FAQ

What is Vivary, in one sentence?

A standard + scaffolder for agent-native workspaces — a self-improving loop running over a typed, navigable knowledge graph, with one visible state surface and human gates. Think create-t3-app, but for an agent’s workspace instead of a web app.

What are the four layers?

• tropo — the typed knowledge graph (what’s true). The folder is the type.
• strato — the agent OS: the operating loop, visible state, memory, gates, self-improvement.
• ozone — review: graph-aware checks + blast-radius impact (optional).
• exo — coordination when one agent becomes many (optional, thinnest).

The baseline is tropo + strato; ozone and exo snap on as needed.

Do I need Obsidian?

No. Nothing in Vivary depends on Obsidian — it’s plain Markdown + YAML and works in any editor or none. The visual graph renders editor-free with tropo view. Obsidian fans get an opt-in setup (create-vivary init … --obsidian); see OBSIDIAN.md.

Which agent runtimes does it work with?

Any. A workspace ships both .claude/skills/ (Claude Code) and .agents/skills/ + AGENTS.md (Codex), and the contract is runtime-agnostic. No single-vendor lock-in.

Why is tropo check “opinionated”? It keeps failing on warnings.

By design — the CLI is a gate, not a linter. Untyped docs, unknown/typo’d fields, broken refs, and redundant frontmatter all fail by default, so the graph stays trustworthy. Relax with tropo check --lenient (per run) or [base] strict = false (per vault). Run tropo fix to clear the redundant-frontmatter (W210) noise in one shot.

Why folder-as-type instead of a type: field?

One source of truth. A document’s type is where it lives — move a file between folders and it’s retyped, no edit needed. A type: that just repeats the folder is noise, and three ways to set one fact is harder to enforce, not easier. (There’s a decision doc on this in tropo’s example vault.)

What’s the difference between tropo check and ozone review?

tropo check validates each document (required fields, types, that refs resolve). ozone review looks at the relationships across the whole graph — a change with nothing verifying it, an orphaned node, a broken edge — the stuff a per-document check can’t see. Use both before merging.

What is “blast radius”?

Everything that (transitively) depends on a node — what a change to it could touch. tropo blast <id> / ozone impact <id>. It’s the impact reasoning a text diff cannot give, and it’s the moat: review by what it touches, not just what lines changed.

Does tropo do semantic search / embeddings?

No, deliberately. tropo owns the typed graph (explicit links). Semantic (“organize by meaning”) clustering is a separate, future job — a graphify-style layer that consumes tropo’s clean graph. Keeping embeddings out keeps the core zero-dependency and deterministic.

Why are there package names like vivary-tropo but the command is tropo?

PyPI has no scopes and the bare names tropo/ozone/exo were taken, so the distributions are vivary-tropo / vivary-ozone / vivary-exo. The commands you run stay tropo / ozone / exo. On npm the scaffolder is @vivary/create.

How do I install / run it?

pip install vivary-tropo vivary-ozone vivary-exo create-vivary, or run on demand with uvx vivary-tropo …, or scaffold with npm create @vivary. Python 3.11+ only; zero third-party dependencies.

Can I use just tropo (the graph), without the rest?

Yes. tropo is a standalone typed-knowledge CLI for any Markdown tree — pip install vivary-tropo and tropo init. The other layers are optional.

What are the “human gates”?

Durable or outward-facing actions that need explicit, per-item human approval — never batched: memory writes, publishing (PyPI/npm), git push/PR/merge, org/repo creation, installs, enabling hooks, destructive ops, and sending data of unknown sensitivity. The agent is bold inside the work and careful at the edges.

Is it stable? What’s the version?

The four layers are published and proven from a clean install: create-vivary is at 0.1.1 (PyPI and npm @vivary/create, in lockstep); tropo / ozone / exo are at 0.1.0. See the CHANGELOG for details. It’s young — APIs may move before 1.0. File issues for rough edges.

Where do I report bugs or ask for features?

GitHub: github.com/vivary-dev/vivary. See the open issues for what’s planned next.

Is it free / open source?

Yes — MIT licensed.