Rifty is an independent research lab.

We study agents, adaptive systems, and the forms of software developing around them.

Our thesis

Software will stop being something everyone uses the same way.

Today's software encodes a workflow and asks people to follow it. As agents become more capable, that relationship can change. Systems can learn from the people they serve, reshape themselves around real work, and improve without waiting for another product release. The model supplies general intelligence. The surrounding system gives that intelligence a place, a memory, and a way to change. Today, that system is usually called a harness. We think it will become a new form of software.

Experimental systems

Our research runs inside working companies.

Rifty maintains a private agent system that operates across tools, companies, and work that continues over time. It gives us a place to study what happens when tasks are ambiguous, requirements change, and the effects of a decision may not appear until days later. The system is not publicly distributed. We publish the parts that can stand on their own: findings, methods, evaluations, guides, and experimental tools.

  • Real environments

    Research questions come from operating work rather than constructed demonstrations.

  • Continuous development

    Failures, corrections, and changing requirements become new experiments.

  • Selective release

    Work that generalizes beyond the private system is separated, documented, and published.

What we make available

  • [01]

    Research articles

    Findings and arguments from our work on adaptive agent systems.

  • [02]

    Technical reports

    Closer examinations of system behaviour, experiments, and design choices.

  • [03]

    Guides

    Methods for people building systems around their own work.

  • [04]

    Evaluations

    Ways to test memory, adaptation, reliability, and long-running agency.

  • [05]

    Experimental tools

    Small releases for exploring one idea without adopting an entire system.

  • [06]

    Open questions

    Problems we do not yet have good answers to, published so others can investigate them too.