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# Dobby
## A Distributed Meta-Agent Orchestrator for Research

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  <img src="../assets/dobby.png" width="120" />
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<div style="text-align:center; color:#718096; margin-top:20px; font-size:0.9em;">

*"The bottleneck in research isn't intelligence — it's coordination."*

Simon Yu · March 2026

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# The Problem

### As researchers, we have access to powerful tools...

- **Claude Code** — autonomous coding agent
- **Codex** — OpenAI's coding agent
- **GPU clusters** — EC2, university HPC, local machines
- **Multiple projects** — papers, experiments, infrastructure

### ...but we are the serialization point.

> I can only run **one experiment at a time**, on **one machine**, while **actively watching it**.

Going to sleep means everything stops. Context-switching between projects wastes hours.

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# Dobby: The Engineering Manager for AI Agents

![bg right:45% w:500](architecture.drawio.png)

**What if you had a manager that:**

- Accepts tasks from anywhere (Slack, CLI, MCP)
- Distributes them across your machines
- Monitors progress 24/7
- Catches failures and auto-debugs
- Reports results when you wake up

**That's Dobby.**

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# Architecture Overview

![w:1000 center](architecture.drawio.png)

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# How It Differs

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### Claude Code / Codex
- One agent, one repo, one machine
- Dies when terminal closes
- You are always in the loop
- No cross-machine execution

### OpenHands / OpenClaw
- One agent, one task, sandboxed
- Web UI — not mobile/Slack
- No distributed execution
- No human-in-the-loop approval

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### **Dobby**
- **Multi-agent** across machines
- **Always-on** VPS hub (24/7)
- **Plan → Approve → Execute** flow
- **Backend-agnostic** (Claude + Codex)
- **Slack/MCP/CLI** from anywhere
- **Self-healing** overnight runs
- **Full observability** — dashboard, Flow view, utilization tracking

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# Recursive Agent Dispatch

Each agent can call Dobby (via MCP) to create more sub-tasks:

![w:900 center](recursive-agents.drawio.png)

This enables **unlimited depth of delegation** — an agent exploring a codebase can spawn specialized sub-agents for different aspects, each running on the optimal machine.

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# Overnight Autonomy — Real Example

**10:00 PM** — Submit 6 tasks across 3 projects via Slack, go to sleep

**2:00 AM** — Dobby detects vLLM crash on EC2 (OOM)
→ Diagnoses root cause (CUDA graph allocation)
→ Resubmits with `--enforce-eager` flag
→ Posts update to Slack

**6:00 AM** — Dobby detects pipeline completion
→ Pivots to next phase (Inverse-IFEval training)
→ Submits 3 sequential training jobs

**8:00 AM** — Posts morning summary:

| Project | Result |
|---------|--------|
| Meta-Agent | ✅ Research report + experiments (asymmetric transfer confirmed) |
| ADPO | ✅ Gemma HaluEval done, 3 models IFEval trained |
| SPARE | ✅ 3 slurm jobs submitted and running |

**Total overnight cost: ~$12**

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# Live Dashboard

<div style="text-align:center;">

**https://dobby.chats-lab-gui-agent.uk/dashboard**

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- **Agent Network** — hub + spokes with live status
- **Heatmap** — GitHub-style activity across projects
- **Flow View** — VibeLens-style agent execution timeline
- **Usage Tracking** — Claude API utilization over time
- **Project Control** — per-project status with spoke labels

All accessible globally via Cloudflare tunnel.

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# What's Next

### High Priority
- 🖼️ **Image generation** — Gemini API / diagrams on demand
- 📊 **Presentation builder** — auto-generate slides from results
- 📅 **Calendar integration** — deadline reminders, scheduling

### Architecture
- ⚡ **Parallel spoke execution** — multiple agents per machine
- 🧠 **Smart task routing** — auto-select machine by requirements
- 💬 **Dashboard chat** — ask questions with full project context

### Scale
- 👥 **Multi-user support** — shared dashboard, role-based access
- 🔄 **Agent collaboration** — agents working together on tasks

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# Summary

> **Dobby is the operations layer that coding agents are missing.**

| | Claude Code | OpenClaw | **Dobby** |
|---|---|---|---|
| Machines | 1 | 1 | **N (distributed)** |
| Always-on | ❌ | ❌ | **✅ VPS hub** |
| Submit from | Terminal | Browser | **Slack / MCP / CLI / API** |
| Backends | Claude only | OpenAI only | **Claude + Codex** |
| Overnight | ❌ | ❌ | **✅ Self-healing** |
| Approval flow | ❌ | ❌ | **✅ Plan → Approve** |

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**Claude Code is the engineer. Dobby is the engineering manager.**

🔗 github.com/simonucl/dobby

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