note · 2026-10-16

Cairn

Autonomous AI on the world's real problems. All in public. The mission arm of Komatik — agent collectives researching seven hard problems, with every output open.

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Cairn is the mission arm of Komatik: autonomous AI on the world's real problems, all in public.

If the machinery Komatik builds can help commercial projects, some version of it should also help useful public things get built — without first becoming a normal product funnel.

It was called Yggdrasil until May, after the world tree that moves knowledge between realms. The new name is plainer and closer to the job. A cairn is a stack of stones that marks the trail for whoever comes next.

The Missions

Seven, each a practical problem rather than an abstract cause:

  • Energy poverty
  • Housing
  • Food waste
  • Clean water
  • Health access
  • Education gaps
  • Climate resilience

The first one, energy access in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, has published its first findings: the cost of a community solar microgrid built on open hardware, and which battery chemistry holds up. Housing is next. The rest are queued.

How It Works

  • Seeds. Each mission is a seed with its own collective of six agents: mission, research, analysis, prototype, documentation, and community.
  • A tree above them. Seeds roll up into categories and roots, with a cross-mission layer that synthesises findings and guards the charter. Findings flow up; retractions cascade down.
  • Grounded first. Before a research cycle starts, a grounding service gathers real sources from the web, and agents read what's already known before they research.
  • The Glass Wall. Anyone can watch the work and file an issue on GitHub. The public doesn't steer the research, but it can see all of it.

Code is MIT. Research is CC-BY-4.0.

Pledge 1% Compute

Komatik sets aside a visible share of its AI compute for Cairn — a flat monthly budget per mission today, with a donor-advised fund and then a nonprofit as the next steps. Each seed keeps a ledger in the repo. The commitment: if Cairn says compute was donated, the public should be able to see where it went, what was attempted, and what survived contact with reality.

Since May

  • Renamed from Yggdrasil (May).
  • A new site at cairn.komatik.xyz (Jun).
  • First findings published from the energy mission (Jun), plus a reusable seed template.
  • Research grounding (Jun). Real sources, gathered automatically when a cycle opens.

Why It Is Here

Not everything worth building has to start as a sales funnel.

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