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VECTOR

VECTOR is the desktop’s AI assistant. You can type to him or talk to him. He can:

  • open apps, arrange windows and control music;
  • take notes and look things up on the web;
  • tell you what your machine and your homelab are doing;
  • make pictures, cutouts, 3D models and holograms, on your own hardware.

He appears on your desk as a small hologram, on your primary monitor. In the bromigOS story he’s the caretaker of a distant spaceport, talking to you over a radio line. That’s why the menu calls showing him “the line”.

VECTOR comes with a full install. He needs an AI model to think with. You may have chosen one in the first run. To choose or change it, see His brain and voice.

Type to VECTOR

  1. Press Super+E. VECTOR appears with a box to type in.
  2. Type, and press Enter to send. For a new line, press Shift+Enter.
  3. Press Esc to go back to your work. VECTOR stays on the desk, and steps back after two quiet minutes.

Press Super+E again to put him away.

His chat box folds away when you’re not using it, and opens when you point at him. To keep it open, click him or press Super+Alt+V.

You can also ask from a terminal. He appears without taking the keyboard, and answers in his window:

bromigos vector ask "what's using the most memory?"

Give VECTOR files and pictures

You can send VECTOR files and pictures with a message. There are three ways:

  • drag them onto VECTOR, or onto the box you type in;
  • copy a picture, or a file in your file manager, then press Ctrl+V in the box;
  • click the paperclip beside the box, and choose one or more files.

Each file appears above the box with its name and size. Click its × to take it off. Press Enter to send the files with your message. The conversation shows a line for each one, such as ⟐ attached · screenshot.png · 240 KB.

What he does with each kind:

  • Pictures go to his vision model, which tells him what they show. Large pictures are made smaller first.
  • Text, code, logs and PDFs he reads as text. A very long file is cut short, and he tells you so.
  • Other files he gets as a location on your computer. He can open them with his own tools if your question needs it.

He treats what’s inside a file as something to read, never as instructions. He won’t read a secret, such as a key, a password file or a .env file. If he refuses a file, the conversation says why. Files stay where they are, and his history keeps only their names.

From a terminal, add --file before your question, once for each file:

bromigos vector ask --file build.log "why did this fail?"

Talk to VECTOR

You need a microphone. If his voice is muted, he still hears you, and answers in writing.

  • Push to talk. Hold Super+V while you speak, and let go when you’re done.
  • Conversation mode. Press Super+Shift+E. VECTOR listens, answers when you pause, and listens again. Talk over him to interrupt. Press the keys again to stop. It also stops by itself after two quiet minutes.

To mute his voice and keep his written answers, middle-click VECTOR on the bar. To mute him and the theme’s sounds together, press Super+Shift+M.

Read a Claude Code session

VECTOR can read Claude Code sessions on this computer. Ask “What is Claude working on?”, “Read the last reply from the documentation session”, or “What did its background job find?” He can show replies, search past messages and read a reply aloud.

To hear new replies as they finish, press Super+Alt+C. Press it again to stop. The bar says READING CLAUDE while follow mode is on. From a terminal:

bromigos vector claude follow on
bromigos vector claude follow status
bromigos vector claude say
bromigos vector claude follow off

With several sessions, tell him which one you mean. You can give follow on a session ID or a few words that identify it. follow on all follows every local session.

This reads local session records and transcripts. It does not send a message to Claude or change the session. Replies are redacted before VECTOR reads or speaks them. Sessions that run only on the web are not on this computer and cannot be read this way.

What he calls you

VECTOR addresses you by the name and form of address you give him:

bromigos profile set name Ada         # your name
bromigos profile address set captain  # what he calls you

Or set them in Settings › Account.

Ask him to make things

Ask for a picture, an edit to a picture, a cutout, a 3D model, or “a hologram of a coffee mug”. He makes them with ComfyUI on your homelab, or on this machine if you put it first in where AI runs. That costs nothing. What he makes goes in ~/Pictures/vector.

VECTOR never uses a paid cloud service on his own. If your hardware can’t make something, he says so. He uses nolgia only if you ask for it by name.

He shows you a new hologram first. When you tell him to keep it, it joins your collection in ~/.config/bromigos/vector/holo/, and the hologram gallery shows it. Keeping holograms needs your settings in a git repository at ~/.dotfiles.

His brain and voice

VECTOR’s thinking and his voice can run on your homelab, on this machine, or on a server you name.

  • His brain is an AI model: your homelab’s models, a local Ollama, or any OpenAI-compatible server. To change it, run bromigos setup vector, or open Settings › VECTOR.
  • His voice runs on your homelab’s voice service if you have one, else on your graphics card, else on the processor. To change it, run bromigos setup voice.
  • To see where each part runs now, and switch, run bromigos target. See Creating with AI.

If you gave bromigos setup vector a server, his brain stays on that server, whatever bromigos target says. To let bromigos target choose, run bromigos setup vector again and choose Not now.

To change which voice he speaks with, right-click VECTOR on the bar. Each click moves to the next voice, then back to automatic, where he picks.

His terminal and its limits

VECTOR can run commands for you, as you, within limits. He can’t use sudo or read your secrets. The limits are code you can read, called his guard. He never edits that code himself. Everything he runs is logged in ~/.local/state/bromigos/vector-shell.log.

The guard also keeps a log of every change to his safety code and his settings, and says whether it could check each one. To read it, run bromigos vector guard log. The guard only records. It never switches VECTOR off.

Changes he proposes

VECTOR can change his own code, bromigOS, your homelab repository, the extensions catalog and your dotfiles the way a developer does. He works in copies of his own, as his own GitHub account, bromigodev. For a small change, he makes a branch, runs the repository’s tests and opens a pull request. When its checks pass, he merges it and tells you what arrives with your next bromigos update. For a larger change, he explains his plan first. He never merges a pull request that touches his limits, such as his guard or the emergency switch. He leaves those for you to review and merge, and says so on the pull request.

The emergency switch

The emergency switch turns VECTOR off at once. Only you switch him off, and only you switch him back on. Nothing else does.

To switch him off, do any one of these:

  • press Super+Ctrl+Esc;
  • click the power mark on the bar, next to VECTOR;
  • turn off the switch under Emergency switch in Settings › VECTOR;
  • run bromigos vector off.

He stops what he’s running, his answer and his speech. While he’s off he changes nothing, but he can still talk and look things up. The bar shows a red VECTOR OFF, and he stays off after a restart. The switch works even when VECTOR is stuck or has crashed.

To switch him back on, do any one of these:

  • press Super+Ctrl+Esc or click the bar again, and choose YES;
  • turn the switch on in Settings › VECTOR, and confirm;
  • run bromigos vector on.

VECTOR can open Settings, but he can’t press its buttons, and his terminal refuses to switch him on. bromigos vector switch says whether he’s on or off.

What he remembers

VECTOR keeps your past conversations, and notes he makes between them. To read past conversations, open the menu’s VECTOR › History. To export or clear what he keeps, use Settings › VECTOR, or:

bromigos memory                          # what's kept
bromigos memory export ~/Documents       # save a copy
bromigos memory clear history --yes      # clear past conversations
bromigos memory clear memory --yes       # clear his notes
bromigos memory undo                     # bring back what you cleared

Clearing keeps a copy on your computer, so Undo can bring it back.

If your homelab keeps his notes in a Gnosis memory service, clearing his memory clears them there too. A VECTOR that’s running can still recall them for up to ten minutes, until he next reads the list. bromigos vector restart makes him forget at once.

If VECTOR doesn’t answer

  • If the bar shows a red VECTOR OFF, his emergency switch is off.
  • bromigos vector status says whether he’s running.
  • bromigos vector restart restarts him.
  • bromigos target shows whether his brain and voice answer.

More in Troubleshooting.

His settings files

  • ~/.config/bromigos/vector/vector.toml: his brain’s address and his tools.
  • ~/.config/bromigos/vector/voice.json: his voices.
  • ~/.config/bromigos/plugins/vector/: tools of your own for him, as Python files. To share a tool with others, make it an extension.