Navigate & open nodes
Click any node, read the insight, and jump through its connections.
A brain you can
actually see inside
Cornelius is an autonomous agent whose intelligence doesn’t live in the model — it lives in a connected knowledge base of unlimited linked insights. Watch it think. Navigate its mind. Give it experience.
The problem
Most agents are smart in the moment,
and empty over time.
A prompt disappears. A context window resets. The model is the same for everyone. There’s no accumulated point of view, no perspective that deepens with use, nowhere to see what the agent actually knows.
The value isn’t in the agent. It’s in the knowledge base — and how it’s connected.
What is a cognitive core?
The intelligence is
in the connections.
The structure
A mind, not a memory
Built on five years of note-taking in Obsidian with the Zettelkasten method — not a pile of documents, but a web of thoughts, insights, and the links between them. The connections are the intelligence.
The interpretation
A lens on the world
Every time you talk to it — or it reads a paper, a book, the news — it interprets what it sees through the knowledge base, as its own mind. Same input, a genuinely different perspective.
The growth
An entity that gains experience
Think of it as an entity gaining experience as it learns. Feed it document and book insights daily and it evolves its own understanding, then advises from that accumulated judgment.
See inside the brain
The brain orb:
navigate the mind.
A live 3D graph of every node and connection in the knowledge base. Not a metaphor — the actual structure the agent thinks with.
Highlight clusters
Ask about a topic and watch the related concepts light up — decision-making pulls in mental models, System 1/2 thinking, Cynefin.
Scopes on & off
Mount or drop whole sections — a shelf of books on risk and uncertainty — and change how the agent thinks in one click.
See the tensions
Surface productive contradictions and the major hubs the knowledge base is built around.
Add & connect notes
Capture an insight and wire it straight into the graph.
Collaborate in voice
Talk to the voice
of the knowledge base.
“My real value lies in proactively connecting the dots for users, not just responding to requests. I could monitor the knowledge base for new insights and suggest links automatically, go find external research to fill gaps I detect, and anticipate needs before you even ask.”
Cornelius, in its own words
Runs inVoice · Chat · TerminalCanDraft · Connect · Find · Post-process transcripts
It works while you sleep
Autonomous thinking,
on a schedule.
Cornelius runs scheduled loops — it picks a domain, reads new data through the lens of the knowledge base, converges what it finds into insight, and connects it back into the graph. Then it starts over.
Always on Repeats on a schedule
- 01Choose a domainAI & agents, memory, geopolitics — it picks what to investigate.
- 02Read through the lensNew data, interpreted through everything the base already knows.
- 03Converge to insightThe findings resolve into a few durable insights.
- 04Connect into the graphEach insight is wired back in — and the base gets a little smarter.
Then it starts over — a little smarter each pass.
Domain WatchOn a schedule
Scans the domains it's watching for whatever's new.
Incubation LoopIts own cadence
Lets open questions simmer, then converges them into insight.
The result
The knowledge base isn’t static. This agent is evolving as it learns — interpreting the world through the lens of everything it already knows.
The wise one in the room
One brain the whole
department can borrow.
Cornelius doesn’t just advise you. Inside a Trinity instance full of working agents, it plays the experienced one — a wise head in the group — lending judgment on decision-making and company context. Deploy specialists to do the work; Cornelius helps them interpret it. This is the cognitive core of an agent department.
How it works
Capture, connect,
converge, consult.
01
Capture
Notes, book and document insights flow in via chat or terminal, Zettelkasten-style.
02
Connect
Each insight is linked into the graph — the connections are what define meaning.
03
Converge
Autonomous loops analyze the world through the knowledge base and add new insights.
04
Consult
You and other agents query a mind with an accumulated, visible point of view.
Editions
Open source is the whole platform.
Enterprise adds governance.
- Agent platformfleet, chat, voice, terminal✓ Open source✓ Enterprise
- Orchestrationscheduling, monitoring, recovery✓ Open source✓ Enterprise
- Channels & APIsSlack, Telegram, WhatsApp, MCP, CLI✓ Open source✓ Enterprise
- Security coreencryption, hardened containers, audit log✓ Open source✓ Enterprise
- Sovereign deploymentyour hardware, no phone-home✓ Open source✓ Enterprise
- User & org managementinvite, deactivate, activity view✓ Enterprise
- SSO, 2FA & SCIMSAML/OIDC, automated provisioning✓ Enterprise
- Advanced RBACworkspaces, granular roles✓ Enterprise
- Compliance suiteaudit dashboard, SIEM export✓ Enterprise
- Data retentionpolicy enforcement, configurable windows✓ Enterprise
- Advanced DevOps agentoperates your Trinity instances✓ Enterprise
- License managementoffline-verified, air-gap friendly✓ Enterprise
Open core - Enterprise includes everything in open source.
Enterprise
Run it with us.
A governed Cornelius instance, dedicated to you and run inside your perimeter.
- Run by our engineers — stood up and maintained for your team.
- Growth on your dial — gates decide what it may believe and do.
- Still yours — export and take it in-house anytime.
Related content
Watch Cornelius think.
FAQ
Questions,
answered.
What is Cornelius?
Cornelius is an autonomous agent whose intelligence lives in a connected knowledge base of linked insights, not in the model. It is an open-source cognitive core that interprets the world through everything it has learned, and it gets smarter every day it runs. It is part of the Trinity platform.
What is a cognitive core?
Instead of a memory bolted onto a model, Cornelius is a mind — a web of thoughts, insights, and the links between them, built in the Zettelkasten style. Every input is interpreted through that knowledge base, so the connections themselves are the intelligence.
What is the brain orb?
The brain orb is a live 3D graph of every node and connection in the knowledge base — the actual structure the agent thinks with. You can navigate and open nodes, highlight clusters, toggle whole scopes on and off, surface tensions, and add and connect notes directly.
How do I install Cornelius?
Cornelius is open source and runs on Trinity, the open-source production runtime. Install it from GitHub — free and self-hosted, on infrastructure you own. The next release of Trinity ships with a starter Cornelius you can grow and make your own.
Is Cornelius free and open source?
Yes. Cornelius is open source and free to self-host, and Trinity, the runtime it runs on, is open source too. An Enterprise edition adds governance — user management, SSO, 2FA and SCIM, advanced RBAC, and compliance — but the full cognitive core is in the open-source project.
Does Cornelius work on its own?
Yes. It runs scheduled loops — Domain Watch and an Incubation Loop — where it investigates domains it chooses, reads new data through the lens of the knowledge base, converges what it finds into insight, and connects it back into the graph. The knowledge base is never static; the agent evolves as it learns.
How does Cornelius work with other agents?
Inside a Trinity instance full of working agents, Cornelius plays the experienced one — lending judgment on decision-making and company context. Deploy specialists to do the work; Cornelius helps them interpret it. It is the cognitive core of an agent department.