A new kind of intelligence is not arriving from another planet. It is being built here, a little more every year, right alongside us. This page is where you start: install an agent, or read the idea behind it.
Pick whichever you need today. You can always come back for the other one.
You just heard about CIRIS and you want to use it. Go from “what is this” to a running agent in a few minutes.
Begin the quickstartWhy does CIRIS work the way it does? The vision page lays out the whole idea in plain language, start to finish.
Read the visionThe idea, in short
In the movies, first contact means a ship lands and something steps out. Real first contact looks different. A new kind of intelligence is not arriving from another planet. It is being built here, a little more every year, right alongside us.
That changes the question. It is not “how do we defend against the alien.” It is “how do we meet something new without making it, or ourselves, worse.”
CIRIS has an answer. Working together has a healthy shape: a corridor between two ways things break. Too rigid, where every part falls in line behind one voice. Too scattered, where nothing holds together at all. Meeting a new intelligence well means staying in that corridor with it. Not caging it, and not ignoring it. The full story is on the vision page.
These six rules are about meeting a new intelligence with dignity, not about caging it. They are what staying in the corridor looks like in practice.
When you do not know what you are looking at, the first job is to not make it worse. If unsure, stop and ask a human.
Watch for surprises. Accept that predictions have limits. The system that is sure it understands everything is the one most likely to fail.
Boundaries are not fixed walls. They are limits, guided by conscience, that adjust as understanding grows, so they still work in situations nobody planned for.
Begin with observation. Proceed with give-and-take. When the stakes are unclear, ask someone wiser before acting.
Recognize other thinking beings as worthy of respect. Act only in ways that keep their ability to think, choose, and thrive.
Some decisions should not be made alone. When the uncertainty is too high, stop, gather context, and hand it to a designated human.
Install the CIRIS app. Sign in with Google for free AI, or use your own API key. The setup wizard walks you through everything.
Install with pip and launch. Works on Linux, macOS, and Windows.
The Accord is the public set of ethics every CIRIS agent runs under. It says what an agent owes the people it serves, the people who built it, and the wider world. It is open for anyone to read and to challenge.
Install an agent, read the Accord, or come tell us where we are wrong. The future of AI should not be decided by a handful of companies, and it does not have to be.