IRC

IRC is an old protocol with a new relevance — it’s still the quickest way to get AI Butler into a room full of humans with zero corporate gatekeeping, and the text-only constraints force the agent to be concise. The IRC adapter speaks the classic protocol with SASL auth, NickServ, and channel joins.

What You Get

Connect to any IRC network (Libera.Chat, OFTC, Freenode successors, internal corp IRC)
1:1 private messages and multi-user channel support
SASL authentication (PLAIN and EXTERNAL)
Automatic reconnection on network drops
Text-only responses (no images, cards, or voice — it’s IRC)

1. Choose a network and register a nick

Pick an IRC network. Popular choices: Libera.Chat, OFTC, or a corporate internal server.
Connect from any IRC client (Weechat, HexChat, irssi) and register a nick with NickServ:
```
/msg NickServ REGISTER your_password your_email@example.com
```
Verify the registration per the network’s instructions (usually clicking a link in the confirmation email)

2. Store Credentials

aibutler vault set irc_server irc.libera.chat:6697
aibutler vault set irc_nick aibutler
aibutler vault set irc_sasl_user your_nick
aibutler vault set irc_sasl_password your_nickserv_password

Use :6697 for TLS (standard on modern networks) or :6667 for plaintext (don’t).

3. Enable the Channel

configurations:
  channels:
    active:
      - irc
    irc:
      tls: true
      channels:
        - "#ai-butler"
        - "#your-project"

4. Restart

aibutler run

You should see irc: connected and irc: joined #channel in the logs.

Interacting with the bot

In a channel, address the bot by nick:

<user> aibutler: what's the weather looking like today?
<aibutler> I'll need to check — looking it up...

In a private message, just type — no prefix needed:

/query aibutler
<you> what do you remember about my current project?
<aibutler> Your current project is launching AI Butler v0.1...

Features

Feature	Supported
1:1 private messages	Yes
Channel messages (with nick prefix)	Yes
SASL PLAIN auth	Yes
SASL EXTERNAL (client cert)	Yes
NickServ identify fallback	Yes
TLS	Yes
IPv6	Yes
Auto-reconnect	Yes (exponential backoff)
CTCP responses	Minimal (PING, VERSION, TIME)
File transfers (DCC)	No — IRC DCC is dangerous, use Slack/Discord for file exchange
Voice	No

Troubleshooting

“Can’t join channel — +r mode required.” Some networks require a registered nick to join certain channels. Make sure your SASL auth is configured and the nick is registered with NickServ.

Bot joins but doesn’t respond. Check the nick-matching logic: the bot only responds when its exact nick is at the start of a channel message followed by : or ,. Private messages work without any prefix.

Rate limiting / “you’re sending too fast” errors. IRC networks throttle aggressive bots. The adapter has a built-in 500ms minimum delay between sends, but you may need to increase it for busy channels. Set configurations.channels.irc.send_delay_ms: 1000 in config.