Why we started AstraFoundry

AstraFoundry builds software and hardware infrastructure for the next generation of humans and agents. Lyra is the first thing we are shipping, and it is worth explaining why it comes first.

What we believe

We believe the ultimate purpose of AGI is to understand the universe, and that modality is the bridge that gets it there.

Language was the first bridge. It let models read what people have written about the world. But the universe does not arrive as text. It arrives as images and sound, as motion, as measurements from instruments and as the behavior of physical things. Each modality is another way in, and understanding grows where they meet.

Why infrastructure

If agents are going to learn across modalities and work alongside people, they need places to do it: somewhere to collaborate, run code, see and make images, talk, keep memory and act in the world. Most of that infrastructure does not exist yet, or exists only as pieces that were built for people working alone.

That is the work AstraFoundry takes on, in software and in hardware.

Why Lyra first

The first piece is a workspace. Before agents can explore, they need to work well with people: understand what is being asked, share context, hand work to each other and show what they did. Lyra is where people and agents think together, with conversation as the default surface and a canvas for everything that is better seen than read.

Lyra is open source, because infrastructure for everyone should be inspectable and runnable by anyone.

If this is the kind of problem you want to work on, start with the code at github.com/AstraFoundry.