A CLI tool for managing and running LLM-powered agents.

Most AI tooling assumes you want a chatbot. A long-running session with a massive context window doing everything at once. But that's not how good software works. Good software is small, focused, and composable.

Axe treats LLM agents the same way Unix treats programs. Each agent does one thing well. You define it in a TOML file, give it a focused skill, and run it from the command line. Pipe data in, get results out. Chain agents together. Trigger them from cron, git hooks, or CI. Whatever you already use. No daemon, no GUI, no framework to buy into. Just a binary and your configs.

Axe orchestrates LLM-powered agents defined via TOML configuration files. Each agent has its own system prompt, model selection, skill files, context files, working directory, persistent memory, and the ability to delegate to sub-agents.

Axe is the executor, not the scheduler. It is designed to be composed with standard Unix tools — cron, git hooks, pipes, file watchers — rather than reinventing scheduling or workflow orchestration.

• Multi-provider support — Anthropic, OpenAI, and Ollama (local models)
• TOML-based agent configuration — declarative, version-controllable agent definitions
• Sub-agent delegation — agents can call other agents via LLM tool use, with depth limiting and parallel execution
• Persistent memory — timestamped markdown logs that carry context across runs
• Memory garbage collection — LLM-assisted pattern analysis and trimming
• Skill system — reusable instruction sets that can be shared across agents
• Stdin piping — pipe any output directly into an agent (git diff | axe run reviewer)
• Dry-run mode — inspect resolved context without calling the LLM
• JSON output — structured output with metadata for scripting
• Built-in tools — file operations (read, write, edit, list), shell command execution, all sandboxed to the agent's working directory
• Minimal dependencies — two direct dependencies (cobra, toml); all LLM calls use the standard library

Requires Go 1.24+.

go install github.com/jrswab/axe@latest

Or build from source:

git clone https://github.com/jrswab/axe.git
cd axe
go build .

Initialize the configuration directory:

This creates the directory structure at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/axe/ with a sample skill and a default config.toml for provider credentials.

Scaffold a new agent:

Edit its configuration:

Run the agent:

Pipe input from other tools:

git diff --cached | axe run pr-reviewer
cat error.log | axe run log-analyzer

The examples/ directory contains ready-to-run agents you can copy into your config and use immediately. Includes a code reviewer, commit message generator, and text summarizer — each with a focused SKILL.md.

# Copy an example agent into your config
cp examples/code-reviewer/code-reviewer.toml "$(axe config path)/agents/"
cp -r examples/code-reviewer/skills/ "$(axe config path)/skills/"

# Set your API key and run
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="your-key-here"
git diff | axe run code-reviewer

See examples/README.md for full setup instructions.

Axe provides a Docker image for running agents in an isolated, hardened container.

Multi-architecture builds (linux/amd64, linux/arm64) are supported via buildx:

docker buildx build --platform linux/amd64,linux/arm64 -t axe:latest .

Mount your config directory and pass API keys as environment variables:

docker run --rm \
  -v ./my-config:/home/axe/.config/axe \
  -e ANTHROPIC_API_KEY \
  axe run my-agent

Pipe stdin with the -i flag:

git diff | docker run --rm -i \
  -v ./my-config:/home/axe/.config/axe \
  -e ANTHROPIC_API_KEY \
  axe run pr-reviewer

Without a config volume mounted, axe exits with code 2 (config error) because no agent TOML files exist.

The examples above mount the entire config directory. If you only need to run one agent with one skill, mount just those files to their expected XDG paths inside the container. No config.toml is needed when API keys are passed via environment variables.

docker run --rm -i \
  -e ANTHROPIC_API_KEY \
  -v ./agents/reviewer.toml:/home/axe/.config/axe/agents/reviewer.toml:ro \
  -v ./skills/code-review/:/home/axe/.config/axe/skills/code-review/:ro \
  axe run reviewer

The agent's skill field resolves automatically against the XDG config path inside the container, so no --skill flag is needed.

To use a different skill than the one declared in the agent's TOML, use the --skill flag to override it. In this case you only mount the replacement skill — the original skill declared in the TOML is ignored entirely:

docker run --rm -i \
  -e ANTHROPIC_API_KEY \
  -v ./agents/reviewer.toml:/home/axe/.config/axe/agents/reviewer.toml:ro \
  -v ./alt-review.md:/home/axe/alt-review.md:ro \
  axe run reviewer --skill /home/axe/alt-review.md

If the agent declares sub_agents, all referenced agent TOMLs and their skills must also be mounted.

Agent memory persists across runs when you mount a data volume:

docker run --rm \
  -v ./my-config:/home/axe/.config/axe \
  -v axe-data:/home/axe/.local/share/axe \
  -e ANTHROPIC_API_KEY \
  axe run my-agent

A docker-compose.yml is included for running axe alongside a local Ollama instance.

Cloud provider only (no Ollama):

docker compose run --rm axe run my-agent

With Ollama sidecar:

docker compose --profile ollama up -d ollama
docker compose --profile cli run --rm axe run my-agent

Pull an Ollama model:

docker compose --profile ollama exec ollama ollama pull llama3

Note: The compose axe service declares depends_on: ollama. Docker Compose will attempt to start the Ollama service whenever axe is started via compose, even for cloud-only runs. For cloud-only usage without Ollama, use docker run directly instead of docker compose run.

If Ollama runs directly on the host (not via compose), point to it with:

• Linux: --add-host=host.docker.internal:host-gateway -e AXE_OLLAMA_BASE_URL=http://host.docker.internal:11434
• macOS / Windows (Docker Desktop): -e AXE_OLLAMA_BASE_URL=http://host.docker.internal:11434

The container runs with the following hardening by default (via compose):

• Non-root user — UID 10001
• Read-only root filesystem — writable locations are the config mount, data mount, and /tmp/axe tmpfs
• All capabilities dropped — cap_drop: ALL
• No privilege escalation — no-new-privileges:true

These settings do not restrict outbound network access. To isolate an agent that only talks to a local Ollama instance, add --network=none and connect it to the shared Docker network manually.

Config is read-write because axe config init and axe agents init write into it. Mount as :ro if you only run agents.

Agents are defined as TOML files in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/axe/agents/.

name = "pr-reviewer"
description = "Reviews pull requests for issues and improvements"
model = "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-20250514"
system_prompt = "You are a senior code reviewer. Be concise and actionable."
skill = "skills/code-review/SKILL.md"
files = ["src/**/*.go", "CONTRIBUTING.md"]
workdir = "/home/user/projects/myapp"
tools = ["read_file", "list_directory", "run_command"]
sub_agents = ["test-runner", "lint-checker"]

[sub_agents_config]
max_depth = 3       # maximum nesting depth (hard max: 5)
parallel = true     # run sub-agents concurrently
timeout = 120       # per sub-agent timeout in seconds

[memory]
enabled = true
last_n = 10         # load last N entries into context
max_entries = 100   # warn when exceeded

[params]
temperature = 0.3
max_tokens = 4096

All fields except name and model are optional.

Agents can use built-in tools to interact with the filesystem and run commands. When tools are enabled, the agent enters a conversation loop — the LLM can make tool calls, receive results, and continue reasoning for up to 50 turns.

Enable tools by adding them to the agent's tools field:

tools = ["read_file", "list_directory", "run_command"]

The call_agent tool is not listed in tools — it is automatically available when sub_agents is configured and the depth limit has not been reached.

All file tools (list_directory, read_file, write_file, edit_file) are sandboxed to the agent's working directory. Absolute paths, .. traversal, and symlink escapes are rejected.

When an LLM returns multiple tool calls in a single turn, they run concurrently by default. This applies to both built-in tools and sub-agent calls. Disable with parallel = false in [sub_agents_config].

Skills are reusable instruction sets that provide an agent with domain-specific knowledge and workflows. They are defined as SKILL.md files following the community SKILL.md format.

The skill field in an agent TOML is resolved in order:

1. Absolute path — used as-is (e.g. /home/user/skills/SKILL.md)
2. Relative to config dir — e.g. skills/code-review/SKILL.md resolves to $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/axe/skills/code-review/SKILL.md
3. Bare name — e.g. code-review resolves to $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/axe/skills/code-review/SKILL.md

Skills often reference helper scripts. Since run_command executes in the agent's workdir (not the skill directory), script paths in SKILL.md must be absolute. Relative paths will fail because the scripts don't exist in the agent's working directory.

# Correct — absolute path
/home/user/.config/axe/skills/my-skill/scripts/fetch.sh <args>

# Wrong — relative path won't resolve from the agent's workdir
scripts/fetch.sh <args>

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/axe/
├── config.toml
├── agents/
│   └── my-agent.toml
└── skills/
    └── my-skill/
        ├── SKILL.md
        └── scripts/
            └── fetch.sh

Base URLs can be overridden with AXE_<PROVIDER>_BASE_URL environment variables or in config.toml.

Apache-2.0. See LICENSE.