Patrick Buckley
bf17b0511e
The console's coord SessionManager had no idle thread — close_idle was never called for coordinator workstreams. This is the worse half of the lifecycle leak: the dashboard filters via the in-memory pool, so DB-only orphan coords were invisible. At empirical diagnosis, coord closure was 16% (10 closed / 64 total) vs interactive 63%. Adds _coord_idle_cleanup_thread mirroring turnstone/server.py's _idle_cleanup_thread but skipping the rate-limiter / global-queue arms the console doesn't have. Started from the lifespan when coord_mgr is constructed and server.workstream_idle_timeout > 0 (reuses the existing setting — same cadence works for both kinds). Initial sweep runs INSIDE the thread before the first sleep, not synchronously in the lifespan: cold-start orphans are reaped without blocking Starlette boot. Important because cold start with many DB orphans (the precise condition this code targets) is exactly when the UPDATE is most likely to be slow. Helper takes an optional stop_event parameter purely for tests — production callers pass None and the daemon runs for process lifetime. This avoids the SystemExit-from-stub + module-wide filterwarnings fragility a previous iteration relied on. Four tests: initial sweep runs before first sleep, ticks fire each loop, exceptions don't kill the thread, stop_event exits cleanly.
Turnstone
Multi-node AI orchestration platform. Deploy tool-using AI agents across a cluster of servers with direct HTTP routing, interactive interfaces, and enterprise governance.
Named after the Ruddy Turnstone (Arenaria interpres) — a shorebird that flips stones to discover what's hiding underneath.
Release Tracks
| Track | Install | Docker | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stable | pip install turnstone |
ghcr.io/turnstonelabs/turnstone:stable |
Production-grade. Bugfixes only. |
| Experimental | pip install turnstone --pre |
ghcr.io/turnstonelabs/turnstone:experimental |
New features. May have rough edges. |
See docs/releasing.md for the full release process.
What it does
Turnstone gives LLMs tools — shell, files, search, web, planning — and orchestrates multi-turn conversations where the model investigates, acts, and reports.
- Interactive sessions — terminal CLI or browser UI with parallel workstreams
- Cluster dashboard — real-time view of all nodes and workstreams with console routing proxy
- Intent validation — LLM judge evaluates every tool call with risk assessments and evidence
- Governance — RBAC, OIDC SSO, tool policies, skills, usage tracking, audit logs
- Multi-provider — OpenAI-compatible APIs (vLLM, llama.cpp, NIM), Anthropic Messages API, and Google Gemini
- MCP support — external tool servers with native deferred loading (Anthropic/OpenAI) or BM25 fallback
Quickstart
pip install turnstone
# Terminal REPL
turnstone --base-url http://localhost:8000/v1
# Browser UI
turnstone-server --port 8080 --base-url http://localhost:8000/v1
# Cluster dashboard
pip install turnstone[console]
turnstone-console --port 8090
For PostgreSQL (recommended for production):
pip install turnstone[postgres]
export TURNSTONE_DB_BACKEND=postgresql
export TURNSTONE_DB_URL="postgresql+psycopg://user:pass@localhost:5432/turnstone"
turnstone-server --port 8080 --base-url http://localhost:8000/v1
Docker
cp .env.example .env # edit LLM_BASE_URL, OPENAI_API_KEY, etc.
docker compose --profile production up
See QUICKSTART.md for the bootstrap wizard and docs/docker.md for Docker configuration and profiles.
Programmatic (SDK)
from turnstone.sdk import TurnstoneServer
with TurnstoneServer("http://localhost:8080", token="tok_xxx") as client:
ws = client.create_workstream(name="demo")
result = client.send_and_wait("Analyze the error logs", ws.ws_id, auto_approve=True)
print(result.content)
Tools
Built-in tools for shell, files, search, web, memory, notifications, and autonomous sub-agents — plus external tools via MCP with native deferred loading. See docs/tools.md for the full reference and docs/mcp-registry.md for MCP configuration.
Architecture
Single-node: Client → Server (direct HTTP + SSE). No external dependencies beyond the database.
Multi-node: Client → Console (rendezvous routing proxy) → Server nodes. The console picks the target node for each workstream via rendezvous (HRW) hashing over the live service registry — pure function of (ws_id, live_nodes), no stored bucket state, deterministic across readers. A node join or drop only re-routes the keys that score highest on the affected node.
| Component | Purpose |
|---|---|
turnstone |
Terminal CLI (REPL) |
turnstone-server |
Web UI + REST API + SSE events |
turnstone-console |
Cluster dashboard + routing proxy + admin panel |
turnstone-channel |
Channel gateway (Discord and Slack adapters) |
turnstone-admin |
User/token management CLI |
turnstone-eval |
Eval harness for prompt/tool optimization |
turnstone-bootstrap |
LLM-guided setup wizard |
Diagrams
UML diagrams in docs/diagrams/:
| Diagram | Description |
|---|---|
| System Context | Components and external dependencies |
| Package Structure | Python modules and dependency graph |
| Core Engine | SessionUI, ChatSession, LLMProvider |
| Conversation Turn | Message lifecycle through the engine |
| Tool Pipeline | Prepare / approve / execute |
| Workstream States | State machine transitions |
| Console Data Flow | Dashboard data collection |
| Deployment | Docker Compose topology |
| Auth | JWT, scopes, login flows |
| Channels | Discord / Slack adapters + routing |
| Judge | Intent validation pipeline |
| OIDC | SSO authorization code flow |
Documentation
| Topic | Link |
|---|---|
| Configuration reference | docs/settings.md |
| API reference | docs/api-reference.md |
| Docker deployment | docs/docker.md |
| Intent validation (judge) | docs/judge.md |
| Governance & RBAC | docs/governance.md |
| OIDC SSO | docs/oidc.md |
| TLS / mTLS | docs/tls.md |
| Channel integrations | docs/channels.md |
| Console dashboard | docs/console.md |
| Eval harness | docs/eval.md |
| Tools reference | docs/tools.md |
| MCP integration | docs/mcp-registry.md |
Requirements
- Python 3.11+
- An OpenAI-compatible API endpoint, Anthropic API key, or Google Gemini API key
- Optional: PostgreSQL (
pip install turnstone[postgres]), Anthropic (pip install turnstone[anthropic]) - Git LFS for cloning (diagram PNGs)
License
Business Source License 1.1 — free for all use except hosting as a managed service. Converts to Apache 2.0 on 2030-03-01.