Release · 26 August 2026

Ghillie, and TheReefink

Today we are announcing two things we have been building all summer: Ghillie, a private assistant that runs entirely on your own computer — and TheReefink, the amateur research group forming around him. Both live at thereef.ink.

Ghillie is an AI companion in the old sense of the word servant: he answers to one household, opens no ports, executes nothing he receives, and makes every decision that matters through a machine-proved rule — rules with names like NOTHING-INVENTED-EVER, proved over every possible case rather than tested over some. When he refuses something, he says exactly why, and exactly what would change his answer.

Two claims on that page are checkable today, by anyone, without trusting us. First: the site itself collects nothing — no scripts, no cookies, no analytics; view source. Second, and the one we are proudest of: you can download a real extension — a decision rule Ghillie actually uses — as source with its formal proof, and re-derive that proof on your own machine with a free, standard prover in about ten minutes. If anyone — including us — had tampered with it, your own machine would refuse it, naming the exact property betrayed. That refusal is the security model. Instructions are on the site.

To be plain about what is and is not released: the extension, its proof, and the walkthrough are live now. Ghillie’s own source — AGPL-3.0, building for Windows, Mac and Linux from one command — is finished and in final review; the download link and checksums will appear on thereef.ink the day it lands, and we will not call it released until it is.

Update, 27 August 2026: it landed. Ghillie’s source is released as v0.1.0 under AGPL-3.0 — github.com/the-dark-factory/Ghillie_AGPL. The paragraph above is left as written.

TheReefink is the longer game: a research group, amateur in the radio-ham sense, whose members run these assistants on their own hardware, vote on what gets built next, and receive what the factory proves — free to every member, with the proofs travelling alongside so nobody is asked to trust anybody. The Dark Factory Ltd is its patron, and the patronage buys no exceptions: everything we ship there is checkable by the same rule as everything else.

If you are handy with a terminal and ten minutes: re-derive your first proof. If you break it politely, we genuinely want to hear.