Is Smoke Monkey an AI model?

No. Smoke Monkey is not an LLM. It is an embeddable, framework-agnostic runtime that turns LLMs (NVIDIA, Gemini, OpenAI, Claude, Ollama) into autonomous engineering agents capable of multi-step planning, calling tools, editing files, and running test loops with zero runtime dependencies.

Do I need a database (Postgres, SQLite, or Redis)?

No database is required. State is persisted through lean session files on disk, or you can plug in your own custom storage adapter. You can deploy it as a CLI, a desktop app, or inside a serverless function without provisioning a database.

How does human-in-the-loop permission gating work?

Smoke Monkey comes with three permission policies: allow-all, deny-all, and ask-default (or a custom function resolver). When a sensitive tool like edit_file or run_command is called under "ask", the runtime emits a permission.required event, pausing execution until your code or UI calls agent.resolvePermission(id, "allow" | "deny").

How does the Model Context Protocol (MCP) server work?

Smoke Monkey ships an official stdio MCP server in smoke-monkey-harness-mcp. Point Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, or opencode at it using npx -y smoke-monkey-harness-mcp to let other AI tools plan, scaffold, verify, and run agents using Smoke Monkey automatically.

What are SKILL.md skills and how do they prevent context bloat?

Skills are directories containing a SKILL.md workflow file. The system prompt only includes a one-line catalog of available skills. When a task requires specialized expertise (e.g. frontend-ui-engineering, test-driven-development, or security-hardening), the agent calls use_skill to load instructions just-in-time, saving thousands of tokens.

What is an AI Agent Harness?

An AI agent harness is the execution environment that bridges raw Large Language Models (LLMs) to real-world software engineering capabilities. While an LLM generates tokens, an AI harness manages deterministic phase loops (explore, plan, edit, verify, recover), tool execution sandboxing, token budget compaction, and safety gates needed for autonomous problem-solving.

What makes Smoke Monkey an Agentic AI runtime rather than a simple wrapper?

Unlike basic prompt-response chains, Smoke Monkey implements true agentic AI architecture: a deterministic 6-phase state machine with automatic failure recovery, runaway loop guards, 24 built-in developer tools, dynamic subcontext isolation, and interactive human-in-the-loop permission pauses.

Is Smoke Monkey Harness 100% Open Source AI?

Yes. Smoke Monkey Harness is 100% open source under the permissive MIT license with zero runtime dependencies. There is no telemetry lock-in, no mandatory cloud backend, and no database requirement—giving engineering teams complete sovereignty over their agent code.

What Agent APIs does Smoke Monkey Harness provide?

Smoke Monkey provides composable TypeScript Agent APIs: createAgent() for initialization, agent.run() for multi-turn execution, agent.on() for fine-grained lifecycle and streaming events, agent.resolvePermission() for interactive human authorization, subcontext switching APIs, and stdio Model Context Protocol (MCP) server endpoints.

Can I run completely offline without API keys?

Yes! Smoke Monkey natively supports Ollama out of the box. Set provider: "ollama" and model: "qwen3:8b" with workspacePath, and the agent will run locally on your machine with zero external network requests.

Smoke Monkey vs Fixie AI & Hosted Agent Platforms

SaaS Hosted Agent PlatformUpdated: October 2026

Fixie AI & Hosted Agent Platform Alternatives: Self-Sovereign TypeScript Runtime

Hosted agent platforms like Fixie AI abstract agent infrastructure behind subscription APIs. Smoke Monkey Harness gives you equivalent or superior capabilities as fully open source, self-hosted TypeScript code you own completely.

Comparative Benchmark: Smoke Monkey Harness TypeScript vs Fixie AI & Hosted Agent Platforms

|Verified for Node.js 18+ & Bun|100% MIT Open Source

The Executive Verdict (Quick Answer)

Why choose Smoke Monkey over Fixie AI & Hosted Agent Platforms? Own your agent infrastructure with Smoke Monkey Harness. Zero monthly subscription fees, no rate limits imposed by a SaaS vendor, and complete code sovereignty.

Why Developers Switch from Fixie AI & Hosted Agent Platforms to Smoke Monkey

No Subscription Fees: 100% free forever under MIT license.

Complete Data Privacy: Your prompts, tool executions, and code never leave your infrastructure.

No Vendor Rate Limits: Scale agent throughput to your own API and hardware limits.

Audit-Ready: Every tool execution is logged locally for compliance.

Detailed Feature-by-Feature Matrix

Direct side-by-side comparison of core runtime capabilities and architectural trade-offs.

Capability	Smoke Monkey Harness	Fixie AI & Hosted Agent Platforms	Key Architectural Difference
Cost Model	✅ $0 platform fee (pay LLM costs only)	❌ Monthly SaaS subscription required	No per-agent or per-run platform fees.
Data Residency	✅ 100% on your infrastructure	❌ Data processed on vendor cloud	Critical for GDPR, HIPAA, and enterprise compliance.

Code Implementation Comparison

Self-Hosted Agent with Full Control

Smoke Monkey (TypeScript)Zero Dependencies

sovereign-agent.tstypescript

1import { createAgent } from 'smoke-monkey-harness';
2
3// 100% on your infrastructure. No vendor account required.
4const agent = createAgent({
5  provider: 'nvidia',
6  model: 'nvidia/nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b',
7  workspacePath: process.cwd(),
8  permissions: {
9    run_command: 'ask', // Require human approval for shell commands
10  },
11});

Fixie AI & Hosted Agent PlatformsSaaS Subscription Required

hosted-platform.tstypescript

1// Hosted agent platforms abstract away all execution
2// but require API keys, platform accounts, subscription billing,
3// and route sensitive code/prompts through vendor cloud infrastructure

Architecture Note: With Smoke Monkey, every instruction, tool call, and file edit stays within your infrastructure.

The Enterprise Case for Self-Hosted Agents

Enterprise engineering teams dealing with proprietary codebases, customer data, or regulatory compliance cannot afford to route sensitive repository contents through third-party SaaS vendors. Smoke Monkey Harness was architectured from the ground up for private deployment with no telemetry.

Frequently Asked Questions

Questions Developers Ask About Fixie AI & Hosted Agent Platforms Alternatives

Q:Can I deploy Smoke Monkey on-premises in an air-gapped environment?

Yes. Use `provider: "ollama"` with a locally running Ollama instance to run completely offline with zero external API calls.

Switch to Smoke Monkey Harness Today

Build autonomous coding agents with zero runtime dependencies, deterministic 6-phase loops, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) in pure TypeScript.

npm install smoke-monkey-harness

Fixie AI & Hosted Agent Platform Alternatives: Self-Sovereign TypeScript Runtime

Why Developers Switch from Fixie AI & Hosted Agent Platforms to Smoke Monkey

Detailed Feature-by-Feature Matrix

Code Implementation Comparison

The Enterprise Case for Self-Hosted Agents

Questions Developers Ask About Fixie AI & Hosted Agent Platforms Alternatives

Q:Can I deploy Smoke Monkey on-premises in an air-gapped environment?

Related Solutions & Topics

Free & Open Source AI Agent Framework: 100% MIT Licensed TypeScript Harness

Run Autonomous Coding Agents 100% Offline with Ollama & Local LLMs

Human-in-the-Loop Permission Gating in AI Agents: Safe Autonomous Execution

Switch to Smoke Monkey Harness Today