Claudicle

An open-source 'soul' framework for Claude Code.

Clone it. Edit soul.md. Run /ensoul. Your AI has a personality, memory, and inner life.

Claudicle lets you turn Claude Code into a persistent, soulful orchestrator, more reminiscent of a Pokémon than a soulless "agent." Your soul grows over time, with three-tier memory, a cognitive pipeline, and channel adapters for Slack, Discord, Telegram, and SMS. It ships with zero skills, but pairs with this skill repo to level your Claudicle right out-of-the-box.

An open-source alternative to OpenClaw. Descends from the Open Souls paradigm—see docs/open-souls-alignment.md and docs/backstory.md.

Prerequisites: Python 3.10+, uv, and a Claude subscription or ANTHROPIC_API_KEY.

git clone https://github.com/tdimino/claudicle
cd claudicle
./setup.sh --personal    # or --company for team use

Then in any Claude Code session:

/ensoul

That's it. Your session now has a soul.

Soul Identity — /ensoul activates a persistent personality that survives compaction and resume. Set CLAUDICLE_SOUL=1 for always-on mode. See docs/soul-customization.md.

Three-Tier Memory — Working memory (per-thread, 72h TTL), user models (per-user, permanent), soul state (per-soul, permanent). SQLite-backed, git-versioned. Supports checkpoint & rollback via wm-manage.py. See ARCHITECTURE.md.

Cognitive Pipeline — Every response passes through internal monologue, external dialogue, user model check, dossier check, and soul state check. XML-tagged, verb-narrated. See docs/cognitive-pipeline.md.

Sub-Daimones — Twelve highly-opinionated crafters—the Kotharot—with skills and cognitive flows of their own. See docs/sub-daimones.md.

Daimones — Oversee the subdaimones. Drawn from four sources: a past self, a friend's model, a channeled entity, or a soul your Claudicle has shed. See docs/daimones.md.

Runtime Modes — Five modes from /ensoul-only to full autonomous daemon. See docs/runtime-modes-comparison.md.

Channel Adapters — Slack, Discord (discord.py), Telegram (python-telegram-bot), SMS (Telnyx/Twilio), WhatsApp (Baileys). See docs/channel-adapters.md.

Daimonic Intercession — How daimones whisper counsel into the cognitive stream—the protocol layer. See docs/daimonic-intercession.md.

Skill-Agnostic — Ships with zero skills. Discovers capabilities from ~/.claude/skills/ at install time. See docs/skill-pairings.md.

claudicle/
├── subdaimones/  # Sub-daimon definitions (12 with persistent memory)
├── daimones/     # Privy council: example daimon, Kothar reference, creation guide
├── daemon/       # Soul engine, cognitive pipeline, memory, monitoring
├── soul/         # Personality files, profiles/, dossiers/
├── hooks/        # Claude Code lifecycle hooks
├── commands/     # Slash commands (/ensoul, /activate, /slack-respond, etc.)
├── scripts/      # Slack utilities, soul infrastructure, wm-manage.py
├── adapters/     # Channel transports (Discord, Telegram, SMS, WhatsApp)
├── docs/         # Architecture and reference docs
├── setup.sh      # Interactive installer
└── LICENSE       # MIT

See docs/commands-reference.md for details.

Full index: docs/INDEX.md

Installation | Soul Customization | Slack Setup | Sub-Daimones | Extending Claudicle | Environment Variables | Hooks | Troubleshooting

"Certainty compounds the mind with limits."

MIT. Copyright (c) 2026 Tom di Mino.