Official Public Beta · v0.7.4

AI writes the code.
Sober checks the work.

Agents and AI coding tools ship fast — sometimes too fast. Sober is the sobriety layer: deterministic guardrails that catch secrets, unsafe shell, and AI slop before they leave your machine, plus optional model review with evidence you can inspect. No cloud. No subscription. Your models, your forge, your merge authority.

Install Sober — Free Read the agent briefing

Public Beta No subscription Local-first Open source Your models Forgejo + GitLab

Sober Raccoon daemon operating a dark repository control room with local routes, evidence, gates, and owner rules on terminal screens.

$ sober version
sober v0.7.4

$ sober status --base HEAD
repo: sovereign-society/sober
route: frontier
preflight: pass
queue: 0 idle

$ sober preflight --base HEAD
preflight OK

How Sober works

Two jobs, one product. Local mode is the second thought at the keyboard. Raccoon is the forge-side gatekeeper that reviews MRs and PRs without taking merge authority away from humans.

Local tool

At the keyboard

Run status, preflight, and review before commit or push. State lives under .sober/. Nothing is published unless you run an explicit write command.

sober status
sober preflight --base main
sober review --base main
sober forge post --merge-request 42

Raccoon daemon

Beside the forge

Webhooks from Forgejo or GitLab enqueue jobs. Raccoon reviews the MR worktree, stores evidence, posts append-only notes, and can set advisory labels. Humans still merge.

sober raccoon forge serve-webhook \
  --config /etc/sober/raccoon.kdl \
  --listen 0.0.0.0:8787

sober raccoon forge catchup --once

Status

Read real repo state before any model call.

sober status

Preflight

Secrets, private metadata, shell danger, prompt injection.

sober preflight

Review

Route to local or approved remote models under your policy.

sober review

Evidence

SQLite store keeps runs, findings, jobs, memory, resume packs.

sober plan evidence

Forge post

Optional write: one append-only note, optional advisory labels.

sober forge post

What ships in v0.7.4

Deterministic guardrails that run in milliseconds, optional model review with evidence, and a forge daemon that never auto-merges. Built for the age of agent-generated code.

Git hooks, one command

sober hooks install all wires pre-commit, pre-merge, and pre-push to run deterministic preflight — no model, works offline, catches secrets and slop before they leave your machine.

Explain every finding

Each finding gets a stable ID (F-49, F-720). sober explain F-49 shows severity, evidence, the exact source line, a suggested fix, and copy-paste verify commands. --polish adds a plain-language model summary.

Deterministic preflight

No model required. Pattern-matches secrets, private files, unsafe eval(/exec( calls, curl|sh pipes, and AI-slop shapes. Tightened in v0.7.4 to stop false-positives on comments and test fixtures.

Four model routes

local (Ollama, default), daily, frontier, security. Each with its own budget, privacy classification, and endpoint chain. BYOK — your keys, your providers, your call-home policy.

Advisory, never auto-merge

The Raccoon daemon posts evidence and sets advisory labels (Sober clean, Sober findings, Sober error). Merge authority stays with the human. Always. By design.

Universal anti-slop

Every reviewer profile includes a non-negotiable anti-slop floor: reject rubber-stamp LGTM, untested paste, vendored junk. AI-assisted code is assumed; the demand is evidence, not approval.

Stop paying rent on your own code

Cloud AI reviewers charge per seat to hold your diff on their infrastructure. Sober runs under your policy, on your hardware, with evidence you can inspect.

Greptile

$20–50/month
Your code on their servers
Closed source
Their models, their rules
Vendor lock-in

CodeRabbit

$12–40/month
Cloud-only
Closed source
Limited customization
Per-seat pricing

Sober

Free Community forever
Runs on your machine
Open source (LSL-1.0)
Your models, your rules
Sovereign. No lock-in.

Meet the Sober Raccoon

The raccoon is the daemon: a quiet background worker that drains webhook queues, reviews allowlisted repos, stores evidence, and posts advisory forge notes. It does not auto-merge, close MRs, or delete branches.

Forgejo + GitLab: Signed webhooks, mention aliases, catchup for missed events.
Advisory labels: Sober clean, Sober findings, or Sober error.
Podman-ready: Sober Enterprise Container or Debian community image; scp + load, no public registry required.

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/sober raccoon run \
  --repo /srv/repo \
  --profile background
Restart=on-failure
Nice=10
IOSchedulingClass=idle

podman load -i sober_v0.7.4_image.tar
podman run --rm \
  -e SOBER_SECRETS_BACKEND=env \
  --env-file /etc/sober/secrets.env \
  -v /etc/sober/raccoon.kdl:/etc/sober/raccoon.kdl:ro \
  -v /var/lib/sober:/var/lib/sober \
  localhost/sober:v0.7.4 \
  raccoon forge catchup --once

*/5 * * * * cd /srv/repo && \
  sober raccoon run --once --json \
  >> .sober/raccoon.log 2>&1

time=12:41:02 level=info msg="raccoon started" time=12:41:03 level=info msg="claimed review job" time=12:41:18 level=info msg="evidence stored" time=12:41:20 level=info msg="waiting idle"

The Sober Raccoon wearing a review vest at a workbench, pointing at a monitor that flags critical AI-generated slop in a code review, surrounded by review logs and a bowl labeled AI slop. — Review log #19 — slop detected, evidence stored, merge authority untouched.

What you get free in beta

Sober Enterprise Container — hardened OCI base, ~77 MB, minimal CVE surface, non-root, production-proven on sovereign-forge
linux/amd64 binary — CGO tree-sitter, signed tags, SHA256SUMS
Debian community image — bookworm-slim for labs and homelabs
AUR sober-bin — Arch/CachyOS install path
No public registry lock-in — scp the tar, podman load, tag localhost

Community (binary, Debian image, source) stays free forever under LSL-1.0. The beta deal is specifically the Sober Enterprise Container: free now, commercial after 1.0.

Download the Enterprise Container free (Public Beta)

Official release assets for v0.7.4. Verify checksums. Load with Podman or Docker.

curl -LO https://git.sovereign-society.org/Sober/sober/releases/download/v0.7.4/sober_v0.7.4_image.tar

podman load -i sober_v0.7.4_image.tar && podman tag localhost/sober:v0.7.4 localhost/sober:latest

curl -LO https://git.sovereign-society.org/Sober/sober/releases/download/v0.7.4/SHA256SUMS && sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS --ignore-missing

v0.7.4 release Debian community image Editions policy

Want to fund the forge? Optional contribution

The image is free in Public Beta. If you still want to throw money at hard problems (hardening, dogfood forges, docs), use the contribution path. It does not unlock extra features during beta; the download above already has everything.

Optional contribution (USD)

Optional. Free Enterprise Container download above works without payment until 1.0.

Install Sober (Public Beta)

Pick a path. Binary and AUR track stable tags. Images load offline. Source install is for contributors who want tip of main.

Arch Linux (AUR)

paru -S sober-bin # or: yay -S sober-bin

Linux binary (amd64)

curl -LO https://git.sovereign-society.org/Sober/sober/releases/download/v0.7.4/sober_v0.7.4_linux_amd64
chmod +x sober_v0.7.4_linux_amd64
sudo install -m 0755 sober_v0.7.4_linux_amd64 /usr/local/bin/sober
sober version

From source (Go 1.25+)

go install git.sovereign-society.org/Sober/sober/cmd/sober@v0.7.4

Read README Browse docs v0.7.4 assets Changelog

Public Beta is open. Delete the rent.

You already run models locally. You already own hardware and a forge. Sober is the sobriety layer: preflight, review, evidence, and a raccoon that keeps agent swarms from flooding the shared brain.

Install Sober — Free Free Enterprise Container until 1.0

AI writes the code.Sober checks the work.