open-multi-agent-kit

OMK

OMK//CONTROL — provider-neutral multi-agent control plane for coding workflows.

Models execute. OMK routes, verifies, measures, and controls.

New issues and PRs from new contributors are auto-closed by default. Maintainers review auto-closed issues daily. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

OMK//CONTROL TUI

v0.80.8 ships the OMK//CONTROL startup surface as the default operator view. The header reads omk v0.80.8 · OMK//CONTROL, using the published open-multi-agent-kit package version as the single source of truth.

The default dark TUI theme uses the omk-control-grid-dark Night City palette and keeps the control sidebar focused on route, evidence, loop, MCP, runtime, skills, and context budget state.

Release v0.80.8

This release completes the OMK hard-fork pass and makes the current runtime, docs, and release pipeline line up around the OMK identity.

Area	What changed
OMK identity	Active Pi-era user-facing residue was removed from package metadata, runtime defaults, docs, and release surfaces.
TUI	OMK//CONTROL now shows the package-backed v0.80.8 startup header and Night City Ops control dashboard.
MCP	Tools, resources, prompts, sampling, and auth are represented as deterministic capability/policy inventory.
Hooks	Built-in and project hooks carry fail-closed policy metadata with staged effects and bounded timeouts.
Skills	Skill discovery preserves source, scope, origin, path, and collision provenance without exposing raw contents.
Harness	Context headroom, compaction, token budget, and tool execution evidence paths were hardened and verified.
Release	Local smoke tests, shrinkwrap gates, package lockstep, GitHub release notes, and npm publish checks are part of the release path.

GitHub-focused release notes live in RELEASE_NOTES_v0.80.8.md. The GitHub release workflow also extracts the canonical release body from packages/coding-agent/CHANGELOG.md.

OMK is a minimal terminal coding harness. Adapt omk to your workflows, not the other way around, without having to fork and modify omk internals. Extend it with TypeScript Extensions, Skills, Prompt Templates, and Themes. Put your extensions, skills, prompt templates, and themes in OMK Packages and share them with others via npm or git.

OMK ships with powerful defaults but skips features like sub agents and plan mode. Instead, you can ask omk to build what you want or install a third party omk package that matches your workflow.

OMK runs in four modes: interactive, print or JSON, RPC for process integration, and an SDK for embedding in your own apps. See openclaw/openclaw for a real-world SDK integration.

Share your OSS coding agent sessions

If you use omk for open source work, please share your coding agent sessions.

Public OSS session data helps improve models, prompts, tools, and evaluations using real development workflows.

For the full explanation, see this post on X.

To publish sessions, share OMK session JSONL files from ~/.omk/agent/sessions/ with a Hugging Face dataset or another public archive. Include the OMK version, provider/model, and repository context when it is safe to publish.

Table of Contents

• Quick Start
• Providers & Models
• Interactive Mode
  • Editor
  • Commands
  • Keyboard Shortcuts
  • Message Queue
• Sessions
  • Branching
  • Compaction
• Settings
• Context Files
• Customization
  • Prompt Templates
  • Skills
  • Extensions
  • Themes
  • OMK Packages
• Programmatic Usage
• Philosophy
• CLI Reference

Quick Start

npm install -g --ignore-scripts open-multi-agent-kit

--ignore-scripts disables dependency lifecycle scripts during install. OMK does not require install scripts for normal npm installs.

Installer alternative:

curl -fsSL https://omk.dev/install.sh | sh

Authenticate with an API key:

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...
omk

Or use your existing subscription:

omk
/login  # Then select provider

Then just talk to omk. By default, omk gives the model four tools: read, write, edit, and bash. The model uses these to fulfill your requests. Add capabilities via skills, prompt templates, extensions, or omk packages.

Platform notes: Windows | Termux (Android) | tmux | Terminal setup | Shell aliases

Providers & Models

For each built-in provider, omk maintains a list of tool-capable models, updated with every release. Authenticate via subscription (/login) or API key, then select any model from that provider via /model (or Ctrl+L).

Subscriptions:

• Anthropic Claude Pro/Max
• OpenAI ChatGPT Plus/Pro (Codex)
• GitHub Copilot

API keys:

• Anthropic
• Ant Ling
• OpenAI
• Azure OpenAI
• DeepSeek
• NVIDIA NIM
• Google Gemini
• Google Vertex
• Amazon Bedrock
• Mistral
• Groq
• Cerebras
• Cloudflare AI Gateway
• Cloudflare Workers AI
• xAI
• OpenRouter
• Vercel AI Gateway
• ZAI
• ZAI Coding Plan (China)
• OpenCode Zen
• OpenCode Go
• Hugging Face
• Fireworks
• Together AI
• Kimi For Coding
• MiniMax
• Xiaomi MiMo
• Xiaomi MiMo Token Plan (China)
• Xiaomi MiMo Token Plan (Amsterdam)
• Xiaomi MiMo Token Plan (Singapore)
• Zyloo

See docs/providers.md for detailed setup instructions.

Custom providers & models: Add providers via ~/.omk/agent/models.json if they speak a supported API (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google). For custom APIs or OAuth, use extensions. See docs/models.md and docs/custom-provider.md.

Interactive Mode

The interface from top to bottom:

• Startup header - Shows shortcuts (/hotkeys for all), loaded AGENTS.md files, prompt templates, skills, and extensions
• Messages - Your messages, assistant responses, tool calls and results, notifications, errors, and extension UI
• Editor - Where you type; border color indicates thinking level
• Footer - Working directory, session name, total token/cache usage (↑ input, ↓ output, R cache read, W cache write, CH latest cache hit rate), cost, context usage, current model

The editor can be temporarily replaced by other UI, like built-in /settings or custom UI from extensions (e.g., a Q&A tool that lets the user answer model questions in a structured format). Extensions can also replace the editor, add widgets above/below it, a status line, custom footer, or overlays.

Editor

Feature	How
File reference	Type @ to fuzzy-search project files
Path completion	Tab to complete paths
Multi-line	Shift+Enter (or Ctrl+Enter on Windows Terminal)
Images	Ctrl+V to paste (Alt+V on Windows), or drag onto terminal
Bash commands	!command runs and sends output to LLM, !!command runs without sending

Standard editing keybindings for delete word, undo, etc. See docs/keybindings.md.

Commands

Type / in the editor to trigger commands. Extensions can register custom commands, skills are available as /skill:name, and prompt templates expand via /templatename.

Command	Description
/login, /logout	OAuth authentication
/model	Switch models
/scoped-models	Enable/disable models for Ctrl+P cycling
/settings	Thinking level, theme, message delivery, transport
/resume	Pick from previous sessions
/new	Start a new session
/name <name>	Set session display name
/session	Show session info (file, ID, messages, tokens, cost)
/tree	Jump to any point in the session and continue from there
/trust	Save project trust decision for future sessions (restart required)
/fork	Create a new session from a previous user message
/clone	Duplicate the current active branch into a new session
/compact [prompt]	Manually compact context, optional custom instructions
/copy	Copy last assistant message to clipboard
/export [file]	Export session to HTML file
/share	Upload as private GitHub gist with shareable HTML link
/reload	Reload keybindings, extensions, skills, prompts, and context files (themes hot-reload automatically)
/hotkeys	Show all keyboard shortcuts
/changelog	Display version history
/quit	Quit omk

Keyboard Shortcuts

See /hotkeys for the full list. Customize via ~/.omk/agent/keybindings.json. See docs/keybindings.md.

Commonly used:

Key	Action
Ctrl+C	Clear editor
Ctrl+C twice	Quit
Escape	Cancel/abort
Escape twice	Open /tree
Ctrl+L	Open model selector
Ctrl+P / Shift+Ctrl+P	Cycle scoped models forward/backward
Shift+Tab	Cycle thinking level
Ctrl+O	Collapse/expand tool output
Ctrl+T	Collapse/expand thinking blocks

Message Queue

Submit messages while the agent is working:

• Enter queues a steering message, delivered after the current assistant turn finishes executing its tool calls
• Alt+Enter queues a follow-up message, delivered only after the agent finishes all work
• Escape aborts and restores queued messages to editor
• Alt+Up retrieves queued messages back to editor

On Windows Terminal, Alt+Enter is fullscreen by default. Remap it in docs/terminal-setup.md so omk can receive the follow-up shortcut.

Configure delivery in settings: steeringMode and followUpMode can be "one-at-a-time" (default, waits for response) or "all" (delivers all queued at once). transport selects provider transport preference ("sse", "websocket", or "auto") for providers that support multiple transports.

Sessions

Sessions are stored as JSONL files with a tree structure. Each entry has an id and parentId, enabling in-place branching without creating new files. See docs/session-format.md for file format.

Management

Sessions auto-save to ~/.omk/agent/sessions/ organized by working directory.

omk -c                  # Continue most recent session
omk -r                  # Browse and select from past sessions
omk --no-session        # Ephemeral mode (don't save)
omk --name "my task"    # Set session display name at startup
omk --session <path|id> # Use specific session file or ID
omk --fork <path|id>    # Fork specific session file or ID into a new session

Use /session in interactive mode to see the current session ID before reusing it with --session <id> or --fork <id>.

Branching

/tree - Navigate the session tree in-place. Select any previous point, continue from there, and switch between branches. All history preserved in a single file.

• Search by typing, fold/unfold and jump between branches with Ctrl+←/Ctrl+→ or Alt+←/Alt+→, page with ←/→
• Filter modes (Ctrl+O): default → no-tools → user-only → labeled-only → all
• Press Shift+L to label entries as bookmarks and Shift+T to toggle label timestamps

/fork - Create a new session file from a previous user message on the active branch. Opens a selector, copies the active path up to that point, and places the selected prompt in the editor for modification.

/clone - Duplicate the current active branch into a new session file at the current position. The new session keeps the full active-path history and opens with an empty editor.

--fork <path|id> - Fork an existing session file or partial session UUID directly from the CLI. This copies the full source session into a new session file in the current project.

Compaction

Long sessions can exhaust context windows. Compaction summarizes older messages while keeping recent ones.

Manual: /compact or /compact <custom instructions>

Automatic: Enabled by default. Triggers on context overflow (recovers and retries) or when approaching the limit (proactive). Configure via /settings or settings.json.

Compaction is lossy. The full history remains in the JSONL file; use /tree to revisit. Customize compaction behavior via extensions. See docs/compaction.md for internals.

Settings

Use /settings to modify common options, or edit JSON files directly:

Location	Scope
~/.omk/agent/settings.json	Global (all projects)
.omk/settings.json	Project (overrides global)

See docs/settings.md for all options.

Project Trust

On interactive startup, omk asks before trusting a project folder that contains project-local settings, resources, or project .agents/skills and has no saved decision for the folder or a parent folder in ~/.omk/agent/trust.json. Trusting a project allows omk to load .omk/settings.json and .omk resources, install missing project packages, and execute project extensions.

Before the trust decision, omk loads only context files, user/global extensions, and CLI -e extensions so they can handle the project_trust event. Project-local extensions, project package-managed extensions, and project settings are loaded only after the project is trusted. This split also applies when switching to a session from a different cwd whose trust has not been resolved in the current process.

Non-interactive modes (-p, --mode json, and --mode rpc) do not show a trust prompt. Without an applicable saved trust decision, they use defaultProjectTrust from global settings: ask (default) and never ignore those project resources, while always trusts them. Pass --approve/-a or --no-approve/-na to override project trust for one run.

If no extension or saved decision applies, defaultProjectTrust controls the fallback behavior. Set it to "ask", "always", or "never" in ~/.omk/agent/settings.json, or change it with /settings.

omk config and package commands use the same project trust flow, except omk update never prompts. Pass --approve to trust project-local settings for one command or --no-approve to ignore them.

Use /trust in interactive mode to save a project trust decision for future sessions, including trust for the immediate parent folder. It writes ~/.omk/agent/trust.json only; the current session is not reloaded, so restart omk for changes to take effect.

Telemetry and update checks

OMK has two separate startup features:

• Update check: fetches https://omk.dev/api/latest-version to check whether a newer OMK version exists. Disable it with OMK_SKIP_VERSION_CHECK=1. Disabling update checks only turns off this check.
• Install/update telemetry: after first install or a changelog-detected update, sends an anonymous version ping to https://omk.dev/api/report-install. This setting also controls optional provider attribution headers for OpenRouter, Cloudflare, and direct NVIDIA NIM requests. Opt out by setting enableInstallTelemetry to false in settings.json, or by setting OMK_TELEMETRY=0. This does not disable update checks; OMK may still contact omk.dev for the latest version unless update checks are disabled or offline mode is enabled.

Use --offline or OMK_OFFLINE=1 to disable all startup network operations described here, including update checks, package update checks, and install/update telemetry.

Context Files

OMK loads AGENTS.md (or CLAUDE.md) at startup from:

• ~/.omk/agent/AGENTS.md (global)
• Parent directories (walking up from cwd)
• Current directory

Use for project instructions (AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md), conventions, common commands. All matching files are concatenated.

Disable context file loading with --no-context-files (or -nc).

System Prompt

Replace the default system prompt with .omk/SYSTEM.md (project) or ~/.omk/agent/SYSTEM.md (global). Append without replacing via APPEND_SYSTEM.md.

Customization

Prompt Templates

Reusable prompts as Markdown files. Type /name to expand.

<!-- ~/.omk/agent/prompts/review.md -->
Review this code for bugs, security issues, and performance problems.
Focus on: {{focus}}

Place in ~/.omk/agent/prompts/, .omk/prompts/, or a omk package to share with others. See docs/prompt-templates.md.

Skills

On-demand capability packages following the Agent Skills standard. Invoke via /skill:name or let the agent load them automatically.

<!-- ~/.omk/agent/skills/my-skill/SKILL.md -->
# My Skill
Use this skill when the user asks about X.

## Steps
1. Do this
2. Then that

Place in ~/.omk/agent/skills/, ~/.agents/skills/, .omk/skills/, or .agents/skills/ (from cwd up through parent directories) or a omk package to share with others. See docs/skills.md.

Extensions

TypeScript modules that extend omk with custom tools, commands, keyboard shortcuts, event handlers, and UI components.

export default function (omk: ExtensionAPI) {
  omk.registerTool({ name: "deploy", ... });
  omk.registerCommand("stats", { ... });
  omk.on("tool_call", async (event, ctx) => { ... });
}

The default export can also be async. omk waits for async extension factories before startup continues, which is useful for one-time initialization such as fetching remote model lists before calling omk.registerProvider().

What's possible:

• Custom tools (or replace built-in tools entirely)
• Sub-agents and plan mode
• Custom compaction and summarization
• Permission gates and path protection
• Custom editors and UI components
• Status lines, headers, footers
• Git checkpointing and auto-commit
• SSH and sandbox execution
• MCP server integration
• Make omk look like Claude Code
• Games while waiting (yes, Doom runs)
• ...anything you can dream up

Place in ~/.omk/agent/extensions/, .omk/extensions/, or a omk package to share with others. See docs/extensions.md and examples/extensions/.

Themes

Built-in: dark, light. Themes hot-reload: modify the active theme file and omk immediately applies changes.

Place in ~/.omk/agent/themes/, .omk/themes/, or a omk package to share with others. See docs/themes.md.

OMK Packages

Bundle and share extensions, skills, prompts, and themes via npm or git. Find packages on npmjs.com or Discord.

Security: OMK packages run with full system access. Extensions execute arbitrary code, and skills can instruct the model to perform any action including running executables. Review source code before installing third-party packages.

omk install npm:@foo/omk-tools
omk install npm:@foo/omk-tools@1.2.3      # pinned version
omk install git:github.com/user/repo
omk install git:github.com/user/repo@v1  # tag or commit
omk install git:[e-mail]:user/repo
omk install git:[e-mail]:user/repo@v1  # tag or commit
omk install https://github.com/user/repo
omk install https://github.com/user/repo@v1      # tag or commit
omk install ssh://[e-mail]/user/repo
omk install ssh://[e-mail]/user/repo@v1    # tag or commit
omk remove npm:@foo/omk-tools
omk uninstall npm:@foo/omk-tools          # alias for remove
omk list
omk update                               # update omk and packages (skips pinned packages)
omk update --extensions                  # update packages only
omk update --self                        # update omk only
omk update --self --force                # reinstall omk even if current
omk update npm:@foo/omk-tools             # update one package
omk config                               # enable/disable extensions, skills, prompts, themes

Packages install to ~/.omk/agent/git/ (git) or ~/.omk/agent/npm/ (npm). Use -l for project-local installs (.omk/git/, .omk/npm/). Git @ref values are pinned tags or commits; pinned packages are skipped by omk update, so use omk install git:host/user/repo@new-ref to move an existing package to a new ref. Git packages install dependencies with npm install --omit=dev by default, so runtime deps must be listed under dependencies; when npmCommand is configured, git packages use plain install for compatibility with wrappers. If you use a Node version manager and want package installs to reuse a stable npm context, set npmCommand in settings.json, for example ["mise", "exec", "node@20", "--", "npm"].

Create a package by adding a omk key to package.json:

{
  "name": "my-omk-package",
  "keywords": ["omk-package"],
  "omk": {
    "extensions": ["./extensions"],
    "skills": ["./skills"],
    "prompts": ["./prompts"],
    "themes": ["./themes"]
  }
}

Without a omk manifest, omk auto-discovers from conventional directories (extensions/, skills/, prompts/, themes/).

See docs/packages.md.

Programmatic Usage

SDK

import { AuthStorage, createAgentSession, ModelRegistry, SessionManager } from "open-multi-agent-kit";

const authStorage = AuthStorage.create();
const modelRegistry = ModelRegistry.create(authStorage);
const { session } = await createAgentSession({
  sessionManager: SessionManager.inMemory(),
  authStorage,
  modelRegistry,
});

await session.prompt("What files are in the current directory?");

For advanced multi-session runtime replacement, use createAgentSessionRuntime() and AgentSessionRuntime.

See docs/sdk.md and examples/sdk/.

RPC Mode

For non-Node.js integrations, use RPC mode over stdin/stdout:

omk --mode rpc

RPC mode uses strict LF-delimited JSONL framing. Clients must split records on \n only. Do not use generic line readers like Node readline, which also split on Unicode separators inside JSON payloads.

See docs/rpc.md for the protocol.

Philosophy

OMK is aggressively extensible so it doesn't have to dictate your workflow. Features that other tools bake in can be built with extensions, skills, or installed from third-party omk packages. This keeps the core minimal while letting you shape omk to fit how you work.

No MCP. Build CLI tools with READMEs (see Skills), or build an extension that adds MCP support. Why?

No sub-agents. There's many ways to do this. Spawn omk instances via tmux, or build your own with extensions, or install a package that does it your way.

No permission popups. Run in a container, or build your own confirmation flow with extensions inline with your environment and security requirements.

No plan mode. Write plans to files, or build it with extensions, or install a package.

No built-in to-dos. They confuse models. Use a TODO.md file, or build your own with extensions.

No background bash. Use tmux. Full observability, direct interaction.

The goal is a small core with workflow-specific behavior supplied by user code and packages.

CLI Reference

omk [options] [@files...] [messages...]

Package Commands

omk install <source> [-l]     # Install package, -l for project-local
omk remove <source> [-l]      # Remove package
omk uninstall <source> [-l]   # Alias for remove
omk update [source|self|omk]   # Update omk and packages (skips pinned packages)
omk update --extensions       # Update packages only
omk update --self             # Update omk only
omk update --self --force     # Reinstall omk even if current
omk update --extension <src>  # Update one package
omk list                      # List installed packages
omk config                    # Enable/disable package resources

omk config and project package commands accept --approve/--no-approve to trust or ignore project-local settings for one command. omk update never prompts for project trust.

Modes

Flag	Description
(default)	Interactive mode
-p, --print	Print response and exit
--mode json	Output all events as JSON lines (see docs/json.md)
--mode rpc	RPC mode for process integration (see docs/rpc.md)
--export <in> [out]	Export session to HTML

In print mode, omk also reads piped stdin and merges it into the initial prompt:

cat README.md | omk -p "Summarize this text"

Model Options

Option	Description
--provider <name>	Provider (anthropic, openai, google, etc.)
--model <pattern>	Model pattern or ID (supports provider/id and optional :<thinking>)
--api-key <key>	API key (overrides env vars)
--thinking <level>	off, minimal, low, medium, high, xhigh
--models <patterns>	Comma-separated patterns for Ctrl+P cycling
--list-models [search]	List available models

Session Options

Option	Description
-c, --continue	Continue most recent session
-r, --resume	Browse and select session
--session <path|id>	Use specific session file or partial UUID
--fork <path|id>	Fork specific session file or partial UUID into a new session
--session-dir <dir>	Custom session storage directory
--no-session	Ephemeral mode (don't save)
--name <name>, -n <name>	Set session display name at startup

Tool Options

Option	Description
--tools <list>, -t <list>	Allowlist specific tool names across built-in, extension, and custom tools
--exclude-tools <list>, -xt <list>	Disable specific tool names across built-in, extension, and custom tools
--no-builtin-tools, -nbt	Disable built-in tools by default but keep extension/custom tools enabled
--no-tools, -nt	Disable all tools by default

Available built-in tools: read, bash, edit, write, grep, find, ls

Resource Options

Option	Description
-e, --extension <source>	Load extension from path, npm, or git (repeatable)
--no-extensions	Disable extension discovery
--skill <path>	Load skill (repeatable)
--no-skills	Disable skill discovery
--prompt-template <path>	Load prompt template (repeatable)
--no-prompt-templates	Disable prompt template discovery
--theme <path>	Load theme (repeatable)
--no-themes	Disable theme discovery
--no-context-files, -nc	Disable AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md context file discovery

Combine --no-* with explicit flags to load exactly what you need, ignoring settings.json (e.g., --no-extensions -e ./my-ext.ts).

Other Options

Option	Description
--system-prompt <text>	Replace default prompt (context files and skills still appended)
--append-system-prompt <text>	Append to system prompt
--verbose	Force verbose startup
-a, --approve	Trust project-local files for this run
-na, --no-approve	Ignore project-local files for this run
-h, --help	Show help
-v, --version	Show version

File Arguments

Prefix files with @ to include in the message:

omk @prompt.md "Answer this"
omk -p @screenshot.png "What's in this image?"
omk @code.ts @test.ts "Review these files"

Examples

# Interactive with initial prompt
omk "List all .ts files in src/"

# Non-interactive
omk -p "Summarize this codebase"

# Non-interactive with piped stdin
cat README.md | omk -p "Summarize this text"

# Named one-shot session
omk --name "release audit" -p "Audit this repository"

# Different model
omk --provider openai --model gpt-4o "Help me refactor"

# Model with provider prefix (no --provider needed)
omk --model openai/gpt-4o "Help me refactor"

# Model with thinking level shorthand
omk --model sonnet:high "Solve this complex problem"

# Limit model cycling
omk --models "claude-*,gpt-4o"

# Read-only mode
omk --tools read,grep,find,ls -p "Review the code"

# Disable one extension or built-in tool while keeping the rest available
omk --exclude-tools ask_question

# High thinking level
omk --thinking high "Solve this complex problem"

Environment Variables

Variable	Description
OMK_CODING_AGENT_DIR	Override config directory (default: ~/.omk/agent)
OMK_CODING_AGENT_SESSION_DIR	Override session storage directory (overridden by --session-dir)
OMK_PACKAGE_DIR	Override package directory (useful for Nix/Guix where store paths tokenize poorly)
OMK_OFFLINE	Disable startup network operations, including update checks, package update checks, and install/update telemetry
OMK_SKIP_VERSION_CHECK	Skip the OMK version update check at startup. This prevents the omk.dev latest-version request
OMK_TELEMETRY	Override install/update telemetry and provider attribution headers. Use 1/true/yes to enable or 0/false/no to disable. This does not disable update checks
OMK_CACHE_RETENTION	Set to long for extended prompt cache (Anthropic: 1h, OpenAI: 24h)
VISUAL, EDITOR	External editor for Ctrl+G

Contributing & Development

See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines and docs/development.md for setup, forking, and debugging.

License

MIT

See Also

• omk-ai: Core LLM toolkit
• omk-agent-core: Agent framework
• omk-tui: Terminal UI components