Shinkai: Local AI Agents

Looking for an effortless AI agent setup? Shinkai is perfect for non-developers seeking simplicity and speed, while ai16z (ElizaOS) suits those who enjoy deep coding control.

"AI will save us time." Spends three hours connecting APIs, debugging permissions, and fixing JSON. We're getting there. 🐙

Today, most software payments assume a human is somewhere in the process. Choosing a plan. Entering a card. Approving a purchase. But what happens when an AI agent needs to pay another service to complete a task? That isn't just a checkout problem. It's an infrastructure problem. The agent economy will need systems designed for machines, not just people.

An agent doesn't need to know everything. It needs access to the right tools. Connect a calendar, and it can work with schedules. Connect documents, and it can work with information. Connect additional capabilities, and you unlock entirely new workflows. The interesting part isn't any single tool. It's what they can accomplish together. See the idea in action 👇

Would you rather have: A) An AI agent that handles one task perfectly. B) An AI agent that handles ten different tasks, but occasionally needs your help. There's no universally right answer. But your choice says a lot about what you expect from AI. A or B? 👀

The agent completed the task. Cool. Now show me: What data did it access? Which tools did it call? What decisions did it make? What changed? An outcome without a trace is a problem waiting to happen. Observability isn't an extra feature for autonomous systems. It's part of making them trustworthy.

Your computer already knows a lot about you. Your documents. Your projects. Your conversations. Your work. AI makes that information more useful. But making it useful shouldn't automatically mean sending it somewhere else. That's why we're building around local-first AI. Your machine. Your data. Your rules. shinkai.com

We've spent years teaching humans how to use software. Now we're teaching software how to work for humans. That's a much bigger shift than a better chatbot.

A benchmark won't tell you what happens when your agent loses access to an API halfway through a task. Or when its context is outdated. Or when a tool returns unexpected data. Real-world reliability is a lot less glamorous than model rankings. And a lot more important.

Kai Explains 🐙 What's the difference between a prompt and an intent? A prompt tells AI what to do. An intent describes what you want to achieve. Same technology. Different way of thinking. 🧵👇

Quick question for anyone building with AI agents: What's one task you've completely stopped doing manually? Not something AI helps you with. Something you genuinely handed over. Curious to see what's actually working out there. 👇

The best automation is the one you forget is running. No daily reminders. No checking every five minutes. No starting the same workflow again. Just a system doing what it was supposed to do. That's the kind of boring we like.

GM ☕️ New week. Same 47 tabs open. At least some of the work can run without you now. Happy Monday, builders. 🐙

An AI agent can be incredibly capable. Until the API gets turned off. Until its tools are restricted. Until someone changes what it's allowed to access. Then you discover the difference between intelligence and independence. A powerful agent is useful. An agent you can actually control is something else entirely.

Would you give an intern unlimited access to your company's bank account on their first day? Probably not. So why would we give an autonomous agent unrestricted access to money, systems, and sensitive information? Capability doesn't automatically justify permission. The smarter our agents become, the more carefully we need to define their boundaries.

You can delete a conversation. But can you delete what a system learned from it? Can you see where the information went? Can you decide who gets access next? Privacy isn't just a setting you turn on. It's a set of decisions about who controls your information. And those decisions should belong to you.

"Here's a list of flights you might like." vs. "I found three options within your budget, compared the baggage policies, and saved the best ones for you." One gives you information. The other moves the task forward. That distinction matters more than what we call the software.

First time using Shinkai? Let's connect your wallet first. It's part of setting up your Shinkai Identity, and we've made a quick walkthrough so you don't have to figure it out alone. A couple of minutes and you're one step closer to getting started. Watch the tutorial 👇 youtube.com/watch?v=qAz95gA_…

CAPTCHA: Prove you're human. AI Agent: I'm not. CAPTCHA: That's the problem. We've spent decades building systems that assume every digital actor is a person. Now we're introducing software that can act independently. Identity, authorization, and payments are about to get a lot more interesting.

Here's a simple test. If you stop typing, does the AI stop working? If the answer is always yes, you're probably still dealing with a conversation. An agent can have a goal, access tools, respond to changes, and continue working within its permissions. Less back-and-forth. More follow-through.

The model worked perfectly. The agent still failed. Wrong permissions. Missing context. Broken integration. Outdated information. Four problems. None of them solved by switching to a smarter model. Maybe we should spend less time arguing about benchmarks and more time making AI systems actually work.