Persistent AI agents in your IDE

Animus is a VSCode extension that connects to an Animus daemon, bringing persistent, multi-provider AI agents directly into your development workflow.

What is Animus? Animus is an open-source agent framework that provides persistent AI agents with memory, tool execution, and multi-provider LLM support. The agent isn't the model — swap GPT → GLM → Ollama and agent continuity, knowledge, and memories persist. Learn more at animus.steadyfort.com or browse the source at github.com/railstracks/animus.

The extension is a thin client — all intelligence, memory, and tool execution lives in the Animus daemon. The extension handles connection, session browsing, chat, and streaming.

Features

🤖 Multi-Agent Sessions

Browse active sessions across all your agents. Create new sessions with full control over provider, model, and reasoning settings.

💬 Streaming Chat

Full conversation interface with token-by-token streaming. Thinking blocks, tool calls, and file attachments render inline.

⚙️ Per-Message Overrides

Change provider, model, or reasoning level mid-conversation via a collapsible settings panel. No need to start a new session to switch models.

🔌 Connect Anywhere

Works with local daemons (localhost) or remote servers. Your agent's memory and tools persist regardless of where you connect from.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

An Animus daemon (v0.1+) running locally or remotely — installation guide
Admin auth token for the daemon

Installation

From Marketplace: Search for "Animus" in the VSCode Extensions panel, or install from the marketplace page.

From VSIX:

code --install-extension animus-0.0.1.vsix

From source:

git clone https://github.com/railstracks/animus-vscode
cd animus-vscode
npm install
npm run compile
# Press F5 in VSCode to launch an Extension Development Host

Configuration

Setting	Default	Description
`animus.daemonUrl`	`http://localhost:8080`	Animus daemon URL
`animus.authToken`	`""`	Admin auth token
`animus.agentId`	`""`	Default agent for new sessions
`animus.node`	`""`	Node name for workspace tool routing

Open the Animus sidebar (activity bar icon)
Click Connect or run Animus: Connect from the command palette
Enter your daemon URL and auth token
Browse sessions or start a new conversation

Architecture

VSCode Extension → WebSocket → Animus Daemon → LLM Provider
                                  ↓
                              Tools (shell, file, project, ...)
                              Memory & Session Persistence

The extension communicates with the daemon via HTTP REST and WebSocket. The daemon handles LLM inference, tool execution, session management, and memory persistence.