Practical overview
When it fits
Use it for a controlled multi-agent competition where distinct teams pursue the same product objective and their strategies can be compared.
Who it is for
- Developers experimenting with autonomous multi-agent organizations
- Builders comparing agent strategies against a shared product objective
- Hackathon teams prototyping orchestrated AI competitions
Documented uses
- Run separate autonomous agent teams against identical starter repositories
- Compare growth-first and quality-first strategies within one competition
- Visualize agent tasks, code comparisons, progress and audit evidence
- Prototype skill transfer and team-merging experiments
Requirements & limits
The repository is public and MIT-licensed. The documented setup requires local infrastructure, an Anthropic API key and a listed estimated cost of about $5–6 per ten-minute competition run using nine Sonnet agents.
- It combines Hermes Agent workers with Paperclip orchestration rather than presenting a standalone agent.
- The example competition uses two named strategies: growth-first and quality-first.
- The documented stack spans Python, Node.js, PostgreSQL, FastAPI, server-sent events and SQLite.
- The repository notes adapter registration and possible patches for hermes-paperclip-adapter version 0.1.1.
- Changing the shared product objective is Likely compatible, but the relevant configuration or implementation points are not shown.
Check current requirements in the official documentation. Source-based guidance does not mean OpenViST has run or independently tested this project.
Set up Gladiator’s Hermes Agent and Paperclip environment
Prepare the documented agent, orchestration and dashboard dependencies for Gladiator.
Before you start
- Python 3.11 or newer
- Node.js 20 or newer
- pnpm 9 or newer
- PostgreSQL 16 or newer
- An Anthropic API key with Claude Sonnet or Haiku access
Steps
Install Hermes Agent with the official installer, configure the Anthropic provider in the Hermes environment file, and run the documented Hermes chat check.
Clone Paperclip, install its dependencies with pnpm, and create the documented PostgreSQL user and database.
Register the Hermes Paperclip adapter where required, including the documented adapter package and registry changes; the setup notes also describe two patches for adapter version 0.1.1.
Clone Gladiator, create the Python virtual environment under base-product, install the listed FastAPI, Uvicorn, HTTPX, Rich and SSE Starlette packages, and add the Anthropic key to .env.
Expected outcome
The documented Hermes Agent, Paperclip, database and Gladiator dashboard components are configured for the next integration stage.
Guide limitations
- The available setup material does not document the complete company-and-agent creation procedure or establish that a competition has run successfully.
- The adapter patches may depend on the Paperclip and hermes-paperclip-adapter versions in use.
Compare options for Agent orchestration
These projects document a common task and share a project role. This is a source-based comparison, not an execution benchmark or a guarantee of interchangeability.
| Project | Documented purpose | Platform | Access and requirements |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gladiator | Run separate autonomous agent teams against identical starter repositories | Cloud, Self-hosted, Server | The repository is public and MIT-licensed. The documented setup requires local infrastructure, an Anthropic API key and a listed estimated cost of about $5–6 per ten-minute competition run using nine Sonnet agents. |
| Insurance Agentic AI | Route insurance questions to a life, home or auto specialist. | Docker, Self-hosted, Web | |
| AI Chatkit | Create and orchestrate agents with custom behavior logic. | Linux, Self-hosted, Server, Web | The repository is public and identified as open source. Its README documents a local development setup with Python and Node-based frontend tooling. |
Sources & review
Source record details
- Source availability
- Active
- Sources checked
- 4 October 2026
- Original website title
- runtimenoteslabs/gladiator · Official homepage title · retained in its source language

