Symac

• Symac
• Core rule
• Source configuration used for feature mining
• Engineering policy
• Task and coding-agent workstation
• Agentic Nix / Guix distribution

Symac

Symac is an AI-native Common Lisp workstation built on Lem.

It is not an editor with an LLM sidebar. The editor, live Common Lisp image, models, tools, agents, graphs, symbolic reasoning, sessions, and package system are one programmable environment.

The project has two layers:

• Symac platform: opinion-light Common Lisp libraries and protocols.
• Symac distribution: a batteries-included, highly integrated workstation inspired by the "distribution" idea that makes Doom Emacs useful, but aimed at Common Lisp, AI-native development, Prolog/RLM work, and StarIntel.

The real feature baseline is mined from lost-rob0t/dotfiles. Symac does not guess what an "Emacs replacement" should contain; it ports the workflows and capabilities that are actually used, then exposes them as neutral packages.

Core rule

Keep editor and LLM-workstation primitives in core. Everything else is an installable ASDF package.

Core examples:

• editor/runtime lifecycle;
• buffers, windows, commands, keymaps;
• live Common Lisp development;
• model/provider protocols;
• messages, sessions, contexts, prompts;
• typed tools;
• agents;
• chains;
• resumable graphs;
• first-class tasks and executable slices;
• normalized coding-agent sessions;
• package loading;
• capability/effect model.

Package examples:

• Org;
• Org-roam;
• Prolog;
• Prolog-RLM;
• Git/Forge;
• terminal;
• project/environment integration;
• StarIntel;
• Quasar;
• observability;
• Android frontend/runtime integration;
• OpenCode, Codex, ZCode, Pi, and AgentProlog coding-agent adapters.

Source configuration used for feature mining

Canonical feature source:

• lost-rob0t/dotfiles/.doom.d/config.org
• lost-rob0t/dotfiles/.doom.d/packages.org
• lost-rob0t/dotfiles/lisp/
• lost-rob0t/dotfiles/docs/wiki/emacs.org
• lost-rob0t/dotfiles/android/
• lost-rob0t/dotfiles/android/doom/config.org

See docs/feature-mine.org.

Engineering policy

Symac is developed TDD-first.

A feature is not considered ported because a similarly named package exists. Its behavior must have a testable contract and must pass the relevant unit, integration, UI, restart/recovery, and platform tests.

Every optional package must be loadable and testable independently of the full distribution.

Task and coding-agent workstation

Tasks and implementation slices are first-class Symac objects. The default distribution exposes a keyboard-first task dashboard and slice board, and can assign bounded slices to coding agents while retaining worktree, diff, test, review, and verification context.

Coding-agent support is backend-neutral. OpenCode, Codex, ZCode, Pi, and AgentProlog integrate through symac/coding-agent rather than defining separate editor workflows.

See docs/tasks-slices.org and docs/coding-agents.org.

Agentic Nix / Guix distribution

Symac has a deterministic Prolog distribution compiler. Agents write backend-neutral facts; experts validate and derive a portable desired-state IR; renderers emit NixOS or Guix definitions without requiring an LLM.

The compiler fails closed on unknown facts, conflicting state, unmapped packages, and secret values. Secret metadata may reference only environment variables, wallet entries, or Emacs auth-source identifiers.

nix run .#symac-distro -- render nix examples/distro/workstation.pl workstation
nix run .#symac-distro -- render guix examples/distro/workstation.pl workstation

See docs/distro.org.