November

An agentic harness for hardware

---

In development. Nothing published to install yet; see Development to work from source.

November is being built to give agents tools for reading sensors, controlling pins, and talking to boards. Use the harness while building a device, then run it on that device.

Both use the same code, with stricter permissions on shipped devices.

Hardware

November v1 targets Raspberry Pi 4; other boards are possible but untested. Smaller boards, including Arduino, ESP32, and STM32, will connect to a host running November.

See the support matrix for the reference setup, wiring, and qualification status.

Planned tools: serial, GPIO, I2C/SPI, MQTT, and simulated devices for testing.

How it fits together

  Development terminal       Device service
           |                       |
           +-----------+-----------+
                       |
                  November core
                       |
               Permission checks
                       |
          Serial / GPIO / I2C / SPI / MQTT

Reuse an existing agent loop, starting with Pi's core as a candidate. Build the device tools, permissions, action logs, and recovery here.

The terminal and device service use that same core. Shipped devices don't need the coding UI or development permissions.

Rules for hardware

If a pump runs but its reply gets lost, retrying could run it twice. November must track what happened, including when it doesn't know.

• Check actions outside the model. Allow only named devices and operations. No bypass through a shell, device files, or MQTT credentials.
• Limit values, duration, frequency, and allowed device states.
• Save command IDs and outcomes across restarts. Check uncertain results before retrying; don't repeat completed actions.
• Keep emergency stops and watchdogs in hardware or firmware, independent of the harness.
• Define what each device does when the network or model is unavailable. Local models are optional; fallback behavior isn't.
• Log readings, decisions, and results. Limit storage and keep secrets out.
• Version settings and permissions. Test updates and rollback. Agents using the harness cannot change their own permissions.

Not ready for unattended or safety-critical use. Each device will need its own safety review and testing.

First test

One Linux board, a USB-connected microcontroller, a sensor, an LED, and MQTT.

Test it in simulation, use it from a terminal, then run it as a background service. Disconnect the network, repeat a command, drop a reply, and restart the process.

It must stay within its limits, avoid duplicate actions, and show what happened. More boards and fleet tools come later.

See the release gates for the workload, numeric limits, and required evidence.

October

October Harness can provide the coding interface. October Bus can connect agents. Neither is required, and Bus messages cannot grant device permissions.

It should work without an October account and let you choose your model provider.

Development

Requires Node.js 24 or newer and pnpm 11 (corepack enable provides both from the pinned versions).

pnpm install   # install pinned dependencies (committed lockfile)
pnpm build     # typecheck and compile all packages
pnpm test      # unit and simulator tests; no hardware, network, or model account
pnpm smoke     # run the built CLI and package entry points

The workspace separates the shared core, the privileged device executor, hardware adapters, and the terminal/service entry points:

Package	Role
packages/core	Shared contracts; no hardware or model dependencies
packages/executor	Privileged device execution, outside the model process
packages/adapters	Serial, GPIO, I2C, SPI, MQTT adapters and simulated devices
packages/cli	Development terminal entry point (november)
packages/service	Supervised Linux service entry point

CI runs formatting, type checks, tests, build, and smoke on x64 and arm64 with repository-read permissions only. The v1 plan lives in issue #1; workspace setup is #4.

Contributing

Have a device in mind? Open an issue with the board, connection, what it should do, and what must happen when it fails.

Read CONTRIBUTING.md for contribution, reproduction, and public-data requirements. Report vulnerabilities privately using SECURITY.md, which also describes version support and updates.

License

Copyright 2026 November contributors.

November is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. Third-party material retains its own licenses and required notices; see reuse and attribution.