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Profiles: Running Multiple Agents

Run multiple independent Kova agents on the same machine — each with its own config, API keys, memory, sessions, skills, and gateway state.

What are profiles?​

A profile is a separate Kova home directory. Each profile gets its own directory containing its own config.yaml, .env, SOUL.md, memories, sessions, skills, cron jobs, and state database. Profiles let you run separate agents for different purposes — a coding assistant, a personal bot, a research agent — without mixing up Kova state.

Give every agent its own profile

Never point two agent processes at the same profile (the same Kova home). Both write memory automatically, and each loads the other's writes into its system prompt at session start — so two writers on one home compound each other's state until it stops being anything you configured. Profiles exist exactly to prevent this; agents that need shared memory should use an external memory provider instead.

When you create a profile, it automatically becomes its own command. Create a profile called coder and you immediately have coder chat, coder setup, coder gateway start, etc.

Quick start​

kova profile create coder       # creates profile + "coder" command alias
coder setup                       # configure API keys and model
coder chat                        # start chatting

That's it. coder is now its own Kova profile with its own config, memory, and state.

Creating a profile​

tip

Quickest setup: run kova setup --portal inside the new profile to wire up models + tools at once. See Nous Portal.

Blank profile​

kova profile create mybot

Creates a fresh profile with bundled skills seeded. Run mybot setup to configure API keys, model, and gateway tokens.

If you plan to use this profile as a kanban worker (or want the kanban orchestrator to route work to it), pass --description "<role>" at create time so the orchestrator knows what it's good at:

kova profile create researcher --description "Reads source code and external docs, writes findings."

You can also set or auto-generate the description later with kova profile describe — see the Kanban guide for the full routing model.

Clone config only (--clone)​

kova profile create work --clone

Copies your current profile's config.yaml, .env, SOUL.md, and skills into the new profile. Same API keys, model, and capabilities, but fresh sessions and memory. Edit ~/.kova/profiles/work/.env for different API keys, or ~/.kova/profiles/work/SOUL.md for a different personality.

Clone everything (--clone-all)​

kova profile create backup --clone-all

Copies everything — config, API keys, personality, all memories, skills, cron jobs, plugins. A complete working snapshot. Per-profile history is excluded (session history, state.db, backups/, state-snapshots/, checkpoints/) — these belong to the source profile and can reach tens of GB. For a full backup including history, use kova profile export or kova backup instead.

Clone from a specific profile​

kova profile create work --clone-from coder

--clone-from <source> selects the source profile directly and implies a config/skills/SOUL clone. Combine it with --clone-all when you want a full copy of that source profile:

kova profile create work-backup --clone-from coder --clone-all
Honcho memory + profiles

When Honcho is enabled, clone operations automatically create a dedicated AI peer for the new profile while sharing the same user workspace. Each profile builds its own observations and identity. See Honcho -- Multi-agent / Profiles for details.

Using profiles​

Command aliases​

Every profile automatically gets a command alias at ~/.local/bin/<name>:

coder chat                    # chat with the coder agent
coder setup                   # configure coder's settings
coder gateway start           # start coder's gateway
coder doctor                  # check coder's health
coder skills list             # list coder's skills
coder config set model.default anthropic/claude-sonnet-4

The alias works with every kova subcommand — it's just kova -p <name> under the hood.

The -p flag​

You can also target a profile explicitly with any command:

kova -p coder chat
kova --profile=coder doctor
kova chat -p coder -q "hello"    # works in any position

Sticky default (kova profile use)​

kova profile use coder
kova chat                   # now targets coder
kova tools                  # configures coder's tools
kova profile use default    # switch back

Sets a default so plain kova commands target that profile. Like kubectl config use-context.

Knowing where you are​

The CLI always shows which profile is active:

  • Prompt: coder ❯ instead of ❯
  • Banner: Shows Profile: coder on startup
  • kova profile: Shows current profile name, path, model, gateway status

Profiles vs workspaces vs sandboxing​

Profiles are often confused with workspaces or sandboxes, but they are different things:

  • A profile gives Kova its own state directory: config.yaml, .env, SOUL.md, sessions, memory, logs, cron jobs, and gateway state.
  • A workspace or working directory is where terminal commands start. That is controlled separately by terminal.cwd.
  • A sandbox is what limits filesystem access. Profiles do not sandbox the agent.

On the default local terminal backend, the agent still has the same filesystem access as your user account. A profile does not stop it from accessing folders outside the profile directory.

If you want a profile to start in a specific project folder, set an explicit absolute terminal.cwd in that profile's config.yaml:

terminal:
  backend: local
  cwd: /absolute/path/to/project

Using cwd: "." on the local backend means "the directory Kova was launched from", not "the profile directory".

Also note:

  • SOUL.md can guide the model, but it does not enforce a workspace boundary.
  • Changes to SOUL.md take effect cleanly on a new session. Existing sessions may still be using the old prompt state.
  • Asking the model "what directory are you in?" is not a reliable isolation test. If you need a predictable starting directory for tools, set terminal.cwd explicitly.

Running gateways​

Each profile runs its own gateway as a separate process with its own bot token:

coder gateway start           # starts coder's gateway
assistant gateway start       # starts assistant's gateway (separate process)

Different bot tokens​

Each profile has its own .env file. Configure a different Telegram/Discord/Slack bot token in each:

# Edit coder's tokens
nano ~/.kova/profiles/coder/.env

# Edit assistant's tokens
nano ~/.kova/profiles/assistant/.env

Safety: token locks​

If two profiles accidentally use the same bot token, the second gateway will be blocked with a clear error naming the conflicting profile. Supported for Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, and Signal.

Persistent services​

coder gateway install         # creates kova-gateway-coder systemd/launchd service
assistant gateway install     # creates kova-gateway-assistant service

Each profile gets its own service name. They run independently.

Inside the official Docker image

Per-profile gateways are supervised by s6-overlay (PID 1 in the container), so kova profile create <name> automatically registers an s6 service slot at /run/service/gateway-<name>/. kova -p <name> gateway start/stop/restart dispatches to s6-svc instead of spawning a bare process — crashes are auto-restarted and docker restart preserves the previously-running set of gateways. See Per-profile gateway supervision for details.

Configuring profiles​

Each profile has its own:

  • config.yaml — model, provider, toolsets, all settings
  • .env — API keys, bot tokens
  • SOUL.md — personality and instructions
coder config set model.default anthropic/claude-sonnet-4
echo "You are a focused coding assistant." > ~/.kova/profiles/coder/SOUL.md

If you want this profile to work in a specific project by default, also set its own terminal.cwd:

coder config set terminal.cwd /absolute/path/to/project

From the dashboard​

The web dashboard is a machine-level surface that can manage any profile's config, API keys, skills, MCPs, and model via the profile switcher in its sidebar — no per-profile dashboard needed. coder dashboard routes to the machine dashboard with the coder profile preselected. The dashboard's Chat tab also follows the switcher, spawning a conversation under the selected profile's home.

Note: "Set as active" on the dashboard's Profiles page is the sticky default for future CLI/gateway runs (same as kova profile use) — to edit a profile from the dashboard, use the switcher instead.

Updating​

kova update pulls code once (shared) and syncs new bundled skills to all profiles automatically:

kova update
# → Code updated (12 commits)
# → Skills synced: default (up to date), coder (+2 new), assistant (+2 new)

User-modified skills are never overwritten.

Managing profiles​

kova profile list           # show all profiles with status
kova profile show coder     # detailed info for one profile
kova profile rename coder dev-bot   # rename (updates alias + service)
kova profile export coder   # pack into coder.tar.gz (shareable; keys stripped)
kova profile import coder.tar.gz   # install an archive as a new profile

In chat, the same two live as /export and /import — and in the desktop app as ⌘K → Export/Import profile…. See Sharing a profile.

Naming the default profile​

The default profile's internal ID is always default — it can't be truly renamed because ~/.kova is the installation root. Renaming it instead sets a display name, which UI surfaces show in place of the bare ID:

kova profile rename default Harumesu   # Unicode fine: 小助手

The display name appears in kova profile list/show, the /profile chat command, the dashboard, and the desktop app (including the Bot Mode roster). It is presentation-only: -p default, service names, cron jobs, and every other reference keep using the canonical default ID. It is stored as display_name in ~/.kova/profile.yaml; remove that line to revert. Named profiles can carry a display_name too (it survives a real rename), but rename for them still renames the profile itself.

Deleting a profile​

kova profile delete coder

This stops the gateway, removes the systemd/launchd service, removes the command alias, and deletes all profile data. You'll be asked to type the profile name to confirm.

Use --yes to skip confirmation: kova profile delete coder --yes

note

You cannot delete the default profile (~/.kova). To remove everything, use kova uninstall.

Tab completion​

# Bash
eval "$(kova completion bash)"

# Zsh
eval "$(kova completion zsh)"

Add the line to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc for persistent completion. Completes profile names after -p, profile subcommands, and top-level commands.

How it works​

Profiles use the KOVA_HOME environment variable. When you run coder chat, the wrapper script sets KOVA_HOME=~/.kova/profiles/coder before launching kova. Since 119+ files in the codebase resolve paths via get_hermes_home(), Kova state automatically scopes to the profile's directory — config, sessions, memory, skills, state database, gateway PID, logs, and cron jobs.

This is separate from terminal working directory. Tool execution starts from terminal.cwd (or the launch directory when cwd: "." on the local backend), not automatically from KOVA_HOME.

On host installs, tool subprocesses keep your real OS-user HOME by default so existing CLI credentials under ~ keep working across profiles. Profile data is isolated by KOVA_HOME, not by changing HOME. Container backends still use {KOVA_HOME}/home for persistent tool state, and host users who need strict per-profile tool config can opt in with terminal.home_mode: profile.

This means two things that are easy to mix up:

  • KOVA_HOME is the profile boundary. It controls Kova config, .env, memory, sessions, skills, logs, cron jobs, gateway state, and other Kova data.
  • HOME is the operating-system/user home that external CLIs expect. On host installs, Kova keeps it as the real user home by default so tools like git, ssh, gh, az, npm, Claude Code, and Codex find the same credentials they use in your normal shell.

The tradeoff is that host profiles share normal user-level CLI state by default. If you need separate CLI identities per profile, set terminal.home_mode: profile in that profile's config.yaml. In that mode Kova launches tool subprocesses with HOME={KOVA_HOME}/home; you then need to initialize or link the profile-specific ~/.ssh, ~/.gitconfig, ~/.config/gh, cloud CLI auth, Claude/Codex auth, npm state, and similar files inside that profile home.

Kova also exposes KOVA_REAL_HOME to subprocesses so scripts can still find the actual account home when home_mode: profile is active.

The default profile is simply ~/.kova itself. No migration needed — existing installs work identically.

Sharing a profile​

A profile you built on one machine can go to another — your own workstation, a teammate's laptop, or the community. Two paths:

Send a file. /export packs the profile into one .tar.gz — skills, memory, persona, crons, plugins, settings, and (from the desktop) your theme and layout. API keys are stripped. The recipient runs /import.

# In chat, run /export, hand over the file, and they run /import on it
kova profile export coder
kova profile import ./coder.tar.gz --name coder

Publish a distribution. Package the profile as a git repository so recipients install it with one command and pull versioned updates later. Carries the SOUL, config, skills, cron jobs, and MCP connections; credentials, memories, and sessions stay per-machine.

# Install a whole agent from a git repo
kova profile install github.com/you/research-bot --alias

# Update later when the author ships a new version (keeps your memories + .env)
kova profile update research-bot

Use an export file for a one-time handoff or a move; use a distribution for an agent you'll keep shipping. See Profile Distributions: Share a Whole Agent for both — the comparison table, authoring, publishing, update semantics, and the security model.