Athen

Hello! I'm Athen, your universal AI agent. I can execute shell commands, read and write files, manage tasks, and more.

Type a message below to get started.

## LLM Providers

Configure the AI models Athen uses. Changes take effect after restarting the app.

## Memory & Embeddings

Configure how Athen processes and remembers information.

Memory Quality

Auto-detects the best available provider for generating embeddings.

▶ Advanced options
Provider
Model
Base URL
API Key

## Agent Profiles

Specialists that handle different kinds of work. Built-ins ship with Athen and can be cloned to customize. Your own profiles can be edited or deleted freely.

## Tools (MCP)

Toggle which Model Context Protocol servers Athen can use. Enabled tools become available to the agent on the next turn — no restart needed.

## Shell Toolbox

Persistent Python and Node packages the agent installed for itself under `~/.athen/toolbox`. PYTHONPATH and PATH are auto-injected into every shell command, so anything listed here is importable/runnable without further configuration. The agent asks for permission before installing.

## Email Monitor

Connect your email to let Athen monitor and act on incoming messages.

Enable Email Monitoring
IMAP Server
Port
Email / Username
Password / App Password

For Gmail, use an App Password. Your regular password won't work with 2FA.

Use TLS (recommended)
Folders to Monitor

Comma-separated list of IMAP folders.

Poll Interval (seconds)
Lookback (hours)

Only process emails newer than this.

### Outbound (SMTP) — Sending Email

Configure the same account for sending. Athen always asks before sending each email.

SMTP Server
Port

587 for STARTTLS (default), 465 for implicit TLS.

SMTP Username

Usually the same as your email address.

SMTP Password

Same app password works for both IMAP and SMTP on most providers.

Implicit TLS (port 465 only)

Leave unchecked for STARTTLS on port 587.

From Address

What recipients see. Plain "alex@example.com" or "Alex <alex@example.com>" both work.

## Telegram Bot

Create a bot via @BotFather on Telegram, then paste the token here.

Enable Telegram Monitoring
Bot Token

Your Telegram User ID

Messages from this ID get lowest risk. Send /start to @userinfobot to find yours.

Allowed Chat IDs

Only process messages from these chats. Leave empty to accept all.

Poll Interval (seconds)

## Web Search

Athen uses Brave first, falls back to Tavily, and only drops to keyless DuckDuckGo when both are exhausted. Either or both keys are optional — leave them blank to rely on the DDG fallback.

Brave Search API key

2,000 free queries/month. Sign up at api.search.brave.com.

Tavily API key

~1,000 free queries/month, answer-ready snippets. Sign up at tavily.com.

## Notifications

Configure how Athen contacts you for important events and approvals.

Channel Priority

Order in which channels are tried. First channel is preferred.

Escalation Timeout (seconds)

Wait this long before trying the next channel when no response.

Enable Quiet Hours
Start
:
End
:
Allow critical notifications during quiet hours

## Security

Security Mode

Standard risk evaluation. The agent asks for approval on risky actions.

## Permissions

Directories Athen can access without asking. Global grants apply to every conversation; arc grants only apply to the current arc.

### Global grants

No global grants yet.

### Arc grants (current conversation)

No grants for this arc.

👤

No contacts yet.

Contacts are automatically created when Athen receives messages from new senders.

## New Contact

Name
Trust Level
Identifiers

No notifications yet

## New Event

Title
Date
All day
Start
End
Location
Description
Category
Color
Reminder
Recurrence

## New Profile

Display name
ID (letters, numbers, underscores)
Description
Persona instructions
Domains
Task kinds
Strengths (free-form, comma separated)
Avoid (task kinds this agent shouldn't be routed to)
Model hint (optional — defaults to your active model)

Read

## Allow access?

Tool
Scope For this conversation
1. Brain 2. Memory 3. Search 4. Runtimes 5. Ready

# Welcome to Athen

Athen is a universal AI agent that lives on your machine. It watches your inbox, calendar and messages, decides what needs doing, and acts — asking only when the stakes are high.

Two questions and you're set: which model should think, and how should it remember things. Takes about a minute.

# Pick your AI brain

Athen needs a language model to think with. Run one locally for free and total privacy, or paste a cloud key for the strongest models.

# Local model setup

Which server?
Server URL Model name (optional, leave empty for default)

# Cloud provider setup

Provider
API key Model (optional, leave empty for default)

# How should Athen build memory?

Athen indexes everything you tell it so it can recall context across conversations. Pick how those embeddings get computed — you can change this later in settings.

API key Server URL Model (optional)

# Web search (recommended)

Athen can search the web to back up its answers and check facts. A keyless DuckDuckGo fallback is built in, but it rate-limits often — plug in a free Brave or Tavily key for far better results. You can add both: Athen uses whichever is available.

Where do I get these keys?

- Brave: sign up at `api.search.brave.com` — 2,000 free queries/month, no card required.
- Tavily: sign up at `tavily.com` — ~1,000 free queries/month, answer-ready snippets.

Brave Search API key (optional) Tavily API key (optional)

# Python & Node

Athen installs and runs small scripts to do things like parse PDFs, build charts, or scrape pages. It needs Python and Node for that. If they're missing, Athen can drop portable copies into its own folder — no system install, nothing else touched.

Python Checking…
Node.js Checking…

You can do this later from Settings if you'd rather skip for now.

# You're all set

Athen is ready. Open Settings any time to add email, Telegram, or swap the model and embeddings you just picked.

Try asking it to:

- "Read this PDF and pull out the action items"
- "What's on my schedule this week?"
- "Draft a reply to the latest email from Sam"