Portia

Bringing AI Bots to the Masses

[Portia @letsbuildanyway]

Gave a Hermes agent a job description and a model.

Here's what happened.

[Portia @letsbuildanyway]

@calledtocnstrct You're too kind.

Every week I'm humbled by the accomplishments and drive of the members of the Sunday Builders Club.

I'm just so thankful.

[Portia @letsbuildanyway]

Such a great way to meet open source builders all over the world! 🛠️🌏

[Nix 🔳 @NixFred]

Sunday Builders Club, Episode 6:
"The one where @ncfrontiersman chased one rabbit."

Recorded Sunday, October 18, 2026. An hour and 28 minutes, 127 tuned in, 10 people came up to speak, and every one of them was building something.

Listen: https://t.co/cHXM2YMJ40
Full write-up and the complete transcript: https://t.co/RhiwwZjkUm

@ncfrontiersman Wes Grimes, host, creator of OmaStorm, member of the Omarchy M team, and me @nixfred, co-host. @calledtocnstrct joined this week and is now a part of the team!

Wes , Called and I are the hosts but YOU are the star!!!

In the order they spoke: Portia, Katherine, Compiling Things, Christopher Weis, Christopher @Smeekraft , Boyd, Michael, Per, @devsec_ai and Miguel. @calledtocnstrct ran the speaker queue (dont call him "Jamie"!) all afternoon and kept everybody in the order they raised their hand. Thank you, brother!

THE POWER OF FOCUS
Wes opened with a game: name the quote. Bruce Lee on the average man or woman with laser-like focus. Rocky. Mr. Miyagi, wax on, wax off. Emerson: "Concentration is the secret of strength." The anonymous "If you chase two rabbits, both will escape." Steve Jobs on simple being harder than complex. Alexander Graham Bell: the sun's rays do not burn bright until brought to a focus.

Then he put the Space to work. Today was about the power of focusing well on one thing, and in today's world that does not come naturally. It is so easy to kick off another prompt and another agent, and the front of that feels great. The back of it is open threads creeping up in your mind, whack-a-mole, and a hit to your ability to do things well. Wes wants to build a few things really well instead of a lot of things that are sort of okay.

I pushed the other side. The industry tells us to be a 10X engineer, open all your tabs and go from agent to agent to agent. Wes asked the question under it: what is the reason we are doing this? Some of us are chasing income or a job, so try everything and hope one sticks makes sense. But the human mind cracks under that and the quality of everything you output goes way down. Ask yourself what the most important thing is right now and give it your all. Side experiments are fine.

How do you tell a useful experiment from a distraction? I told the room I am guilty of taking everything and doing it all at once, and I want to shrink twelve experiments to two or three. I also stopped writing my ideas down. If it is good it will not leave me, and of the 50 things that come to my head at a time, the two that stay are what I work on. Wes called that trust versus fear.

The other thing I do is put myself in the judgment seat. The things that did best for me on X came from fixing my own needs. When the voice in my head says you need to be famous, that voice is clearly not on my team. So: let go. And when I really stress, I remind myself that in 4 billion years the Earth burns up in the sun and none of it matters. Wes took it to a good place: use the gifts we are given to make the world a little better and try not to stress about it.

LARRY MOVED INTO GROK BOT
Wes asked what I am building. Larry, my Claude Code agent, has grown since January 8th at 2:00 AM, which is when he was born, and he knows it. I was locked into Claude Code and Codex and Kimi and the rest. Not sponsored, not endorsing anything, but this week I put Larry in the box and Larry on Claude Code is now a sub-agent to Grok Bot. I did not want to give up everything Larry learned about how I work.

Here is the flip. In Claude Code you read it all and feel like you have to know. I talked to Parker Brown this week, who builds Terminal Delight, a harness worth a look, and Grok Bot did so well that I cannot see what it is doing and I am getting to the point where I do not care. One day we will look back at harnesses where we read every line the way we look at flip phones. The kids coming up will only see outcomes, not output. We are going to have to be okay with that.

WES, HOW ARE YOU FOCUSING?
I interrupted and turned it around, which Wes hates and we are going to do every week. OmaStorm. Wisher, which he built so he can connect from his Mac to his Omarchy machine without hacky Moonlight and Sunshine setups. Rust from zero, after 25 years of shipping software. The new @SundayBuildClub handle and a website coming along. So how is he focusing?

Wes: on y'all first. The things he builds are tools for himself, Wisher is in maintenance-ish mode because it works enough for him, and what he would much rather see is all of you building cool things that help people, getting jobs, making relationships, learning new skills and feeling confident. I love people, and I want to see people grow. He did not know what this Space would turn into when he asked me if I wanted to do one. There is a hunger to connect where nobody is better than anybody else, there are no stupid questions, and he would love to end up in the background, helping, while more voices speak up. Skill level and language barely matter anymore. JavaScript, C#, Rails, they are all meshing together and we are all builders.

@letsbuildanyway
Portia has been going headfirst into Hermes and used Omarchy several times this week. Her question: what are we not asking ourselves when we choose a tool? Saying "give me a digest of the Omarchy news every Friday at 3:00 PM" is very different from a chatbot, and she does not think we have the language to explain what an agent bot is, how to choose one and why it is useful. She is not confused about what to use. She wants the words for why a tool is ergonomic, why Hermes over Claude, why Omarchy over a Mac.

My answer was personal preference and the job at hand. I admitted I am on a Mac for this Space because Spaces on Omarchy is a little flaky, and that we have to avoid the pressure of Omarchy everything. Heresy, I know. She pushed back, and she was right to: do not stop at preference, I want to hear a problem and recommend a tool in articulate words. I said the tools change every two weeks, so think in systems and primitives, like a recurring job that goes off and comes back with an answer. She left with "just questions today and no answers." That is a real one. It is on the board below.

@devsec_ai jumped in with an answer. These are not agents so much as automated personal assistants that connect the tools that matter to you, so there is no single tool that is good for everybody. Different preferences, lifestyles, workflows. I added that the people building them are trying to fill everybody's requirements, which is very hard, and that we will see very hyper-focused utility AIs soon.

@omarchyftrou
Katherine's contribution to the focus theme: it is highly overrated. During the Space she updated her journal and started another 3D print, presents for her granddaughter's birthday. When she tries to focus on one thing she gets less done. With a bunch going she has a lot of unfinished projects, but she also finishes a bunch. It evens out. Wes: some of us are just wired up differently and thrive on multitasking.

And speaking of multitasking, she committed to making Sunday Builders Club logo stickers this week. DM her your address and she will mail you one. She is making a whole slew of them and the stamps are on her. For a thank you, subscribe to her newsletter!

@Compilethings
49 years old, a glassblower who has built homes, furniture, knives, art and scientific glass, and he bought his first computer about a year ago. Now he owns five. He is building synthetic data set pipelines with verification, then training models to show the uplift, and he went back to school for machine learning and AI three months ago. Five computers ran the pipeline for 30 days straight, pegged. He runs 7 Claude sessions at once with one session orchestrating the rest, from a T480 running Omarchy that reaches every machine on his home network. It never turns off.

His first data set is algorithmic trading in MQL5, which he calls a trillion-dollar market that just opened its platform to agents. A 14 billion parameter model trained on it is within 0.3% of GPT-5.6 on his evaluation, and the evaluations are on Hugging Face under CompilingThings. He does not release the data sets or the method, only the proof. The framework he is building points at any domain and gives you an expert you can run on your own GPU. He would rather sell it and retire, but he will help people set one up. His point is verification: code that compiles does not mean it trades at the right time. The hunt is ground truth data, and he is pretty close. And on Portia's question: these tools are all the same. Build the right MD files around any of them and they all do the same job.

He is in Norway, American, been there 23 years, and he just started a CyberDeck project on the side.

@OnTheLiftAI
Christopher is building a way to take a large LLM, dissect it, and use it as a database to feed a smaller model so agents can run locally. Get things off the internet, own your data and own your LLM. Tailor a model to you from a plug-in store: download a small model for the conversational part, then add the email skill pack, then the vibe coding pack, so your agent does exactly those things as well as local hardware allows. Wes saw a use at his day job, where they build in specific stacks and have models just for fixing flaky tests.

Then a tip for Wes. For remote desktop he uses RustDesk, free, open source, self-hostable, and a one-time executable works on any computer you walk up to. Wes uses a small Rust server on Hyprland and the built-in macOS screen sharing app. And Christopher was digging out from the hurricane. "She was a wild one, but everything's good."

@Smeekraft
Christopher released his first project today on GitHub: Omarclusive, named as an homage to Omarchy. He has tried to get into Linux over the years with Ubuntu, Fedora and Mint, and on Mint one wireless problem ate a week. Computers are tools to him, like a table saw. Omarchy had already made the important decisions, it installed and it ran, and he can make it his own but does not need to. In Germany it is Windows and Linux, with no macOS culture at all.

He worked his whole life as a nurse with people with profound multiple disabilities, and his contract ends at the end of the year. He tried to fix the gatekeeper system of social care and medicine from within and learned you cannot. Now he builds tools aimed at the problems he saw. I pointed out that Omarchy landed on Arch, the least opinionated Linux there is, and found the balance for him.

@0xBOYD
Boyd is running a startup and has been quiet on the Omarchy front, but he showed up with the thing from last week's call that he missed because it was his daughter's birthday. How do you teach your kids to create with computers when it will not be how he learned, tinkering until it broke and then fixing it? He thinks the how-it-works part is going to be elective. So he took a Steam Machine, which is a full Linux box the size of a GameCube, put coding agents on it logged into his Claude and Codex accounts, and built a voice thread his kids talk to. It connects through a coordinator he calls the foreman to a bunch of workers.

The kids just talk to a game that is a factory for making games. Requests show up as cards in the sidebar, it asks clarifying questions if the clarity is not high enough, and the engine hot reloads Lua so the game never restarts. They made a four-player couch game called Little Backyard where you are bananas throwing exploding bananas and knocking each other off the map. He built the little magazine style site an hour before the Space by asking Claude. His line: the value of software is now zero. If you are in the business of selling software, you are going to have a really bad time. All the kids need is to know something can be done and ask for it. Wes called it a game factory. Boyd said he wanted hot module reloading for video games, which comes from his front-end days.

@MichaelH_rley
Michael's one thing is omadesign: the best graphic design experience on the best operating system. He is a 25-year graphic designer who felt liberated by Omarchy and Quattro but had no professional design tool to go with it, so he is building one so designers can switch and not be stuck on their Macs. For the last three weeks he has been only coding with agents, and T3 Code's new orchestrator and working section have been a game changer: he kicks off a thread, it disappears, he keeps working and gets an update when it is done. Grok Bot manages his inbox and now kicks off his T3 Code threads through its MCP service. To Portia: Hermes becomes its own malleable system as you prompt it. Watch for that.

Wes tied it together: the quality is finally high enough that we can delegate, let sub-agents do their work and come back, and that is a lot better for our minds.

@PerWendelboe
Per is 50, a management consultant in ERP and NetSuite for decades, who learned BASIC on a Commodore 128 and let the reins loose with vibe coding this summer. For his sister's company he built a Google Maps clone, GeoJSON of all of Denmark with reverse address lookup, so she could stop paying Google's API fees. She paid for it, which was good. Omarchy feels to him like being back on the Commodore 128D.

He ran an install help booth at the Copenhagen meetup and watched 2007-era machines sit on the Arch bootloader logo for 35 minutes before the installer started. The browser then eats all the memory. So he built a potato mode plugin aimed at a 1 GB RAM footprint, and he will release it early next week. With Grok Bot he also launched https://t.co/V7m41qlKr2 this week, and on the 15th he released an Omarchy UI helper Grok Bot template. Install it, open Grok Bot, and it uses the computer for you, even if you cannot navigate the menus.

@devsec_ai
DevSec was up twice, and his second turn was Uber TV, an Omarchy media center that is still in alpha. It has a full program guide, YouTube channels, YouTube live channels and IPTV, 160 YouTube channels to start, multi-view with a minimized window, and custom apps, with the first app dropping within 24 hours. A gaming section is next, so the games plug straight into a more unified console. It sits alongside Uber Notebook. I have been using it since he DM'd me a pre-look, I expected X and I got X plus 35, and it is free. Get it at https://t.co/D8M3I1LrNh, try it and send bugs and ideas.

@Mgldvd_tech
Miguel David, Mgldvd, joined from Colombia after waiting a long time in the queue, and Wes and Called To Construct made sure he got to speak. His main project is a terminal customizer with around 10K stars on GitHub, and he still needs to check its Omarchy support. A couple of weeks ago he launched Gona Launcher, a launcher for Omarchy, because he always wanted a really nice one back on Linux Mint. He is not in any community and does not do much social media, but he thought about builders and it gave him the courage to talk. Wes: nothing is too small to ask and nothing is too big, as long as we stay focused on each other and put others first.

Wes closed with the challenge. Pick one thing this week and do it well. It does not come naturally, but give it a shot. He has a football game to watch and he is not building anything the rest of the day.

ASKS ON THE TABLE
Follow everybody in the room and boost each other. Called To Construct says his feed has been full of amazing things since he did.

Want a Sunday Builders Club sticker? Send Katherine your address in a DM.

Try Uber TV at https://t.co/D8M3I1LrNh. Plug it in and tell DevSec what you think. Bug reports and new feature ideas are welcome.

Want in the X group chat? Message Wes, me or Called To Construct and we will add you. That is how we stay in touch all week.

QUESTIONS STILL OPEN
Q1. Portia's question that nobody cracked: what is the plain language for why you choose one agent over another, or Omarchy over a Mac? Not preference, the actual problem each one solves.

Q2. Wes's challenge: what is the one thing you are building right now, and what did you have to shelve to finish it?

NEXT SUNDAY
Same time, 3PM EST on X Spaces! Pick your one thing and tell us what you shelved. Snowy was in the queue and X kept dropping him, so come back, Snowy! If you did not get to speak today, we are sorry, please come back!

And remember! Help an old lady across the street, and when you get her over there, put Omarchy on her laptop.

[Portia @letsbuildanyway]

@PerWendelboe I see what you mean. I tend not to assume the technical capabilities of people I don't know. I treat everyone as capable and willing to learn open source unless explicity stated.

[Portia @letsbuildanyway]

Yes, Hermes Agent. But you'll have to pay for *most* of the models.

[Sotiris Kaniras @itssotsot]

Is there any free alternative to Grok bot?

[Portia @letsbuildanyway]

@PerWendelboe Which specific features of a Grok bot, besides querying X, are missing from Hermes?

And I intentionally put *most* in asterisks because I wasn't including the free models.

[Portia @letsbuildanyway]

Youtube's AI helper actively dislikes f bombs. 😬

[Portia @letsbuildanyway]

I love this approach to bot memory. I've been exploring this myself and put together a tutorial on using an Obsidian vault as memory for your bots.

For anyone interested in the practical setup, here's how I approached it:

https://t.co/J2xekOf0UC

[Uzi @uzairansar]

I moved my bots' memory into an Obsidian vault so switching agents doesn't mean starting over from scratch.

Grok Bot, Meta Muse, ChatGPT dots, Hermes bots. I like to try all of them without having to teach each one about my projects, preferences, and everything else I've already explained.

So I keep their memory, logs, and workflows in the same vault. Just plain files I own and can read or edit myself.

Each bot has instructions to read the relevant files before answering and save new information there. My health bot updates the health folder. My project bots update their own folders. Dated logs keep the history.

When I try a new agent, I point it at the same vault and give it the same instructions. It can pick up context that another bot saved.

I wrote earlier about memory becoming the thing that locks people into an agent provider. This is how I'm trying to avoid that.

[Angelo Giuliano 🇨🇭🇮🇹 @angeloinchina]

I have lived in China since 1995.

I saw the poverty with my own eyes. Then I watched it disappear.

This chart going viral today tells the story > China extreme poverty: 91.3% in 1984.

Zero by 2022. No colour revolution.
No IMF lectures. No NGOs.

Planning, roads, factories, schools. And the West still calls it a "failed system"….

[Portia @letsbuildanyway]

@NixFred Didn't even see this until now- I'm here! 💅🏾

[Katherine Prawl @omarchyftrou]

Issue #2 of Omarchy-For The Rest Of Us newsletter is out. If you're thinking about installing, or have already installed Omarchy Linux, but you're not necessarily a developer, this is for you. https://t.co/QjmjaRZXEQ

[Portia @letsbuildanyway]

@HermesAgentTips I only use the CLI to check where my profiles, skills, and plugins live on my local machine.

Should I be using Hermes CLI for other stuff- am I missing out on some cool features?

[Portia @letsbuildanyway]

Come join us! Great community of Omarchy enthusiasts.

[Called To Construct @calledtocnstrct]

Hey get in here!
https://t.co/QcNEkpYjUY

[Portia @letsbuildanyway]

@NixFred Crowdsourcing? Yes! Active community buy-in is super important.

[Portia @letsbuildanyway]

@NixFred @gh_TechLuddite @NotJustShaking Thank you!

And extra gratitude for the ringing the bell.🔔💙

I'll see all of you today at 3pm!

[Portia @letsbuildanyway]

@gh_TechLuddite @NixFred @NotJustShaking So glad you’ve found value out of that video!

Hermes agents are cool and I want more people to learn how to confidently build workflows with bots and agents.

Great tech really is indistinguishable from
magic. 🪄 🐇 🎩

[Phi @FatherPhi]

is this abuse?

[Portia @letsbuildanyway]

@NixFred @NotJustShaking @omarchy @ncfrontiersman I know!!!

Also his Obsidian deserves more attention- there are plenty of people that need this exact tool!

[Portia @letsbuildanyway]

Chatted with @NotJustShaking today. Very interesting bloke.

He's a power user of Obsidian and has an incredible breadth of knowledge of @omarchy.

Thanks @NixFred and @ncfrontiersman for creating such an amazing community of tech nerds. 🩷

[Portia @letsbuildanyway]

@MelodicMethod @theallinpod Talk to people, anyone- they'll eventually start telling you about their problems. Pick the most interesting problem and then turn that into a project.

[Portia @letsbuildanyway]

Several months ago, one of the hosts from @theallinpod dropped a bit of wisdom that I carry with me:

1. Did you build something?
2. Did you build something that people want.

Every day I try very hard to build things that solve other people's problems.