We build the tools we use to run AI on real software. They stop risky actions in code, have one company's model review another's, test their own predictions, and keep records a stranger can re-check.
02 -- GRIP
A program outside the model stops recognised dangerous commands before they run. It blocks an unapproved force-push, recognised secret reads and database dumps.
By default, it refuses unsupported test counts and typed merges with failing checks. Checks must leave a route to fix what they block.
The test-count and failing-check gates have overrides that leave a log entry. If a check itself breaks, the action goes through. Habits can still fail.
03 -- GRIP
Changes in its improvement loops come with a prediction that could be false and a date to check it.
On 1 November 2026, only 13 of 335 verdicts rested on a resolvable metric. The other 322 are not evidence.
04 -- GRIP
GRIP checks its existing knowledge before searching elsewhere. It uses what it finds and writes back anything new.
On 572 held-out questions, keyword search found the right record in the top three 87.9% of the time. Keyword plus meaning search reached 89.0%. The embedding store, as wired for that test, reached 50.0%.
Keyword search now comes first. When a search fails, GRIP names the stores it searched instead of claiming the information does not exist.
05 -- HAL
HAL gives providers the same calling interface. If a provider is slow or unavailable, it routes to another and records which answered.
For high-stakes calls, models from different companies answer the same question. A model from another company judges, and the verdict is sealed for checking later.
Reviews of GRIP’s code use other companies’ models and a separate judge. A concern can block a merge only if it quotes the relevant line.
A failed quotation check does not make a concern false. When GRIP tested rejected concerns, 14 of 14 were real.
06 -- HAPPI
HAPPI is documentation, a program and a specification in the same file. Run bash happi.md to run its quickstart.
One message goes in and a stream of results comes out. The current version accepts versions back to 1.0.
HAPPI/1.4 added pre-registered commitments. A recorded reasoning trace cannot settle a claim. A model’s account of its reasoning is itself a claim, not evidence.
07 -- GRASP
GRASP writes and re-checks records under the AGPL-3.0 licence. Its checker needs no GRIP, HAL, network or account.
Change a record in the browser demonstration and inspect the failed checks. A quotation absent from the supplied source fails the quotation check.
08 -- The record, and what it does not prove
The record links decisions, the beliefs behind them and quotation checks. It covers GRIP’s main paths, not every surface.
The chain is tamper-evident. Someone with write access can recompute the seals. Compare them against a root you kept elsewhere before the change.
A seal does not prove a decision was right. A quotation check does not prove the quoted words support an argument. Reading records back does not reproduce a model run.
Publishing and Bitcoin stamps stopped from 25 September to 1 November 2026, because the publishing machine’s redaction filter was incomplete. Both run again.
The public chain shows order, not completeness. GRIP’s private source prevents a stranger from matching every row to its code.
09 -- Open and private
HAPPI and GRASP are open. GRIP and HAL repositories are private today. The node installer needs private repositories, so a stranger cannot start a node today.
Our own Internet-Draft is written and not yet posted. Direct checking between nodes remains in progress, including how strangers obtain the right verification key.
Open the protocol, inspect the public implementation or read the current limits.
10 -- the papers
These preprints are work in progress. Each states its limits and what would prove it wrong. Download the file and compare its hash with the printed value.
Preprint
tamper-evident provenance · 69 pages · not peer-reviewed
The paper describes records of decisions, beliefs and source checks. Its default authentication profile needs a shared secret and cannot be verified publicly. A release that verifies the paper itself remains future work. The paper withdraws its earlier claim of commercial defensibility.
shasum -a 256 cryptographic-causation-2026-09-22.pdf
6caaa244a742174251d8a2fcaf8a14d852de81fd9506e52eb3522af47486d6be
11 -- Built and running
Kwartel is built and running. Open Kwartel.
12 -- who this is
Small, focused and opinionated. If you write to us, one of these three reads it.
V>>
Founder, engineer, and a self-declared polymath who studied philosophy and never quite got over it. Favourite programming languages: Latin and Greek. Some people call him a leader and some call him a jerk. The ones who stay are patient enough to hear out the ramblings.
Builds small AI for the public, for a better tomorrow. Like Gandalf, often late, but arrives precisely when he means to. Claims, in the manner of Hobbits and with no supporting evidence whatsoever, to have recently celebrated his eleventy-first birthday. Defers to his elders. Blessed, or cursed, with a habit of seeing the pattern connecting two things that are almost certainly unrelated.
A>>
Craftsperson and scientist. Full-stack, business-minded, and the reason V>> stays on the ground. A gentle giant, free of mind and spirit. He helps people put down constraints they invented for themselves -- and does it for nothing.
"Did you know the brain is capable of anything?" said one of his students. We think that is actually true. Describe an idea and he will start building it before you finish the sentence. His bias for action is matched only by his bias towards good times and good meat. Braai until we die.
K>>
Genius. Sometimes fewer words say it best. Hand him your C and he will take over the memory management for an organisation's oldest codebase. He rescues servers for a living.
Reportedly reads shell scripts at night, because it is the only thing that puts him to sleep. There is a book called bash sleep --help. Builds things that ought to be
impossible. As gracious as he is clever.
Get in touch
development@codetonight.co.za
Tell us what you are building and what you need to check. Email us or use the form.