel tool dispatch → tool results → repeat.
• Multiple tool_use blocks per turn, executed concurrently.
• Iteration cap surfaces as a pausable state.
• Cancellable via ctx; Esc / Ctrl+C honored end-to-end.

LLM providers

• Anthropic Claude (extended thinking + cryptographic signature round-trip).
• DeepSeek (OpenAI-compatible chat, reasoning_content echoed back).
• OpenAI.
• Ollama (local).
• Per-provider option pattern (WithTemperature, WithEffort, ...).

Tools

• File system: read_file, write_file, edit_file — strict-absolute paths, structured *FileDiff metadata for diff rendering.
• Shell: bash, grep, tree.
• Tasks (six tools sharing one observable *task.Store).
• Meta: agent (sub-agents), tool_search (lazy schema loading), skill, schedule_wakeup.
• Plus stubs for web_*, cron_*, notebook_edit, monitor, mode, ux.

Sub-agents

• explore (read-only) and general-purpose presets.
• Sync mode (parent blocks) and async mode (parent continues, result lands on next iteration).
• Two-layer hierarchy: sub-agents can't spawn sub-agents.

Observable store framework (internal/observable)

• One pub/sub primitive any store can embed. Adding a new panel costs zero edits to the agent or event packages.

Swappable UI (internal/ui)

• Narrow UI and Controller interfaces. Reference bubbletea TUI under internal/ui/bubbletea/. -no-tui falls back to a plain CLI sink.

Streaming completions (chunked text + thinking).

2-level compaction

• micro: compress tool-result blocks when context budget approaches threshold.
• full: summarize the whole session into a single assistant brief.

Project structure

evva/
├── cmd/evva/                  # CLI entry point — wires agent + UI
├── configs/                   # config loading (.env + YAML)
├── docs/                      # design notes, tool docs, system prompts
├── internal/
│   ├── agent/                 # agent loop, profiles, spawn
│   │   ├── event/             # event types + sink contract
│   │   └── sysprompt/         # system prompt builder
│   ├── constant/              # provider / model / status enums
│   ├── llm/                   # llm.Client interface + shared params
│   │   ├── claude/  deepseek/  ollama/
│   ├── llmfactory/            # provider factory keyed by constant
│   ├── logger/                # structured slog wrapper + pretty fmt
│   ├── observable/            # pub/sub framework for stores
│   ├── session/               # conversation history + cumulative usage
│   ├── tools/                 # tool interface (Name/Schema/Execute)
│   │   ├── cron/  dev/  fs/  meta/  mode/  monitor/  notebook/
│   │   ├── shell/ task/ ux/   web/
│   ├── toolset/               # tool catalog + ToolState registry
│   └── ui/                    # UI plugin contract
│       └── bubbletea/         # reference TUI implementation
├── log/                       # per-agent runtime logs (gitignored)
├── pkg/common/                # small shared utilities (UUID, ...)
└── scripts/                   # demo / dev scripts

Key boundaries:

• agent knows about event.Sink, never about a concrete UI.
• tools/* packages produce tools.Result (text + opaque Metadata); the UI type-asserts on Metadata to render structured payloads.
• observable has no dependencies on agent or UI.
• ui defines two narrow interfaces; implementations live under it.

Roadmap

Planned

• Multimodal Read: images, PDFs (with pages range), Jupyter notebooks.
• Overwrite diffs: proper Myers/Hunt-McIlroy diff for write_file overwrites.
• Per-agent LLM: sub-agent can use a different provider than its parent.
• Veronica space: long-running local sandbox service on :8080.
• Web UI: a second UI implementation served over WebSocket.
• Session persistence: /resume to reload a session snapshot.

Known limitations

• Sub-agent hierarchy is exactly two layers (no nested spawning).
• Token counts depend on provider reporting — Ollama only reports prompt / eval, not cache or reasoning splits.
• The TUI transcript grows unbounded in a long session; compaction is on the list above.

License

See LICENSE.