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Ambient Mode

Background intelligence while you're away. DevDuck continues exploring, researching, and building.

Two Operating Modes

Standard 🌙 Autonomous 🚀
Trigger After idle (30s) Immediate
Max Iterations 3 100
Cooldown 60s 10s
Stops when Max iterations reached [AMBIENT_DONE] signal or max iterations
Cost Low High

Quick Start

DEVDUCK_AMBIENT_MODE=true devduck

🦆 ambient     # Toggle standard mode
🦆 auto        # Toggle autonomous mode

ambient_mode(action="start")                    # Standard
ambient_mode(action="start", autonomous=True)   # Autonomous
ambient_mode(action="status")
ambient_mode(action="configure", idle_threshold=60, max_iterations=5)
ambient_mode(action="stop")

How It Works

Standard Mode

🦆 analyze the security of this codebase

[Agent responds with initial analysis]

[You go idle for 30 seconds...]

🌙 [ambient] Thinking... (iteration 1/3)
──────────────────────────────────────────────────
[Agent explores deeper — checks vulnerabilities, reviews deps...]
──────────────────────────────────────────────────
🌙 [ambient] Work stored. Will be injected into next query.

🦆 what did you find?
🌙 [ambient] Injecting background work into context...
[Response includes enriched findings from background work]

Autonomous Mode

🦆 auto
🌙 Ambient mode started (AUTONOMOUS)

🦆 build a complete REST API for user management

🌙 [AUTONOMOUS] Thinking... (iteration 1/100)
[Creates project structure...]

🌙 [AUTONOMOUS] Thinking... (iteration 2/100)
[Implements routes...]

🌙 [AUTONOMOUS] Thinking... (iteration 3/100)
[Adds tests...]

...

🌙 [AUTONOMOUS] Agent signaled completion. Stopping.

The agent includes [AMBIENT_DONE] in its response to signal completion.

Configuration

Variable Default Description
DEVDUCK_AMBIENT_MODE false Enable on startup
DEVDUCK_AMBIENT_IDLE_SECONDS 30 Seconds before ambient triggers
DEVDUCK_AMBIENT_MAX_ITERATIONS 15 Max standard iterations
DEVDUCK_AMBIENT_COOLDOWN 60 Seconds between standard runs
DEVDUCK_AUTONOMOUS_COOLDOWN 10 Seconds between autonomous runs
DEVDUCK_AUTONOMOUS_MAX_ITERATIONS 100 Max autonomous iterations

Key Behaviors

  • User typing interrupts — Ambient work stops gracefully when you start typing
  • Results are injected — Background findings are automatically prepended to your next query
  • Agent-safe — Ambient mode waits if the agent is already executing
  • Completion signal — Agent can say [AMBIENT_DONE], [TASK_COMPLETE], or [NOTHING_MORE_TO_DO] to stop autonomous mode