Ferment V2 (Experimental) | Kimchi Coding

This page is the reference for Ferment V2, the experimental single-objective alternative to Ferment. Instead of planning phases up front, it keeps one objective active across turns and continues automatically until an independent evaluation finds it met or impossible. Everyday todos track tactical progress along the way; there are no phases, workers, or worktrees.

⚠️
Ferment V2 is an experimental feature. It may change or be removed without notice. To enable it, open /resources, switch to the Experimental tab, and enable Ferment V2, then restart Kimchi. You can also enable it from the command line:

kimchi resources enable extensions.ferment-v2

Commands

Command	Description
`/ferment-v2 <objective>`	Set an objective and start working on it
`/ferment-v2 --tokens 50k <objective>`	Set an objective with a token budget
`/ferment-v2`	Show the objective, status, and the latest evaluation
`/ferment-v2 edit <objective>`	Change the objective and redirect the work
`/ferment-v2 pause`	Stop automatic continuation without aborting a running turn
`/ferment-v2 resume`	Continue a paused objective
`/ferment-v2 clear`	Remove the objective

While the objective is active, the status line shows its state, elapsed time, and token usage. Automatic continuation stops when the token budget runs out, when turns stop making progress, or when the completion check cannot run. /ferment-v2 resume continues any of those. The completion check uses the judge model role from your multi-model settings when set, and the session model otherwise.

Settings

Ferment V2's settings live in ~/.config/kimchi/harness/settings.json under a fermentV2 key:

{
  "fermentV2": {
    "autoResume": true,
    "maxUnchangedContinuations": 3,
    "maxConsecutiveErrors": 3,
    "evaluationTimeoutMs": 600000
  }
}

Key	Default	Description
`autoResume`	`true`	Automatically continue an active objective when you resume a session.
`maxUnchangedContinuations`	`3`	Consecutive continuation turns without progress before the objective pauses.
`maxConsecutiveErrors`	`3`	Consecutive failed turns before the objective pauses.
`defaultTokenBudget`	unset	Token budget used when you call `/ferment-v2` without `--tokens`.
`evaluationTimeoutMs`	`600000`	How long the completion check may run before it counts as unavailable.

You only need to set values that differ from the defaults; missing or invalid keys fall back to the defaults.

Related resources

Ferment concepts

Understand the mental model of the stable mode: phases, grading, decisions, and memories.

Ferment reference

Complete command reference, environment variables, lifecycle states, and headless usage.