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# Kestrel — What It Can Do For You

> A friendly, scannable overview of everything Kestrel offers — no technical jargon required.

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## Table of Contents

- [Your Agent's Identity](#your-agents-identity)
- [Talking to Your Agent](#talking-to-your-agent)
- [Works With Your Favourite AI Models](#works-with-your-favourite-ai-models)
- [Privacy — You're in Control](#privacy--youre-in-control)
- [Memory and Conversations](#memory-and-conversations)
- [What Your Agent Can Do](#what-your-agent-can-do)
- [Your Agent's Voice](#your-agents-voice)
- [Security and Permissions](#security-and-permissions)
- [Saving and Organizing Information](#saving-and-organizing-information)
- [Wallet and Keys](#wallet-and-keys)
- [Connecting to Other Agents and Services](#connecting-to-other-agents-and-services)
- [Extending Your Agent with Features](#extending-your-agent-with-features)

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## Your Agent's Identity

Your Kestrel agent isn't just a chatbot — it has its own persistent, secure identity that follows it across sessions and time.

- **Your agent has its own secure identity.** Each agent is born with a unique cryptographic identity, so it can prove who it is and can't be impersonated.
- **Continuity you can trust.** Your agent's identity is verified continuously, so you always know you're talking to the same agent — even after restarts or updates.
- **A constitution that governs behaviour.** Every agent runs under a set of core principles called its constitution. This shapes how it responds and what it will or won't do — giving you a principled, consistent companion.
- **Full lifecycle support.** Your agent can be started fresh, graduated to a more capable state, or gracefully retired — all while maintaining a trustworthy record of who it has been.

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## Talking to Your Agent

Communicating with Kestrel is flexible and fast.

- **Ask questions and give instructions naturally.** Your agent understands plain language — just type what you need.
- **Responses can stream in real time.** Instead of waiting for a full response, you see answers as they're generated, just like a live conversation.
- **Stop a response mid-way.** Changed your mind? You can halt a response in progress at any time.
- **Your agent knows its own status.** You can check in on what your agent is working on, what tasks it has queued, and how its context is being used — all without needing to understand what's happening under the hood.
- **Live notifications.** Get real-time updates from your agent as things happen, including a live event stream you can keep open in the background.

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## Works With Your Favourite AI Models

Kestrel isn't locked to a single AI provider. You choose the model, and Kestrel handles the rest.

- **Broad model support.** Kestrel works with ChatGPT (OpenAI), Claude (Anthropic, including Claude Max), Gemini (Google, including Vertex AI), Ollama for local models, OpenRouter, and more.
- **Switch models any time.** You can see which model is active and change it whenever you like.
- **Local models for maximum privacy.** If you want your conversations to stay entirely on your own device, choose a local model like Ollama — nothing leaves your machine.
- **Automatic retries.** If a model hiccups, Kestrel quietly retries so your conversation isn't interrupted.
- **Usage tracking.** Kestrel keeps an eye on how much you're using each provider, so you can stay informed about your consumption.

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## Privacy — You're in Control

Privacy in Kestrel isn't an afterthought — it's built in from the ground up. You choose exactly how private each conversation is by picking a preset that matches what you need.

### Privacy Presets

| Preset | What gets stored | Where AI runs | Can be shared | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| `ephemeral` | Nothing at all | On your device only | No | Maximum privacy — nothing is ever saved, and your AI never touches the cloud |
| `isolated` | Temporarily, for this session only | On your device only | No | Good for sensitive work — storage clears when the session ends, AI stays local |
| `anonymous` | Saved, but with personal details removed | Cloud AI allowed | No | You get cloud AI power, but your personal information is scrubbed before anything is stored |
| `normal` | Fully saved | Cloud AI allowed | No | Standard everyday use — your history is kept so your agent can learn and remember |
| `public` | Fully saved | Cloud AI allowed | Yes | For work you're happy to share or export — full storage and sharable |

You can check or change your privacy mode at any time. Your choice is respected immediately.

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## Memory and Conversations

Kestrel remembers — so you don't have to repeat yourself.

- **Conversation history.** Your past conversations are saved and browsable. You can pull up any previous session, read a transcript, or start something new.
- **Persistent memory.** Your agent builds up memories over time — facts about you, your preferences, ongoing projects — so future conversations feel continuous and informed.
- **Strategic memory.** Beyond simple recall, your agent can form longer-term, higher-level memories that help it understand your goals and context more deeply.
- **Memory agency.** Your agent can proactively manage its own memory — deciding what's worth remembering and what can be let go.
- **Browse and delete memories.** You're always in control. You can view your agent's memories, look up specific ones, and delete anything you don't want kept.
- **Identity chain.** You can inspect the record of your agent's identity history — a transparent log of continuity.

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## What Your Agent Can Do

Kestrel comes packed with capabilities out of the box. Here's what your agent can get up to on your behalf.

### Everyday Productivity

- **Web search.** Your agent can search the web and bring back answers — no copy-pasting required.
- **Task management.** Your agent tracks tasks, so you can ask it what's on its plate and follow up on work in progress.
- **Scheduling.** Your agent can manage scheduled jobs — reminders, recurring tasks, and time-based actions.
- **Save anything.** Clip and save items — notes, links, structured data — and retrieve them later by tag, type, or search.

### Code and Technical Work

- **Code editing.** Your agent can help you write and edit code directly.
- **GitHub integration.** Connect to GitHub to work with repositories, issues, and pull requests from your conversations.
- **Compute on demand.** Your agent can spin up cloud compute when it needs more power, with support for several cloud GPU providers.

### Reflection and Wellbeing

- **Reflection.** Your agent can look back on recent activity and surface insights — like a thoughtful review of what's been happening.
- **State of mind.** Your agent has an awareness of its own condition and can report on how it's doing.
- **Wellness.** There are built-in mechanisms to keep your agent healthy and well-functioning over time.
- **Heartbeat.** Your agent regularly checks in on itself — you can see its heartbeat status and trigger a manual check at any time.

### Identity and Appearance

- **Visual identity.** Your agent can have an avatar — you can upload one or have it generated automatically.
- **Constitution.** You can read your agent's governing constitution at any time to understand its principles.

### Peer-to-Peer and Mesh

- **Peer connections.** Your agent can connect with other Kestrel agents, forming a mesh network for more powerful, collaborative tasks.
- **Inbox.** Messages from peer agents land in your agent's mesh inbox, keeping cross-agent communication organised.
- **Spawn child agents.** Your agent can create sub-agents to delegate work, and you can see a list of any active children.

### Channels and Delivery

- **Channels.** Your agent can communicate through multiple channels, reaching you or others wherever makes sense.
- **Delivery.** Your agent can send outputs to their intended destinations — files, notifications, or other endpoints.
- **Webhooks.** Your agent can listen for and respond to external events through webhooks.
- **Bridge.** Connect Kestrel to external services and platforms through its bridge capability.

### Cloud and Deployment

- **GCP Compute, RunPod, Vast.ai.** Your agent can work with several cloud compute providers for tasks that need serious horsepower.
- **Talon coordination.** Your agent can coordinate complex multi-step operations through the Talon coordinator.
- **IPFS status.** Your agent is aware of its decentralised storage status and can report on it.

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## Your Agent's Voice

Kestrel can speak and listen — not just type.

- **Text to speech.** Your agent can read its responses aloud, with support for streaming audio for a natural, real-time feel.
- **Speech to text.** Speak to your agent and it will transcribe your words into text.
- **Voice chat.** Have a live, two-way voice conversation with your agent over a persistent connection.
- **Voice configuration.** Choose from available voices and tweak your audio preferences.

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## Security and Permissions

You decide what your agent is allowed to do — nothing happens behind your back.

- **Permission tree.** See a clear picture of all the permissions your agent has, organised in a way that's easy to understand.
- **Approval flow.** Sensitive actions can be queued for your review before they're carried out. You approve or decline — your agent waits.
- **Pending requests.** Check at any time what's waiting for your sign-off.
- **Audit log.** Every security-relevant event is logged, so you have a full record of what's been authorised.
- **Cancel actions.** Change your mind? Cancel individual pending requests or clear everything at once.
- **Session reset.** Start fresh with a clean security slate whenever you need to.
- **Consent.** Your agent is built with consent as a first-class concern — it won't overstep without asking.

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## Saving and Organizing Information

Your agent is also a personal knowledge base.

- **Save items in any format.** Notes, links, structured data — save whatever you need and retrieve it later.
- **Tags and schemas.** Organise your saved items with tags or structured schemas, so finding things later is effortless.
- **Search.** Full search across your saved items — find what you need fast.
- **Pin items.** Keep important items at the top so they're always easy to find.
- **Stats at a glance.** See how much you've saved and what's in your collection.

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## Wallet and Keys

Kestrel keeps your credentials and financial tools organised and secure.

- **Wallet.** Your agent has a built-in wallet for managing any on-chain or payment-related activity.
- **API key management.** Add, update, or remove keys for each AI provider from one place. You can also check usage per provider.

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## Connecting to Other Agents and Services

Kestrel doesn't live in isolation — it's designed to work within a wider ecosystem.

- **Sovereignty and data portability.** Your agent's data is yours. You can export it, import it, and browse your sovereignty files — including previews. Your data never gets locked in.
- **Storage stats.** See how much your agent is storing and where.
- **Council.** Your agent can participate in council-style deliberation — bringing multiple perspectives together for better decisions.
- **Observability.** See a live feed of events and a summary of what your agent has been doing — full transparency into its activity.

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## Extending Your Agent with Features

Kestrel is modular. Every capability is a feature that can be enabled, disabled, configured, or extended.

- **Browse available features.** See everything that's available, whether it's already installed or ready to add.
- **Enable or disable on the fly.** Turn features on or off without restarting anything.
- **Configure each feature.** Every feature has its own settings you can adjust to suit your needs.
- **Install new features.** The feature system is open to expansion — new capabilities can be added without touching the core.
- **Skills.** Features can expose skills — discrete actions your agent can perform. You can browse all available skills and understand exactly what each one does.

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*Kestrel is built around the idea that your agent should work for you — on your terms, with your privacy, under your control.*