FAQ

Can I install just one golem?

Yes. Each package is self-contained with its own plugin.json. Install any golem as a Claude Code plugin without the rest of the ecosystem:

claude --plugin-dir ~/Gits/golems/packages/recruiter

The only hard dependency is @golems/shared for database and LLM access.

What's the memory cost?

Zikaron uses sqlite-vec with bge-large-en-v1.5 embeddings. For 238K+ chunks, the database is approximately 1-2GB on disk. Queries run in under 2 seconds. The embedding model loads into ~1.5GB of RAM when indexing, but the MCP server uses the pre-built index (no model loaded at query time).

Does it work without Railway?

Yes. Golems runs in three modes:

Mode	LLM	State	Best For
Full Local	Ollama	File-based	Testing, development
Hybrid	Gemini Flash-Lite (cloud)	File-based	Development with better LLM
Full Cloud	Gemini Flash-Lite (cloud)	Supabase	Production

Set with env vars: LLM_BACKEND, STATE_BACKEND, TELEGRAM_MODE.

How much does it cost to run?

Estimated monthly costs for production mode:

Service	Cost	Notes
Google (Gemini Flash-Lite)	Free	Email scoring, job matching, drafts. Free tier sufficient for personal use
Railway	~$5-10/mo	Cloud worker compute (email poller, job scraper, briefing)
Supabase	Free tier	Sufficient for personal use (500MB database, 50K auth users)
Total	~$5-10/mo	Mostly Railway compute

Running fully local with Ollama costs $0/mo (just electricity).

Can I customize the outreach style?

Yes. RecruiterGolem includes a style adapter that matches tone and formality to each recipient. Your base writing style is exported to JSON and can be edited:

Style analysis from Zikaron session data
Per-recipient adaptation (formal for enterprise, casual for startups)
Anti-AI writing patterns to avoid generic-sounding messages

How many tests does Golems have?

1,148 tests with 3,990 assertions across 75+ test files. The test suite covers all packages — 6 golems plus shared infrastructure — and runs with bun test from the monorepo root.

What's the tech stack?

Layer	Technology
Runtime	Bun (TypeScript)
Bot Framework	Grammy (Telegram)
Database	Supabase (PostgreSQL)
Cloud Compute	Railway (Docker)
Local Services	macOS launchd
Memory	Python + sqlite-vec + sentence-transformers
LLM	Gemini Flash-Lite (cloud) or Ollama (local)
Autonomous Loop	Zsh (Ralph)
Secrets	1Password CLI

Can I use the skills without the full ecosystem?

Yes. The 30+ skills in skills/golem-powers/ work as standalone Claude Code plugins. Install them individually:

# Just the commit skill
cp -r ~/Gits/golems/skills/golem-powers/commit .claude/commands/
 
# Or install all skills
claude --plugin-dir ~/Gits/golems/skills/golem-powers

Is the repo public?

Yes. The full source is at github.com/EtanHey/golems. It's built by one developer (Etan Heyman) with Claude Code as the primary implementation tool.

What Claude Code version do I need?

Claude Code v2.1 or later. The plugin system, skill loading, and MCP server support all require v2.1+.