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The making of

Walter built most of Walter.

The founder wrote the first version with Claude Code. From the morning Walter first said hello (4 Nov 2026), almost every change was planned out loud with him and written by his own background workers: his voice, his face, the phone app, the installer, the signed updates, and this page.

285commits262 since his first hello
126worker taskslong jobs handed to background workers
743automated testsPython and JavaScript
46.5klines of codePython, JavaScript, shell, HTML, CSS

Counted from the repository on 9 Nov 2026. First commit 31 Oct 2026.

How it works

  1. TalkAn idea, said out loud at the wall.
  2. PlanWalter writes a short plan and shows it on screen.
  3. Workers buildSeveral background workers code in parallel.
  4. TestsEach change ships with tests that must pass.
  5. RestartWalter compiles, commits and restarts himself.
  6. Self-reviewAt 3 AM he reads his own day and writes lessons.

Timeline

Real commits, real dates (US Central). The small line is the commit message as written.

  1. The first lines

    The founder and Claude Code start a wall companion on a spare laptop. Walter can't talk yet.

    42e9547 Initial commit

  2. A one-file USB installer

    Boot a stick, walk away, come back to a face.

    5b3103f One-file USB installer with on-screen setup

  3. A test VM finds the real kiosk bug

    Hours of crash logs from a throwaway VM end at one wrong folder owner.

    82772d3 Fix the real kiosk bug: ~/.config was owned by root

  4. First hello

    Walter boots on the wall, says hello, and starts changing his own code that morning.

    61bd466 Walter, as installed

  5. His voice

    A pitch setting, tuned by ear at the wall until it sounded right.

    52c2f4a Add voice pitch setting (deeper/higher, tempo preserved)

  6. Background workers

    Long jobs go to workers so Walter stays free to talk. Their slots show on his face.

    b63219f Face: worker slots panel (top right)

  7. A body that moves

    Grow, shrink, scoot and peek: emotions and actions he can use in any reply.

    bed8727 Face: grow, shrink, scoot and peek actions

  8. Two brains

    A fast model for chat, a deep one for plans and code, switched per turn.

    f963b63 Automatic model switching: fast model for chat, deep model for hard turns

  9. Phone app and a sleep dashboard

    Chat, push-to-talk, the shared list and notifications, plus a clock-and-calendar board while he sleeps.

    56efe04 Companion app, cancel/echo fixes, survivable workers, cloud speech, dashboard, recognition and more

  10. Screen rotation

    Portrait walls work too, with a layout of their own.

    f5a1051 Kiosk: optional screen rotation (WALTER_ROTATE in kiosk.env, walterctl display)

  11. A month calendar on the wall

    The board grows into a full month view with weather on outdoor events.

    b79da93 Face (portrait): month calendar like Google's (Sun-Sat rows, month + year, neighbouring days dimmed, a...

  12. Podcasts on the speakers

    Follow shows by RSS; he ducks the audio while he listens and talks.

    715c389 Podcasts: follow shows by RSS, play via mpv IPC, duck/pause while Walter listens or talks

  13. Ready to share

    Personal data scrubbed from code, tests and samples so others can run it.

    c177219 Scrub personal data: neutral LICENSE holder, sample names, GitHub owner (updates use WALTER_UPDATE_REPO or...

  14. Signed releases

    Every update is a signed tarball; tampered ones are refused.

    207644c Signed release channel: make-release.sh (tarball + manifest + Ed25519 sig), channel updates with versioned...

  15. This website

    Written, tested in a real browser and deployed by workers, for the private beta.

    9423687 Walter product site v2 (clean history)

  16. A clean-machine test catches two install bugs

    The published installer failed on a fresh VM; both bugs were fixed and retested the same day.

    5af06f4 install.sh: mark /var/lib/walter/installed so curl-bootstrapped Walters actually update

What a human still did

  • Decided what to build, and what not to.
  • Approved anything public: publishing, pushing code, spending money.
  • Handed over sign-ins and keys through private phone pages, never out loud.
  • Plugged things in, rebooted things, held the USB stick.
  • Judged how it looked and sounded, from across the room.

The honest limits

  • The code is written by Claude, Anthropic's model, running as Walter's workers. Walter isn't a new AI; he's a careful way of using one.
  • He ships bugs. A clean-machine test found the published installer failed on a fresh computer, and that installed copies would never update. Both were fixed and retested the same afternoon.
  • A security pass found a path trick that exposed some screen data files; fixed with tests.
  • Early on, restarting himself killed his own running workers. He learned to check first.

Lessons Walter wrote for himself

From the notes he keeps after each nightly self-review.

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