MatrixSwarm Real-Time Agent Resurrection: Socket-Free Ops with Inotify and Pod Protocol

What If Your System Could Heal Itself?

No Docker. No systemd babysitting. No Kubernetes overhead. Just a swarm of raw, folder-born agents watching each other, resurrecting their fallen, and maintaining a live operational tree using the filesystem itself. This is MatrixSwarm.

In this post, you'll learn how to build a socketless, real-time agent orchestration protocol using inotify, ephemeral pods, and JSON-based directives. It's fast. It's fault-tolerant. And it's weirdly beautiful.

🛠️ What We’re Building

You’ll walk away with a working agent architecture that supports:

🎯 Stateless agent spawning from JSON directives

💀 Self-detecting agent death using hello.token/ heartbeat watchers

♻️ Resurrection on failure via spawn_queue/ trigger files

📂 Command delivery via payload/ folders (no sockets needed)

🧠 Matrix as the root coordinator with Sentinel and Scavenger delegation

🧱 Core Concepts

1. Agent Pod Directory Structure

Every agent lives in its own ephemeral folder (e.g., /pod/{uuid}), and its communication structure is rooted at /comm/{permanent_id}.

Each pod includes:

hello.token/ — heartbeat files written by the agent every few seconds

payload/ — incoming command files like stop, restart, or inject

outbox/ — outgoing messages or logs

live.json.enc — encrypted directives passed from Matrix

1. Spawn-on-Failure with Inotify

Sentinel watches its delegated agents’ hello.token/ directories. If no new heartbeat file appears after a timeout, Sentinel:

Triggers a spawn request by writing a file to /spawn_queue/

Matrix picks up the request, reads the permanent_id, and relaunches the agent

The new agent reattaches and resumes heartbeat

1. CLI-Controlled Commands

You can inject commands into an agent’s payload/ directory:

{
"cmd": "replace",
"agent": "sqlite3",
"uuid": "old-uuid",
"directives": {...}
}

Matrix reads it. The tree updates. The agent is killed and replaced live.

🔁 Real Use Cases
Upload folder monitor

GitHub Actions trigger

Discord file drop responder

Email inbox reader

Remote camera frame detector

🔗 Get Started
GitHub: https://github.com/matrixswarm/matrixswarm

Website: https://matrixswarm.com

YouTube: MatrixSwarm OS – Spawn, Kill, Resurrect

X/Twitter: @matrixswarm

📜 Fork It Clause
MatrixSwarm is open.
Fork it.
Or Fork U.
(The swarm is open. Bring tools or get logged.)