Hazumi News | Show HN: Zuckerman – minimalist personal AI agent that self-edits its own code

Hi HN,

I'm building Zuckerman: a personal AI agent that starts ultra-minimal and can improve itself in real time by editing its own files (code + configuration). Agents can also share useful discoveries and improvements with each other.

Repo: https://github.com/zuckermanai/zuckerman

The motivation is to build something dead-simple and approachable, in contrast to projects like OpenClaw, which is extremely powerful but has grown complex: heavier setup, a large codebase, skill ecosystems, and ongoing security discussions.

Zuckerman flips that:

1. Starts with almost nothing (core essentials only).

2. Behavior/tools/prompts live in plain text files.

3. The agent can rewrite its own configuration and code.

4. Changes hot-reload instantly (save -> reload).

5. Agents can share improvements with others.

6. Multi-channel support (Discord/Slack/Telegram/web/voice, etc).

Security note: self-edit access is obviously high-risk by design, but basic controls are built in (policy sandboxing, auth, secret management).

Tech stack: TypeScript, Electron desktop app + WebSocket gateway, pnpm + Vite/Turbo.

Quickstart is literally:

  pnpm install && pnpm run dev

It's very early/WIP, but the self-editing loop already works in basic scenarios and is surprisingly addictive to play with.

Would love feedback from folks who have built agent systems or thought about safe self-modification.

Story

Show HN: Zuckerman – minimalist personal AI agent that self-edits its own code