# Project AIRI ships a darwin-arm64 dmg and a Windows setup exe, both tagged beta > A self-hosted virtual character that talks in realtime and plays Minecraft and Factorio, written in TypeScript as a pnpm and turbo monorepo. The three newest releases are all v0.12.0 beta builds from late August, and installing on Windows or macOS goes through winget, scoop or a Homebrew cask. **moeru-ai/airi** — Self hosted, you-owned Grok Companion, a container of souls of waifu, cyber livings to bring them into our worlds, wishing to achieve Neuro-sama's altitude. Capable of realtime voice chat, Minecraft, Factorio playing. Web / macOS / Windows supported. - Repository: https://github.com/moeru-ai/airi - Website: https://airi.moeru.ai/docs/ - Stars: 49,458 · Forks: 4,923 - Language: TypeScript - License: MIT - Published: 2026-08-04 · Updated: 2026-08-18 · Language: en - Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/moeru-ai-airi ## Re-creating Neuro-sama, with the character as a container for a model The project's own framing is that it is re-creating Neuro-sama, described as a soul container of AI waifu and virtual characters brought into our world. The repository description adds the concrete claims: a self-hosted, you-owned Grok companion, a container of souls of waifu and cyber livings, capable of realtime voice chat, Minecraft and Factorio playing, supported on web, macOS and Windows. The interesting part for a reader is that the character is a shell around something you supply. The README points at large language models like ChatGPT and Claude as the power behind the interaction, which means the personality you get is a function of the model you connect, and AIRI is the part that gives it a voice, a face and something to do. Two things the README is careful about. It says the project is heavily inspired by Neuro-sama rather than affiliated with it, and it carries a warning that there is no officially minted cryptocurrency or token associated with the project, with a request to check the information and proceed with caution. That warning exists because a project with a monetisation-adjacent audience attracts them. ## Windows and macOS install through package managers, not a build Three package manager routes are documented, and each one shapes what lands on the machine. On Windows there is a winget package: ```powershell winget install MoeruAI.AIRI ``` and a Scoop bucket, which needs the bucket added before the package: ```powershell scoop bucket add airi https://github.com/moeru-ai/airi scoop install airi/airi ``` On macOS the route is a Homebrew Cask, and the README makes a point of it working without a custom tap: ```sh brew install --cask airi ``` That last detail matters for anyone who has installed other casks from a fork. A cask pulls a binary from a release asset, so what you get is the artifact the maintainer uploaded, not a build from the source tree. The release assets are named for their target: the Windows download points at an AIRI-0.12.0-beta.5-windows-x64-setup.exe and the macOS one at an AIRI-0.12.0-beta.5-darwin-arm64.dmg, so the macOS artifact is the arm64 build. The third button, for Linux, points at the releases page rather than a fixed file. ## A postinstall hook builds every package before you run anything The root of the monorepo is a private package called @proj-airi/root, version 0.12.0-beta.5, with pnpm@11.24.0 declared as the packageManager. The install script is the first thing worth reading: ```json "postinstall": "pnpm exec simple-git-hooks && pnpm run build:packages" ``` Two things happen after every install. Git hooks are installed through simple-git-hooks, and then every package under packages/ is built. That means a fresh clone compiles before you can run a dev script, and a CI step that assumes install means fetch is wrong. The rest of the scripts show the shape of the project. There is a dev command per surface, filtered by workspace package name: dev:web, dev:ui for a component story mode, dev:server, dev:tamagotchi with a separate xwayland variant, and dev:pocket:ios and dev:pocket:android. Builds go through turbo, one over the packages, apps and server globs and one per surface such as build:web. Tests are vitest with coverage. A developer who only wants the web app still inherits the postinstall cost, because that hook is on the root package. ## The backend comes up through a compose file, not an in-process server One line in package.json says how the server side is meant to run during development: ```json "dev:backend": "docker compose -f server/docker-compose.yaml up --build" ``` So the backend is a compose project under server/, brought up with a build, and the runtime package that the CLI-style dev script targets is @proj-airi/server-runtime. The top-level tree explains the rest of the shape: apps/ for the shipped surfaces, packages/ for shared libraries, server/ for the compose project, services/, engines/, integrations/, plugins/, deploy/, docs/, scripts/, nix/, bucket/ and patches/. Several of those directories are worth noticing because they say what the project expects of its environment. default.nix, flake.nix and flake.lock mean there is a Nix path. alint.config.ts, bump.config.ts, cspell.config.yaml, knip.json, uno.config.ts, vitest.config.ts, eslint.config.ts and tsconfig.json sit at the root as the toolchain, and skills-lock.json plus patches/ indicate pinned skill and dependency patches. The agent-facing files are just as visible: AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, DESIGN.md, and .agents/, .cursor/ and .gemini/ directories. A contributor is expected to work inside an AI-assisted setup as much as a manual one. ## Minecraft and Factorio are the named game integrations, and nothing else is specified The project description names two games: it is capable of Minecraft and Factorio playing. That is the whole of what the repository states about gameplay, and the README section describing what the companion can do is cut off before the details, so the mechanism behind those two integrations is not spelled out in the text available here. That gap matters for anyone evaluating this. A companion that can hold a conversation is one thing; a companion that can read a game state and act in it is a different engineering problem, and the repository does not say which layer the game integration sits at, whether it needs a mod, a bridge or a screen reader, or whether Factorio support is at the same maturity as Minecraft support. The engines/ directory in the tree is the obvious place to look, and the repository does not describe its contents. The realtime voice chat claim is the one capability the description states without qualification, and it is the part that depends on a model provider being configured. Everything downstream of that, the character, the games, the memory, is the project's own work. ## Three betas in two days, and no stable tag since The release list is the maintenance story. v0.12.0-beta.3 was published on 2026-08-27, v0.12.0-beta.4 the same day later, and v0.12.0-beta.5 on 2026-08-29. Three builds, all carrying the same 0.12.0 version with an incremented beta suffix, inside a two-day window. The last push to the default branch main is dated 2026-09-27, a month after that final tag. So the branch has moved on from the newest release, and the download buttons in the README point at v0.12.0-beta.5 assets rather than at a latest-release redirect for the two named platforms. The version string is the beta suffix, not a marketing label: the root package is at 0.12.0-beta.5 and the Windows and macOS asset filenames carry the same. A reader planning a deployment should decide between pinning that asset and tracking the branch, and understand that the two are not the same build. The licence is MIT and the project is not archived. Documentation is published at airi.moeru.ai/docs, with the README itself translated into Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Vietnamese, French and Korean. ## RAG, memory, database and Live2D live in a separate organization The README points out that there is a dedicated @proj-airi organization for the sub-projects born from Project AIRI, and names what lives there: RAG, a memory system, an embedded database, icons, and Live2D utilities, and more. This is the structural fact to hold onto. A feature list that says a companion can remember things may be describing code in this repository or code in a sibling one, and the README does not draw the line. For someone assembling a self-hosted companion, that means the pieces they need to keep on compatible versions are spread across repositories with independent release cycles. Live2D is the clearest case. The model-rendering library for 2D avatars is listed as a sub-project utility rather than a dependency of this repository, so a plan to swap or customise the avatar rendering is a plan that touches another organization. Translations are handled through Crowdin, with the project linked from the README, and the repository keeps its own translated READMEs under docs/. The two mechanisms overlap, which is worth knowing before you file a translation fix and wonder which one takes. ## Conclusion Adopt Project AIRI if you want a virtual character you host yourself, with realtime voice and the game integrations named in the project description, on a machine you control. Do not adopt it expecting a stable release line, because the three newest tags are v0.12.0-beta.3, v0.12.0-beta.4 and v0.12.0-beta.5, all from the last week of August 2026, and the root package version is still 0.12.0-beta.5. Two things to check before you build on it. Work out which surface you actually need, because the description lists web, macOS and Windows while the macOS download button points at a darwin-arm64 dmg and the third button points at the releases page. And decide where the sub-projects live: RAG, the memory system, the embedded database, icons and Live2D utilities are maintained in a separate @proj-airi organization, not in this repository, so pinning this repo does not pin them. ## FAQ ### What is Project Airi? A self-hosted virtual character project that re-creates Neuro-sama, a soul container of AI waifu and virtual characters. The project description says it does realtime voice chat and can play Minecraft and Factorio, on web, macOS and Windows. ### How do I install Project Airi? On Windows, winget install MoeruAI.AIRI, or add the Scoop bucket and install airi/airi. On macOS, brew install --cask airi works without adding a custom tap. Release binaries are also attached to the GitHub releases. ### Is there an official Project Airi token or cryptocurrency? No. The README carries a warning stating that there is no officially minted cryptocurrency or token associated with the project, and asks readers to check the information and proceed with caution. ## Sources - [Official documentation](https://airi.moeru.ai/docs/) - [Official README](https://github.com/moeru-ai/airi#readme) - [Project repository](https://github.com/moeru-ai/airi) - [Release notes](https://github.com/moeru-ai/airi/releases) --- Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/moeru-ai-airi