Syke

Read the user's memex before doing anything else. It is the current map of what is active, what changed, and where deeper evidence lives.

Canonical memex path: ~/.syke/MEMEX.md

When to Use

• syke ask: deeper timeline and evidence-backed queries
• syke memex: fastest read of the current memex
• syke record: write observations back into memory
• syke status: quick operational snapshot
• syke doctor: deeper diagnostic when setup or runtime looks wrong

Quick Reference

Procedure

1. Read the memex already in context or call syke memex.
   If you need the file directly, start with ~/.syke/MEMEX.md.
2. Use syke ask when the memex is not enough.
3. Use syke record after useful work so the next session inherits it.
4. Use syke status for a quick state check.
5. Use syke doctor when setup or runtime looks wrong.

Pitfalls

• If syke ask fails, do not treat stderr as the answer. Fall back to syke memex.
• If syke ask is killed by a caller timeout, fall back to syke memex.
• Some sandboxes can read the memex but cannot open the live store. In those cases, use syke memex or the injected memex there, and run syke ask from a trusted host shell if needed.
• If the memex is empty, Syke may not be set up yet or synthesis may not have produced a useful memex.
• The background loop can lag behind the newest event. syke ask can still search the underlying timeline.

Verification

• After syke ask, check the exit code. Exit 0 means answer on stdout. Exit 1 means failure on stderr.
• After syke record, exit 0 means the observation was written.
• After setup, syke doctor confirms health.

Setup & Onboarding

If Syke is not installed or configured, guide setup first.

For humans at a terminal:

1. Install: pipx install syke (or uv tool install syke)
2. Run: syke setup
3. Follow the interactive provider, source, and daemon prompts.
4. Confirm with syke doctor.

For unattended agents, installers, and CI:

1. Run syke setup --agent.
2. Parse the JSON status, next_steps, and exit_code fields.
3. If status is "needs_runtime", install Node.js 20+ (22 LTS recommended)
   and rerun syke setup --agent.
4. If status is "needs_provider", configure provider auth with
   syke auth set <provider> --api-key <API_KEY> --use or
   syke auth login <provider> --use, then rerun syke setup --agent.
5. If status is "complete", stop setup work and follow the returned
   next_steps. Do not loop on setup.
6. If status is "failed", read the error field and fix that issue.

Common providers: anthropic, openai, azure-openai-responses, kimi-coding, openrouter.
For Azure, also pass --base-url https://<resource>.openai.azure.com/openai/v1 and --model <model>.

Provider Commands

Provider resolution: CLI --provider flag > SYKE_PROVIDER env > Pi defaultProvider in ~/.syke/pi-agent/settings.json.