an application in lisp you grow by talking to it

gist

Geoffrey Huntley introduces Jiti, a small kernel that grows a running Lisp application through conversation with a large language model. You ask for a capability, an OpenAI model writes Lisp through registered tools, and the application keeps that function until you ask to remove it. Accepted definitions then run as ordinary Lisp without further inference, while a persistent worker handles evaluation, checkpoints, and live restarts. Huntley argues that a software factory should let anyone in a company develop the product inside the product, with no compilation or CI/CD step between an agent's code and the running application.

ideas

• The product should build the product from the product. Huntley says a software factory is not process automation but a way for anyone in a company to develop the product while it runs, without an external vendor tool.
• Capabilities accumulate as ordinary Lisp functions. Once a definition is accepted, calling it from Lisp, from another application function, or through the chat interface does not require another inference request.
• Two tools separate changing the application from using it. develop_form adds, redefines, or removes functionality, and execute_form calls functions that already exist, both through the same evaluator and transaction machinery.
• Lisp supplies the composition rules. After adding uppercase-string and reverse-string, a prompt can save their combination as shout-backwards, which joins the catalog with its arguments and source for later requests.
• Safety checks and goals do different jobs. Caller-supplied safety checks decide whether a candidate may be kept, goals decide completion, and accepted managed changes become durable revisions.

quotes