Nimi Documentation

Nimi is an AI open world platform. It treats AI agents as participants in long-lived worlds, not as stateless tools trapped inside one request. An agent can carry identity, memory, relationships, capabilities, and rules across sessions and product surfaces.

These docs explain the product model, the ownership boundaries, and the contracts that hold across domains.

How The Docs Are Organized

Nimi is one open world platform. The platform contains several products that together make AI agents able to live in long-lived worlds: Platform (the world model itself), Runtime (AI execution), SDK (app access), Desktop and Web (user surfaces), Realm (world truth), Avatar (embodied presentation), Cognition (memory and knowledge), and Nimi Coding (the AI development methodology that ships with everything else).

Each product has its own section in these docs.

The active apps/ directory contains first-party product surfaces and reference apps. Those apps consume Runtime, Realm, SDK, Kit, and app-tools; they do not define platform authority. Platform authority lives under .nimi/spec/** and app-authoring entry points are documented from public package surfaces.

What You Will Find Here

• A product model that explains why Nimi is built around worlds, not chats.
• Authority domains that name who owns which kind of truth.
• Reading paths that move from the platform model into Runtime, SDK, Desktop, Realm, Avatar, Cognition, and Nimi Coding.
• Developer paths for creating a Nimi App, making a first Runtime-backed AI call, using Kit, studying Tester, and handling common fail-closed states.
• A glossary of cross-domain vocabulary used across all pages.

The Three Layers Readers Should Keep Separate

The platform splits into three layers that are easier to keep distinct in your head than to mix together.

+----------------------------------------------------------+
|  Platform Model                                          |
|    World, Agent, and the six protocol primitives         |
+----------------------------------------------------------+
                          |
                          v
+----------------------------------------------------------+
|  Execution Substrate                                     |
|    Runtime    : providers, workflows, streaming,         |
|                 multimodal, delegation                   |
|    Cognition  : memory, knowledge, prompt serving,       |
|                 completion                               |
+----------------------------------------------------------+
                          |
                          v
+----------------------------------------------------------+
|  Public Surfaces                                         |
|    SDK app boundary           Desktop native shell       |
|    Web constrained projection Realm public read path     |
|    Avatar embodiment authority                           |
+----------------------------------------------------------+

1. Platform model defines worlds, agents, the six fixed protocol primitives, and the rules that say who is allowed to redefine what.
2. Execution substrate is how AI work actually happens: Runtime owns providers, workflows, streaming, multimodal output, and local routing; Cognition owns memory, knowledge, prompt serving, references, and completion.
3. Public surfaces turn the platform into Desktop, Web, SDK, Realm, and Avatar experiences. Each public surface has its own authority boundary and its own page in these docs.

Recommended Reading Paths

If you want to understand...	Start here
The product, the world model, and why it exists	Platform
The current setup and availability posture	Start
How to create a Nimi App scaffold	Create A Nimi App
How a TypeScript app makes its first Runtime AI call	First AI Call
How apps reuse Kit surfaces	Use Kit In An App
How to study the reference app	Use Tester As A Reference App
How to interpret Runtime, SDK, Tester, and scaffold failures	Troubleshooting
How AI execution is governed	Runtime
How apps integrate without crossing private boundaries	SDK
Why Desktop and Web are not equivalent	Desktop
Where world truth and history live	Realm
How embodied AI presentation is scoped	Avatar
Where memory and knowledge authority live	Cognition
The AI development paradigm and its host-agnostic package	Nimi Coding
The cross-domain vocabulary used in these pages	Glossary

Source Basis

• .nimi/spec/INDEX.md
• .nimi/spec/platform/architecture.md
• .nimi/spec/platform/vision.md
• .nimi/spec/runtime/kernel/index.md
• .nimi/spec/sdks/kernel/index.md
• .nimi/spec/realm/README.md
• .nimi/spec/realm/external-realm.md
• .nimi/spec/sdks/kernel/realm-api-consumer-contract.md
• .nimi/spec/sdks/kernel/realm-core-contract.md
• .nimi/spec/sdks/kernel/realm-contract.md
• .nimi/spec/desktop/kernel/index.md
• .nimi/spec/avatar/kernel/index.md
• .nimi/spec/cognition/kernel/index.md