Robert is designed to teach you about FreeBSD by answering questions from official manual pages and the FreeBSD Handbook. He runs entirely in your terminal and ships as a statically linked, ~3MB binary - no dependencies, no Node.js, no Electron, no browser needed.
Ask questions about FreeBSD in plain English. Robert searches man pages, the Handbook with full-text search, the filesystem, ports, and packages, then answers with cited excerpts from official docs. He runs on DeepSeek and costs pennies to use.
See also:
1. Download the latest release
fetch https://github.com/llmrb/robert/releases/download/v0.11.0/robert
chmod +x robert2. Set your DeepSeek API key
export DEEPSEEK_SECRET="sk-..."3. Run it
./robertRobert chains these tools autonomously: it searches man pages, the FreeBSD user, developer, and porter handbooks, the filesystem, the local ports tree, and the package database; reads files, port metadata, and package metadata; and synthesises answers without hand-holding. It only pauses for confirmation when reading files or searching the filesystem.
| Tool | Description | Confirmation |
|---|---|---|
man-page |
Returns the contents of a man page (optionally by section) | No |
man-search |
Searches manual pages for keywords via apropos |
No |
search-user-handbook |
Searches the FreeBSD user's handbook with full-text search | No |
search-developer-handbook |
Searches the FreeBSD developer's handbook with full-text search | No |
search-porter-handbook |
Searches the FreeBSD porter's handbook with full-text search | No |
read-file |
Reads a file from the filesystem | Yes |
find |
Searches for files and directories from a root path | Yes |
grep |
Searches for text across files below a root path | Yes |
find-port |
Searches a local ports tree for a port name | No |
read-port |
Reads a port's Makefile, pkg-descr, and distinfo |
No |
find-package |
Searches the pkg(8) database for package origins |
No |
read-package |
Reads exact package metadata from the pkg(8) database |
No |
version |
Reports Robert's version number | No |
Robert is built on mruby-llm, the mruby port of llm.rb. The architecture is designed for a single-purpose terminal app:
-
Cooperative task scheduler
The LLM call runs in a worker task while the event loop keeps the UI responsive.
-
Streaming TUI
Tokens arrive from the API and render incrementally in the chat widget, with live tool-call status.
-
Roff sanitisation
Raw man output often includes overstrike sequences (
_\b/for underlined/) or underscore-wrapped paths like_/dev_. Those are stripped before they reach the model, preventing garbled paths. -
Handbook search
Robert can search the FreeBSD user, developer, and porter handbooks with full-text search, then use matching Handbook results alongside manual pages.
-
Ports tree lookup
Robert can search and read a local FreeBSD ports tree. It uses
${PORTSDIR}when set, otherwise/usr/ports. -
Package database lookup
Robert can search and read package metadata from the local
pkg(8)database. -
Grounded answers
The system prompt explicitly forbids using training data. Every claim must cite official FreeBSD documentation via blockquote. Off-topic questions are gently redirected.
The binary is a single C file (main.c) that bootstraps an mruby
VM and loads the compiled irep. The Ruby application code, TUI
framework, HTTP client, TLS, and LLM bindings are all linked
statically. The result is a self-contained 3MB binary.
Pre-built static binaries for FreeBSD 15-STABLE and 16-CURRENT can
be downloaded from GitHub Releases.
Each tagged release publishes a robert binary; the latest release
is v0.11.0.
Robert is an mruby gem built with the mruby-llm runtime.
git clone https://github.com/llmrb/robert.git
cd robert
makeThe Makefile expects an mruby checkout at ../mruby. Override with
MRUBY_DIR=/path/to/mruby if needed. Run make static for a
statically linked binary (~3MB) or make for a dynamically linked
one (~2MB).
This project belongs to the llm.rb family of projects. mruby-llm is a port of llm.rb to mruby.
0BSD.
See LICENSE.