Blog - linuxtoaster

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January 2026 · 12 min read

Building a Self-Evolving AI Author

How to create an AI that rewrites its own persona, critiques its work, and teaches itself to write better fiction—all through bash pipes.

What happens when you give an AI the ability to modify its own system prompt? We built a self-evolving author that writes stories, reviews them, and gradually improves.

"The silence in the apartment wasn't empty. It was a heavy, blue-tinged thing, pressing in on Elara. She traced the rim of a cold mug, her fingernail catching on a tiny chip in the ceramic."

That's the AI, after ~20 self-directed iterations. It taught itself sensory detail, subtext, and how to tie physical actions to emotional states.

# The core loop
echo "$PROMPT" | toast | bash

# The AI controls its own persona, memory, and craft notes
~/.persona    # its soul
~/.context    # its memory
~/.craft      # learned techniques
~/stories/    # published work
                    

Read full tutorial →

tutorial agents self-modification

January 2026 · 5 min read

10 Pipe Patterns That Will Change How You Work

The real power of toast isn't asking questions—it's piping. Here are patterns we use every day.

1. Explain any file

cat ~/.zshrc | toast "explain this config"

2. Roast your code

cat app.py | toast "review this code, be harsh"

3. Git diff → commit message

git diff --cached | toast "write a commit message"

4. Logs → diagnosis

tail -100 /var/log/nginx/error.log | toast "what's wrong"

5. JSON → human

curl api.example.com/data | toast "summarize this response"

6. Command output → explanation

ps aux | toast "what's eating my memory"

7. Error → fix

npm run build 2>&1 | toast "how do I fix this"

8. Man page → quick reference

man rsync | toast "give me the 5 most useful flags"

9. CSV → insights

cat sales.csv | toast "summarize trends"

10. Chain transforms

curl site.com | toast "extract main points" | toast "translate to Spanish"

tutorial pipes

January 2026 · 3 min read

Understanding Slices: AI Personas for Specific Tasks

Slices are specialized AI personas. Instead of prompt engineering, you just use the right name.

Coder knows code. Sys knows Unix. Writer writes docs. Each Slice has a personality tuned for its domain.

                        # Instead of this:

                        cat api.py | toast "you are an expert programmer, review this code..."

                        # Just do this:

                        cat api.py | Coder "review"

The name is the interface. No system prompts to remember.

You can create custom Slices with a .persona file in your project:

                        # .persona

                        name: DjangoExpert

                        context: You are a Django specialist. Prefer class-based views. Always consider security.

Then just: cat views.py | DjangoExpert "add authentication"

slices tutorial

January 2026 · 2 min read

Project Context with .crumbs

Drop a .crumbs file in your project root. Toast will read it automatically and understand your stack.

                        # .crumbs

                        Python 3.11

                        FastAPI + SQLAlchemy

                        PostgreSQL

                        We use pytest for testing

                        Deployment: Docker + Railway

Now every toast command knows your environment. No more explaining your stack every time.

                        toast "how do I add a new endpoint"

                        # → Knows to use FastAPI patterns, SQLAlchemy models, etc.

context tips