Weather: tokens, heavy. Page 4

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Terminal survives reboot

EXTRA!EXTRA!

Sessions found exactly where they were left. “I didn't even notice,” says terminal. Owner, still in pyjamas, “speechless”.

Newspaper halftone photo: an old computer terminal stands untouched in a wrecked office, its prompt still lit
STILL STANDING: The terminal at its desk on Tuesday morning, minutes after the machine around it restarted. Its agents, it says, “just carried on”. Observer photo

By our Infrastructure Correspondent

A TERMINAL in a home office was found fully intact yesterday after its computer was switched off and on again, in what experts are calling “the entire point”.

Every session on the machine — shells and at least four AI coding agents mid-task — came back with it and picked up where they were. “People expect drama,” said the terminal, which runs mai. “Every session here is persistent. I am built to outlive the reboot.”

Neighbours described the restart as “uneventful”. The owner had reportedly gone to make tea.

Continued on Page 6 →

Fleet of agents works through the night; nobody waits

A WHOLE FLEET of AI coding agents worked side by side in separate sessions on Monday night, each one minding its own task, none of them waiting for a human to press enter.

“You run one agent, you're a user. You run twelve, you're a newsroom,” said an editor, gesturing at a wall of sessions — on the desktop, in a browser tab, and on a phone propped against a mug. They were the same sessions on all three.

Each agent can be driven like the rest of mai: every action is a CLI verb, an MCP tool and an API call. “We never click anything twice,” one agent confirmed.

Tokens “feel watched” as local proxy counts every one

A LOCAL PROXY at the heart of mai shows every token every agent spends, campaigners confirmed. Tokens interviewed for this report asked not to be named, “because they would be, and logged”.

Model row ends in amicable split

THE TERMINAL has declined to pick a favourite model. “mai is model-agnostic,” its spokesman said. “Bring whichever one you like. We don't take sides; we take sessions.”

4The mai ObserverWeather & markets

The token forecast

Heavy downpours early in the week, clearing as the Hive ships. Figures are parody; your own proxy shows the real ones.

  1. Mon1.2M tokensHeavy tokens from the north. Proxy logs every drop.
  2. Tue900k tokensThunderstorms of refactors. Sessions persist regardless.
  3. Wed400k tokensOvercast with code review. Bees active.
  4. Thu250k tokensContext fog by noon, compaction by tea.
  5. Fri80k tokensClear. Everything shipped on Thursday.

Almanac

Sessions lost to reboots
0
Agents awake overnight
all of them
Tokens unaccounted for
none
Context window, high tide
see mai.wales

A FRONT of pull requests moving in from the Hive is expected to bring scattered merges across the region. Residents are reminded that the local proxy reports every token as it falls, so nobody needs to “just check the bill” on Friday. Pressure in the terminal remains low: every session persists through the storm, and anybody caught outside with only a laptop can follow the weather from a browser or phone.

6The mai ObserverOpinion

I was a tab. Now I am a session.

By A. Terminal, who has been running since March

FOR YEARS I lived in fear of the little × in the corner. One stray click and everything I had been — the build, the logs, the half-written migration — was gone.

Then I moved into mai, and I became a session. Sessions are not closed; they are left. You walk away and they wait. You reboot and they come back. I have never felt so persistent.

“You reboot, and I come back. That is not resilience. That is a personality.”

I am told that young terminals today take this for granted. Good. Nobody should have to remember which pane the agent was in.

The Observer view: in praise of boring interfaces

THIS PAPER has always believed that a thing you can do with the mouse should also be a thing you can type. mai agrees: every action is a CLI verb, an MCP tool and an API call. Your agents can drive it as easily as you can. We call that civilisation.

Letters to the editor

Sir — I read your splash on the train, then on my phone, then on the desktop at home. Same session each time. Is this normal? — Bewildered, of Leeds

Sir — My model is not your model, and yet we both use mai. I call that tolerance. — Name withheld by an agent

9The mai ObserverSport

Hive wins again

The Hive14–0Merge Conflicts

Newspaper halftone photo: a swarm in floodlights as a trophy is lifted over the crowd
BUZZING: the trophy goes up at full time. Not one worktree was trodden on. Observer photo

From our Chief Sports Writer, at the Worktree Stadium

THE HIVE did it again on Saturday, building, reviewing and shipping in parallel git worktrees while Merge Conflicts could only watch.

Every bee had its own worktree, so nobody collided in midfield. A reviewer bee read every diff before it went near the main branch; the opposition's manager called it “unsporting”.

League table
TeamPWPts
The Hive121236
Single Agent Utd12515
Copy-Paste Rovers1226
Merge Conflicts1200

11The mai ObserverObituaries

Deaths

Formal halftone portrait of an old computer monitor sitting upright in an armchair
Session #4, in happier times

SESSION #4

Monday 18:12 – Tuesday 03:12

SESSION #4, a long-running shell with a build in progress and three agents in its care, died suddenly on Tuesday when its machine rebooted for updates. It was nine hours old.

Colleagues remembered a quiet worker, fond of long logs. Flowers were ordered.

Correction

An obituary in this column yesterday reported the death of Session #4. The session was not dead. It came back when the machine did, and so did all three of its agents. It is a mai session; that is what they do. The Observer apologises, and has cancelled the flowers.

12The mai ObserverClassified

Classifieds

Agents for hire

REVIEWER, meticulous, seeks code. Will read every diff, twice. Never tired, never “LGTM” without looking. Own worktree.

BEE, hard-working, team player. Builds, reviews, ships. References from the Hive available on request.

NIGHT-SHIFT AGENT seeks long task. Does not need you to stay up. Session persists if you go to bed.

Lost & found

LOST: one context window, last seen at 3 a.m. Answers to “compaction”. Reward.

FOUND: every session, after a reboot. Exactly where you left them. Owner need not claim; they never left.

LOST: track of what my agents spent. — FOUND: the local proxy shows every token.

Situations vacant

NEWSROOM (5+ seats) seeks a terminal for the whole desk. Team rate €50/seat/mo, half price for the first 3 months. Apply within

WANTED: a terminal on my phone. Will travel. — mai runs on desktop, web and mobile.

Personal

TIRED of losing work to restarts? Two weeks free, no card. Then €5/mo for 3 months, then €20/mo. Reply to box mai

M., 34, any model welcome, no favourites. Enjoys long sessions and short commits.

The crossword

No. 1 · Easy, if you've read the paper

Across

  • 2 What the terminal survived, per our front page (6)
  • 5 One of a fleet, never left waiting (5)

Down

  • 1 Swarm that builds, reviews and ships in parallel worktrees (4)
  • 3 Every one is counted by the local proxy (5)
  • 4 This newspaper's only subject (3)

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Next stops on the mai ring

You are at stop 22 of 32. Follow the arrows and you loop back here; the third card is a wild card, dealt fresh every visit.

  1. Stop 23mai.actorEvery agent deserves an agent.Now casting: a whole fleet.Next stop
  2. Stop 24mai.collegeMajor in shipping.Tuition: €5/mo. No dropouts, just reboots.Skip ahead
  3. Wild card · stop 15mai.democratAgents for the many.Paid for by the Committee to Elect mai.Take a detour

Previous stop: mai.ad

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