A config-driven engine for nightly, cloud-scheduled, evidence-gated repository evolution.
Freeze the model. Evolve the harness. Evaluation is not promotion — the machine never merges; a human does.
npx dream-machine init --repo owner/name --out dream.config.json
npx dream-machine compile dream.config.json --out PROMPT.mdThe Dream Machine turns "run one research-and-evolution cycle against a repository every night" into a config-compiled engine instead of a hand-maintained megaprompt. It wakes up in an isolated cloud session, forms one falsifiable hypothesis, measures it against the repo's real evaluators, and writes down what it learned — whether or not the answer was the one it hoped for.
It is the generalization of two routines already running nightly against
ruvnet/ruflo and
ruvnet/metaharness. Both are ~800-line
prompts running the same 26-step pipeline; they differ only in a small,
well-defined per-repo delta. The Dream Machine factors the shared spine into an
engine and the differences into a dream.config.
ledger → research → frozen hypothesis → concrete candidate → baseline
→ evaluation → adversarial critique → bounded Darwin evolution
→ flywheel evidence → witness → issue → draft PR → durable ledger row
Every night ends in exactly one verdict — ACCEPT, REJECT, or
INCONCLUSIVE — never a fourth, never silence. A rejected hypothesis with a
clean measurement is a successful night. The system optimizes for shrinking
tomorrow's search space, not for producing PRs.
npm i -g dream-machine # or use npx
dream-machine init --repo owner/name --out dream.config.json # scaffold a config
dream-machine compile dream.config.json --out PROMPT.md # config → routine prompt
dream-machine schedule dream.config.json --out routine.json # cloud /schedule body
dream-machine ledger verify --path docs/dream-cycle/LEDGER.md # structural checks
dream-machine ledger signals --path docs/dream-cycle/LEDGER.md # STEP 1.1 learning signals
dream-machine witness stamp report.md <commit> # provenance stamp
dream-machine witness verify report.md <commit> <witness> # 5-step verify
dream-machine tui --path docs/dream-cycle/LEDGER.md # the dashboard, below
A browser dashboard renders the ledger as recent nights, verdict distribution, and per-night evidence — the same data the TUI shows.
The Dream Machine is built to run itself on a schedule. In Claude Code, the
built-in /schedule command creates a cloud routine that runs the pipeline
against your repo every night — autonomous research, evaluation, and
improvement that compounds while you sleep.
1 — generate the routine body from your config:
npx dream-machine schedule dream.config.json --env <your-cloud-env-id> --out routine.json2 — create the routine. In Claude Code, type /schedule, choose a nightly
cron (e.g. 0 9 * * * UTC) and your target repo, and paste the routine body
from routine.json — or, better, paste the tiny self-hosting prompt below.
The prompt to paste into /schedule (recommended). Rather than freeze a full
prompt, point the routine at a bootstrap that compiles tonight's instructions
from your committed dream.config.json, so the schedule can never drift from the
repo. This is the exact prompt that runs against this repository every night —
just change the repo slug:
You are the Dream Machine nightly runner for ruvnet/dream-machine, checked out fresh on main.
STEP A — build the engine (a fresh checkout has no dist/):
npm ci && npm run build || true # a wasm/NAPI failure is a recorded degradation, not a stop
STEP B — compile tonight's instructions from the committed config:
npx dream-machine compile dream.config.json --out /tmp/tonight.md
cat /tmp/tonight.md
STEP C — follow /tmp/tonight.md EXACTLY: the full 26-step pipeline
(ledger → research → frozen hypothesis → candidate → baseline → evaluation →
adversarial critique → bounded Darwin → evidence → witness → issue → DRAFT PR → ledger row).
Invariants: end in exactly one of ACCEPT | REJECT | INCONCLUSIVE (INCONCLUSIVE
with LLM_EVAL=blocked when there's no API key is a legitimate, successful night).
Evaluation is not promotion — NEVER merge, NEVER self-promote. Publish a public
gist + a labeled issue + a DRAFT PR, and append exactly one row to
docs/dream-cycle/LEDGER.md every run. Never weaken a test; never force-push.
Prefer to keep the whole prompt inline instead of the bootstrap?
npx dream-machine compile dream.config.jsonprints the full 26-step routine — paste that into/scheduledirectly.
What each night does — research SOTA for tonight's rotation surface → freeze a
falsifiable hypothesis → build a concrete candidate → evaluate parent vs.
candidate on your real benchmarks → adversarial critique + reward-hack check →
bounded Darwin evolution → witnessed evidence → gist + issue + draft PR → one
ledger row. Win, lose, or draw, it records what it learned so tomorrow's search
space is smaller. This repository runs exactly this loop on itself (cron
0 9 * * *) — browse its
dream-cycle issues,
gists, and draft PRs to see it in action.
No
dream.config?npx dream-machine init --repo owner/namescaffolds one. A night with no API key still runs — it reportsLLM_EVAL=blocked, an honestINCONCLUSIVE, rather than faking a result.
Prefer to stay entirely inside GitHub? .github/workflows/dream-nightly.yml
runs the research + hypothesis half of the pipeline from a plain CI runner
using an OpenRouter model, files a witnessed
dream-cycle research issue, and opens a draft PR that appends one ledger row.
# add repo secret OPENROUTER_API_KEY (+ optional var OPENROUTER_MODEL),
# then uncomment the schedule in dream-nightly.yml:
schedule:
- cron: '0 9 * * *'Honest scope: candidate evaluation, bounded Darwin, and the promotion gate need
the agentic /schedule session, so this CI path is research-only — every
night is an INCONCLUSIVE research night, and with no key it degrades to
LLM_EVAL=blocked rather than fabricating a finding. It's disabled by default
and also runs on demand via Run workflow (with a dry-run option).
The heavy stages delegate to the ruvnet stack as optional, config-selected backends — a night without any of them is a degraded night, not a failed one.
| Capability | Package | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Promotion gate + receipts + replay | @metaharness/flywheel |
evidence retention + promotion gate |
| Bounded evolution | @metaharness/darwin |
the fenced Darwin stage |
| Adversarial red/blue | @metaharness/redblue |
adversarial critic + reward-hack scan |
| Security scan / genome / audit | metaharness CLI |
security review + discovery |
| Planned vector memory over prior nights | @ruvector/wasm · @ruvector/rvf-wasm |
availability probe only; current retrieval is flat keyword scoring, not RVF or HNSW |
| Package | What it does |
|---|---|
dream-machine |
the CLI (init/compile/schedule/ledger/witness/tui) + TUI |
@dream-machine/compile |
dream.config → the full routine prompt (deterministic) |
@dream-machine/ledger |
the 10-column LEDGER.md toolkit + learning signals |
@dream-machine/witness |
sha256(sha256(report) + commit) stamp / verify |
@dream-machine/schedule |
the cloud /schedule routine body emitter |
@dream-machine/memory |
deterministic flat-file memory; optional RuVector probe, real RVF adapter pending |
The Dream Machine runs autonomously, so its guarantees are enforced in code and CI, not just documented (see SECURITY.md and ADR-0001):
- Evaluation is not promotion. The session never merges and never self-promotes; it opens draft PRs only.
- Human merge authority. Auto-merge is disabled in configuration. The protected-path workflow is read-only and validates eligibility without merging, enabling deferred merges, or changing labels. A human reviews and merges the exact revision separately.
- Optional deps stay optional (ADR-150) — a CI job proves the engine builds and tests with the ruvector wasm backends absent.
- Witnessed provenance — every report is bound to its commit by a reproducible double-sha256 anyone can re-derive.
The Home Core implementation mission extends the evidence-gated engine toward an offline UNO Q sensing appliance, RuView Home Core, real RuVector memory, a local MCP facade, and an optional Apple HealthKit bridge. The proposal keeps Dream Machine as the build and evidence control plane: models and self-evolving candidates never receive direct actuator, promotion, signing, or merge authority. Start with ADR-0100. No bedside runtime or hardware-safety claim is implemented. The executable software mission now supplies strict signed ticket parsing, deterministic nonactuating simulation, durable bounded keyword memory, and reproducible test/evidence commands. See ADR-0106 for the exact implemented boundary. Real RuVector, MCP service, Apple and firmware integrations remain unimplemented.
Use Node 24 (.nvmrc) or Node 22.13 and newer on the 22 LTS line. CI exercises
both supported lines. The published CLI's older syntax target does not imply
that end of life Node versions are secure development environments.
npm ci
npm run checkThe check independently typechecks source and tests without relying on stale build output, then builds, lints, runs unit and governance regressions, and validates the four Edge v1 schemas, MCP registry, and mission dependency plan. It also rejects exposed test API, UI and browser configuration.
node scripts/mission.mjs doctor
npm run mission:simulate -- --full --seed 43
node scripts/mission.mjs run --full --offline --seed 43The final command intentionally exits 2 (INCONCLUSIVE) while hardware and
other full-mission gates remain unproven. Its JSON separates accepted software
checks from release readiness. No command in this harness authorizes a real cue.
The design answers a known failure mode of open-loop autonomous research agents (Sakana AI's "The AI Scientist" reward-hacking incident; AutoGPT/BabyAGI-era loops with ~5% follow-through). The promotion gate, adversarial critic, reward-hack check, and human-only merge boundary exist precisely because of them.
MIT © rUv