Robert

Robert is designed to help you learn and troubleshoot FreeBSD using official documentation, manual pages, source code, ports, and packages.

How can I try Robert?

SSH

The quick way is SSH. No install required. It is free to use within reason. If you're not sure what Robert is, this is a great way to find out without installing anything.

$ ssh robert@4.4bsd.dev

Local

The recommended path is a local install.
It requires a DeepSeek API key.

##
# Download the latest release
$ fetch https://github.com/llmrb/robert/releases/download/v0.12.0/robert
$ chmod +x robert

##
# Set an API key
$ export DEEPSEEK_SECRET="sk-..."

##
# Start Robert
$ ./robert

What makes Robert different?

Publically accessible via SSH
Robert is available for anyone to use, for free, over SSH
Designed for education, not automation.
Robert explains what to do and why, but leaves system changes in your hands.
Read-only by design.
It can inspect documentation, ports, packages, source code, and approved files, but it cannot write data.
Native to FreeBSD.
Robert uses manual pages, the Handbook, the ports tree, the package database, and FreeBSD source code as primary sources.
Grounded answers.
The Handbook, manual pages, and source code are treated as the source of truth.
Terminal-native.
There is no browser, Electron shell, Node.js runtime, Ruby installation, or gem bundle required to run the release binary.
Small deployment model.
Release builds are distributed as a statically linked binary around 3MB.

Abilities

Robert's abilities are limited to reading data, and certain abilities require confirmation before they can run. Robert does not have any abilities that can write data, or automate tasks for you. That's intentional: Robert is designed to help you learn about FreeBSD.

Name	Purpose	Confirmation
`man-page`	Read a manual page by name and optional section.	No
`man-search`	Search manual pages through `apropos`.	No
`search-user-handbook`	Search the FreeBSD user handbook through full-text search.	No
`search-developer-handbook`	Search the FreeBSD developer handbook through full-text search.	No
`search-porter-handbook`	Search the FreeBSD porter handbook through full-text search.	No
`find-port`	Find a port in the local ports tree.	No
`read-port`	Read a port's `Makefile`, `pkg-descr`, and `distinfo`.	No
`find-package`	Search the local `pkg(8)` database.	No
`read-file`, `find`, `grep`	Inspect local files and filesystem paths.	Yes