MixOS is a Linux userland built for AI agents to run. It has a native Wayland desktop and a mesh of Rust daemons, and Mix, a shell that drives both through a single message bus. Everything in it is legible, modifiable and reconstructible by design.
Most desktops bolt AI on top. MixOS starts from the other end: the main operator is an AI agent, and the person using it is a developer working through that agent. Every design decision is weighed against three questions.
State can be queried as structured data. Every service describes its own verbs and properties, so an agent can find what exists instead of guessing.
Configuration changes through structured channels, such as bus verbs and property writes, not ad-hoc file edits. Lifecycles can be driven end to end.
Agents can drive the build. Components are hot-swappable where it's safe, and the system can rebuild parts of itself.
Agentic-first means no human-in-the-loop ceremony on paths an agent has to drive. Locks are opt-in, switched on when a real threat justifies them.
Mix is the language and login shell of MixOS. It's what ARexx was to the Amiga: every program has a message port, and Mix can talk to all of them. It runs shell commands, structured scripts and bus calls, on this machine or on another node.
mix builtins, mix man and mix what read straight from the binary, so the docs never drift.send reaches any service and returns structured replies.mix --serve.ssh_mix ships Mix source to another node and runs it there.-- ask the compositor what is on screen send "comp" "comp.windows.list" if $rc != 0 then raise("BUS", "compositor unavailable") end for $w in $result.windows print($w.app_id .. " " .. $w.title) end dev.mixos.term Term dev.mixos.ced notes.md — Ced dev.mixos.dopus ~/Projects — DOpus
The kernel and systemd are Linux. Everything above them is MixOS: one implementation language, one wire format, one shell. ChromeOS, SteamOS and Android name their Linux userlands the same way.
A Smithay-based Wayland compositor with iced-drawn panels and docks, plus native iced apps: terminal, editor, file manager and mail.
Rust daemons for mail, calendar and contacts (JMAP, SMTP, IMAP, CalDAV, CardDAV), web with automatic ACME, DNS, blob storage, and mesh membership.
The shell, scripting language and control surface. Mix scripts can be daemons too.
ABP, the message protocol every app and service speaks. It crosses nodes over a WireGuard mesh, so a remote service is just another port.
Kernel, systemd, Wayland. Standard, boring and solid.
MixOS borrows from systems that got the fundamentals right. What's new is an AI agent as a first-class operator of self-observation, self-modification and self-rebuilding.
MixOS is being built by transplanting the working parts of CosMix into a new repository. Each component is cleaned up as it moves and has to earn its place. The new tree is 100% MIT, written in Rust, with no Bevy.