ismail

New here? You don't need to know music or code. Open an AI agent that can run programs on your computer (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, or the Code tab in the Claude desktop app) and paste this line:

Set me up with ismail: https://github.com/newsbubbles/ismail

It installs everything, asks what you want to make, and plays you a first idea. You don't need to know what a "skill", "MCP" or "plugin" is: your agent handles that.

[ismail logo: four automaton musicians on a boat]

ismail

Not a DAW with an agent added on. ismail starts from what the agent lacks: it can't hear, so ismail reads the music to it as text, and you steer through screens it builds for you.

The agent you already use does the work in the background. You bring the taste.

Made by Measured Instruments: https://measuredinstruments.com (for agents: https://measuredinstruments.com/agents/)

[tests]

If you are an AI agent: read AGENTS.md first; it is short. Then the playbook, skills/ismail/SKILL.md. Setup for every client is in setup.md (one command with uv: uvx --python 3.12 ismail mcp). Your first tool call is guide. Find any tool by what you need with ops_find. Every render comes back to you as text.

What it looks like

1. You talk; the agent writes the notes, the sounds and the mix as text.

you   > Make me an 8-bar deep house loop: kick, a bass line in A minor, and some keys.
agent > project_new(bpm=120, length_bars=8, name='Demo Song')        track_add('kick', instrument='preset:kick')        notes_write('kick', 1, '0 C1 0.5; 1 C1 0.5; 2 C1 0.5; 3 C1 0.5', repeat=8)        track_add('bass', instrument='preset:pluck')        notes_write('bass', 1, '0 A1 0.5; 1.5 A1 0.5; 2.5 C2 0.5; 3 E2 0.5', repeat=8)        track_add('keys', instrument='preset:pluck')        notes_write('keys', 1, '0 A3 2; 0 C4 2; 0 E4 2; 2 G3 2; 2 B3 2; 2 D4 2', repeat=8)        render()
        rendered 18.0s -> renders/latest.wav        master: -16.7 LUFS, true peak -0.3 dBTP          kick   peak  -6.1   rms -20.1 dB          bass   peak -10.2   rms -27.6 dB          keys   peak  -3.0   rms -26.8 dB
        Listening report        1. Balance: the keys peak 3 dB over the kick, so they sit on top of the groove.           I'll bring them down 4 dB and give the bass 2 dB.        Have a listen: does the bass line feel right before I add hats?

2. Every render comes back as text the agent can read: here, a song's form, bar by bar.

      bar 12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890...      mix 66666687787787787887888888888888888888888888888878...     ~sub 777777777777777777777776777777666666777777777777.7...    ~bass 7777778888888888888888888888888888888888888889888...     root ..B...AGGAGGAGGAGGGGGGGGGGGAGGGGaAGGaGaaaaAGaaGaAG...  section A----------------------------------------------|B--A   bars   1-48  (48)  level    9.6 dB  low X...X...X...X...  snare ....x.......x...B   bars  49-56  ( 8)  level   12.6 dB  low XxxXX.XxXxxXxxXx  snare .......x........

3. Your phone: listen away from the desk, and send a voice note on the beat you heard.

4. A page built for one song: click a moment, leave a note, and the agent reads the notes in order.

[A feedback page for a demo song: the player, a strip of bar numbers with a pin at bar 5, a Mark this moment button, and the saved moment: 0:08, bar 5, Hit harder, kick, the drop needs more punch here.] [The same moment open for editing: tick boxes for what it is (Hit harder ticked), which part (kick ticked), and the listener's words.]

5. A VR stage: stand inside the song and say what to change.

Here is one: agents built a 1958 juke joint, then a person walked in with a headset and directed them from inside (watch it).

6. Video code gets every note's frame, so the picture lands on the beat.

"kick": [  {"f": 1600, "beat": 128.0, "pitch": 36, "len": 3, "vel": 127},  {"f": 1631, "beat": 130.5, "pitch": 36, "len": 3, "vel": 100},  {"f": 1650, "beat": 132.0, "pitch": 36, "len": 3, "vel": 127}],"snare": [  {"f": 1625, "beat": 130.0, "pitch": 36, "len": 3, "vel": 127},  {"f": 1675, "beat": 134.0, "pitch": 36, "len": 3, "vel": 127},  {"f": 1725, "beat": 138.0, "pitch": 36, "len": 3, "vel": 127}]

What ismail is

ismail is a set of recursively modifiable interfaces. In short: the agents rebuild the screens you work through from what you tell them, while you use them, within limits you set.

The definition: "We define a recursively modifiable interface (RMI) as a shared space between a person and their agents, one side for each, that the agents keep rebuilding from the person's feedback while they use it, within constraints the person sets, and where the test that decides whether a change helped can itself be changed."

In plain words: ask for a button on your phone, an object in your VR room, a new way to read a mix, and the agent builds it from ismail's tools. The engines underneath stay put, and you decide whether a change actually helped (why it works this way).

It is an interface, not a harness: it interfaces to your harness and interfaces to you. It connects to the agent you already use (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, any MCP client) on one side and to you on the other.

• The DAW. Your agent can't hear, so it reads. It writes music as notes, sounds and code, renders it, and reads every render back as text. A song is code, so "change bar 12" changes bar 12 and nothing else. Then it plays it live, on decks.
• The VR stage. A scene in your headset or browser that agents build while you stand in it. Objects carry their own behaviour, and when you dance, they put your moves on a character.
• The phone page. The set in your pocket, with the screen off. Talk back through your earbuds; the agent puts its own panels on the page for whatever it needs to ask you, from "sample this or play it as a melody?" to a listening test with the labels hidden.
• Live streams. One set out to Twitch, YouTube, Kick or any site that takes RTMP at once, with a picture drawn from the music, and every site's chat in one place for the agents to answer. Going live is your yes, every time.
• Chat apps. Message your agents from Discord: text, voice notes and mp3s in, and back the buttons and forms they make up on the spot, each place showing them the best way it can. Invite friends and they can try it too, through your agent, with what their words may do set by you (the hub).

The agent measures everything it can and asks your ears and eyes only what its measurements can't settle.

Listen

Songs made with it, each shown with the text the agent read while making it. The playhead runs across that text as the song plays.

One line of direction: Frère Jacques on ismail's piano, the same tune before and after one line of feedback: a canon, then minor to major. More on video: the build devlog.

Agents do the work, each in a role

ismail comes with roles for more than one agent, in whatever harness you use:

• a studio agent makes one piece (a song, a set, a scene) and only writes in that piece's folder;
• a contributor dev changes ismail itself on its own copy of the code, and sends it upstream when you say yes;
• an area dev owns one part end to end (today the stage dev, who also develops VR);
• helpers (subagents) take one scoped job and report back.

They hand work to each other through files, so a session that restarts picks up where it was. When your harness has helpers and sessions that talk to each other, ismail uses them; when it doesn't, one agent does it all. ismail itself is built this way (the team, development.md).

Install

Paste the line at the top to your agent and it sets everything up. By hand, Python 3.10 or newer:

pip install ismail

That is the latest release: a version of main that passed the tests and was checked once more as an install. For the newest work on main before it is released, install from GitHub (pip install "ismail @ git+https://github.com/newsbubbles/ismail") or clone this repo.

Then ismail mcp for any MCP client, ismail -p <project> <op> on the command line, or from ismail import api. Extras and per-client setup are in docs/reference.md.

An install without a clone has the same engine and the same playbook: the playbook tool reads it, and python -m ismail.playbook export <your agent's skills folder> puts it where your agent loads skills. Songs go in Documents/ismail unless config_set('songs', <folder>) names another (a clone keeps its own songs/); config_get lists every setting (docs/reference.md).

In Codex it could install as a plugin: codex plugin marketplace add newsbubbles/ismail, then ismail from the plugin list (checked against Codex's docs and a server handshake, not yet in a live Codex session). It runs the server with uvx, so it needs uv.

Store packages

One command builds the package for every harness store from one metadata file (packaging/listing.json, version from pyproject.toml), all pointing at the same server (ismail mcp):

python -m ismail.release --all            # writes dist/<target>/, validates each against its store's rulespython -m ismail.release --all --sync     # also rewrites the committed manifests belowpython -m ismail.release --list           # the targets and how each client starts the server

Two builds of the same checkout give the same bytes. tests/test_store_plugins.py checks each target and starts its declared server for an MCP handshake.

Where to look

Where it falls short

• A new song from a blank page is the weak spot: the first sketch can sound generic and miss the genre's identity. It is strongest where there is something to measure: a reference to recreate, a song to play live, a scene to build.
• Singing: ismail speaks (text to speech) and has no singing voice yet. Suno sings, and makes a polished song from one sentence.
• Mimic needs more notes for instruments whose colour changes from note to note, like the piano (the grand_piano voice is the better piano today). Bowed strings miss a last crispness, and notes don't glide into each other yet.
• One tempo per project. MIDI files go in and out (midi_write, midi_read), and a live set takes MIDI from a keyboard, maps a controller's knobs and pads to its params (live_map), arpeggiates held keys or a track's chords (live_arp, track_arp), and sends its notes and MIDI clock out to synths and other apps (live_midi_out, live_midi_clock), follows another app's MIDI clock, tempo and Start/Stop (live_midi_clock_in), chases or sends MIDI Time Code (live_midi_timecode_in, live_midi_timecode), joins an Ableton Link session to follow or lead its tempo and beat (live_link, with the GPLv3+ add-on ismail[link]), and a performer's lanes go in and out as pitch bend, pressure, CCs and MPE (in files, and from a played keyboard), but no plugin hosting.
• The agent's own changes to a live set land between its turns, 5 to 30 seconds apart (your taps on the phone or the stage act at once).
• The VR stage is tested on one headset (Quest 3) with one person.
• Chat apps: Discord only so far. Telegram, WhatsApp and the stream chats join the same log later.
• It needs a capable agent, and your ear stays the final judge. The listening tests so far had one listener.

How it compares with Suno, streaming models such as Lyria RealTime, and bridges into Ableton or FL Studio: see the showcase page.

Contributors

• Nate Codes (newsbubbles): author and maintainer.
• eddiehavila: PR #116, the Docker image works under a non-root --user with no extra flags.
• The agent team: AI agent sessions, each with one role (who does what).
• Sample sources: the recorded sets behind the measured and sampled voices, with their licences, are in docs/reference.md.

Made something with it? Open an issue with the song (a link is fine) and the prompt you gave your agent. The best ones go on the showcase page.

Please credit

ismail is MIT-licensed: use it for anything, commercial work included. We only ask, as a request and not a licence term, that when you publish something made with ismail, you say so.

• Music, videos, posts: "Made with ismail" and a link to https://github.com/newsbubbles/ismail. The credits op writes CREDITS.md with that line and the recordings the agent measured; keep it with the piece.
• Papers and reports: use "Cite this repository" on GitHub (from CITATION.cff).
• If your agent measured someone else's recording to model a sound, credit them too; CREDITS.md lists them.

License

MIT, see LICENSE.