Example: an Agent that improves itself (local, on an AMD GPU via Ollama)

This example is the "Recursive Self-Improvement" pillar in runnable code. Using only the PenguinHarness SDK, it runs one turn of the self-improvement loop:

Evaluate a constrained writing task and score it against a rubric.
Diagnose which rubric points were lost (from the run itself).
Edit the agent's own AGENTS.md to address the failure (version N+1).
Re-evaluate the same task and keep the change only if the score improved.

Everything runs on a local open-weight model — qwen3:8b served by Ollama — so no cloud API and no data leaving the machine. Ollama's ROCm backend runs this natively on AMD GPUs.

Why a deterministic rubric, and why averaging

The rubric is plain code you can read (score() in self-improve.ts): file actually written · overview ≤ 2 sentences · exactly 3 bullets · under 60 words · key facts present. No hidden judge — the before/after numbers are objective and reproducible. In the full product the Evaluator is driven by the agent-evaluation skill against a private rubric; this example distills that idea to its runnable core.
A local model is nondeterministic, so the example runs each version several times and averages — which is exactly why real benchmarks use a runs count per case. A single run can swing; the mean is what tells you whether the edit actually helped.

1–2. Serve the model and point PenguinHarness at it

export HIP_VISIBLE_DEVICES=0        # optional: pin a specific AMD GPU
ollama serve &
ollama pull qwen3:8b

penguin config model add \
  --model-id qwen3:8b \
  --provider custom --client-type openai \
  --base-url http://localhost:11434/v1 \
  --api-key ollama --set-default

3. Run the example

pnpm install
pnpm build
pnpm --dir examples/self-improving-agent start
# or directly:  npx tsx examples/self-improving-agent/self-improve.ts

What you should see

BASELINE (blank AGENTS.md): 3 runs
  run 1: 0/5
  run 2: 0/5
  run 3: 0/5
  BASELINE mean: 0.00/5
N+1 (with working discipline): 3 runs
  run 1: 5/5
  run 2: 5/5
  run 3: 5/5
  N+1 mean: 5.00/5
=== Self-improvement result ===
  baseline: 0.00/5   →   N+1: 5.00/5
  Mean score improved — keep version N+1. ✔

With a blank AGENTS.md, qwen3:8b tends to narrate the summary in chat and never call the tool to write the file — so the rubric scores it 0. Adding a short "working discipline" section (read first, restate the constraints, actually write the file, self-check) flips that. Exact numbers vary run to run; the averaged direction is the point.

Notes

Uses a dedicated agent id (self-improve-demo), created on the fly — your own agents are untouched.
Re-running updates that demo agent in place.

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