Running the autonomous goal agent

Use Arka’s goal agent to run autonomous multi-step terminal tasks — set up environments, debug, refactor, and run tests with step budgets and security gates.

The goal agent runs multi-step tasks autonomously — set up environments, debug, refactor, and run tests with a step budget and security gates.

Usage

arka goal set up a venv, install requests, and run pytest
arka goal -y -n 30 debug why nginx fails
arka goal --butterfish refactor this module and run tests

From zsh/bash (no fish required):

arka goal debug my nginx setup
arka goal -b -y set up venv and run pytest

Engines

Engine	Behavior
auto / arka	Built-in goal agent (default)
butterfish	Launches Butterfish shell (!goal)
legacy	Original JSON loop only
off	Disables goal delegation

GOAL_ENGINE=auto
GOAL_MAX_STEPS=25
GOAL_AUTO_CONTINUE=1
GOAL_OUTPUT_LIMIT=8000

How it works

The goal agent uses a Butterfish-style run/fix loop with shell history, file reads, and security gates. Each step can invoke any registered skill or safe shell command.

Use -y to auto-confirm risky steps only when you trust the environment.

Related

• agent_plan — upfront JSON planning (separate from reactive goal loop)
• arka loop — alias for arka goal when GOAL_ENGINE=auto