Nexus

Nexus is the onchain Agentic Framework created by Talus. The current version, provided here, is a sneak preview of our first iteration. There are many ideas to develop it further but in it's current state it still showcases what an onchain agentic framework is and it works end-to-end. For more details about Talus, please visit our blog and read our litepaper.

• Nexus
  • Architecture
  • What is provided
  • Looking forward
  • Contributing
  • References
  • Acknowledgments
  • License

Architecture

Nexus is built on Sui Move, and consists of several key components:

1. Onchain logic: The onchain core logic of Nexus is implemented in Sui Move smart contracts in folder onchain.
2. SDK: A Python SDK, in folder nexus_sdk, which provides easy-to-use functions for setting up agents, interacting with the smart contracts, and running agentic workflows.
3. Offchain components: Services that handle LLM inference and anything that runs offchain, including supported tools. For more details, please see offchain, where we define two Python packages named nexus_events and nexus_tools.

The high-level architecture is shown in the following diagram:

graph TD
  subgraph offchain["<tt>Offchain components</tt>"]
    subgraph nexus_tools["<tt>nexus_tools</tt>"]
      LLM_Inference["LLM Inference"]
      Tools
    end
    nexus_events
  end

  style offchain stroke-dasharray: 5 5, stroke-width:2px;

  subgraph onchain["<tt></tt>"]
    nexus_contracts["Nexus Contracts<br>(folder <tt>onchain</tt>)"]
    blockchain["Blockchain"]
  end

  style onchain stroke-dasharray: 5 5, stroke-width:2px;

  subgraph agent["Example Agent"]
    agent_instructions["Instructions"]
    agent_ui["UI"]
  end

  style agent stroke-dasharray: 5 5, stroke-width:2px;

  nexus_sdk["<tt>nexus_sdk</tt>"]

  nexus_events --> nexus_tools
  nexus_events --> blockchain
  nexus_contracts --> blockchain
  nexus_sdk --> onchain

  agent --> nexus_sdk

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What is provided

• Nexus, an onchain agentic framework, made of the components described above.
• Examples of agents implemented with Nexus.
• Complete instructions on how to setup a full environment, including the blockchain, smart contracts, and the offchain components.

Looking forward

Our first iteration had focused on feasibility, and as an aid in exploring the design space. You can build agents that work end-to-end. Here are some thoughts, which also give you an idea of some of the things we are actively working on:

• Develop and experiment with novel pricing/payment mechanisms.
• Implement a slashing mechanism to penalize misbehaving nodes and maintain network integrity.
• Expand support to include multiple modalities beyond LLMs.
• Enable customization of tool parameters by both users and agents for greater flexibility.
• Introduce better error handling for agent responses to improve reliability.
• Implement parallel execution capabilities to enhance task processing efficiency.
• Develop support for advanced task flow features, such as loops and backtracking, to handle more complex workflows.
• Provide offchain storage options to reduce on-chain data storage needs.
• Introduce privacy features to allow for confidential or private data handling.

Stay tuned !

Contributing

If you find and issue setting up and running Nexus, which is not covered by our documentation, please open a ticket and add the external label.

References

• Talus site.
• Talus blog.
• Talus litepaper.

Acknowledgments

In designing this version of Nexus, we have taken inspiration from crewAI. Concepts like 'Tool', 'Task' etc come from there. We also use crewAI tools in the implementation.

License

• The Nexus agentic framework (in onchain and offchain), is licensed under BSL 1.1.
• The Nexus SDK, is licensed under Apache 2.0.
• Examples are licensed under Apache 2.0.