About Aikito

Development Philosophy

Aikito is developed with AI assistance, but it is not an AI-directed project. Its author, Ethan St Lee, has 20 years of experience as a software engineer, architect, and technology director.

Aikito grew out of problems encountered while using coding agents in daily work: memory that did not carry across sessions and knowledge and configuration fragmented across Agents. The workflow and tools were developed to solve those problems in practice.

The author defines the problems, product direction, architecture, and engineering trade-offs; reviews AI output; and remains accountable for the result. AI is an engineering tool here, not a substitute for judgment.

Where the Name Comes From

Aikito grew out of AI kit: AI kit -> aikit -> Aikito.

The name also reflects the author's cross-cultural martial arts interests, including Chinese nunchaku, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Japanese Aikido, Muay Thai, and Filipino balisong. The echo of Aikido fits the project's goal of coordinating different Agents around one canonical source.

The product name is written as Aikito; the CLI, GitHub repository, directories, and configuration identifiers use lowercase aikito.

Follow the Author

Ethan St Lee also writes about AI, software engineering, reading, and durable knowledge practices on WeChat. Search for the official account 不是很南 to follow it.