Agent Plugins for HiveMind

HiveMind is just a transport protocol, it moves BUS messages between devices and services. On its own, HiveMind doesn’t decide what those messages mean or what to do with them.

That responsibility is delegated to Agent Plugins.

Agents are the abstraction layer that give purpose to a HiveMind node: they receive incoming messages and define how to handle them.

What is an Agent Plugin?

An Agent Plugin tells HiveMind what to do once a message arrives.

Most agents handle text-based input/output (e.g., utterances, chat-like responses), but the system is flexible enough that agents can perform completely different tasks.

Each node in a HiveMind network loads exactly one agent plugin, which defines that node’s behavior.

Available Agent Plugins

🔹 OVOS Bus Client Agent

  • Provided by ovos-bus-client
  • Connects hivemind-core to a local ovos-core instance (must run on the same device).
  • Effectively turns an existing OVOS installation into a HiveMind Hub.
  • Satellites can forward utterances to the hub, and the hub returns responses via HiveMind.

🔹 Persona Agent

  • Provided by ovos-persona
  • Loads a persona (often backed by an LLM or chatbot) instead of a full OVOS core.
  • Allows lightweight HiveMind nodes to act as conversational agents without needing the full OVOS stack.
  • Useful for multi-agent experimentation, or when you want a node that speaks with a distinct "personality."

Learn more about OVOS personas

🔹 Media Player Agent

  • Special-case agent focused on media playback control.
  • Does not handle natural language queries.
  • Instead, it reacts to OVOS bus messages related to media (play, pause, stop, next, etc.).
  • Exposes HiveMind devices as media players to frameworks such as Home Assistant
  • Implemented as an agent plugin for technical consistency, but demonstrates HiveMind’s flexibility: not all agents need to be conversational.

Why Agent Plugins Matter

  • They separate transport from behavior

  • HiveMind moves messages around.

  • Agents decide what to do with them.

  • They make HiveMind extensible

  • Want a chatbot? Use the Persona Agent.

  • Want a full assistant hub? Use the OVOS Bus Client Agent.

  • Want a network-controlled speaker? Use the Media Player Agent.

  • They illustrate the design philosophy: HiveMind doesn’t care what your node is, only that it can communicate.