This is not science fiction. If you care about engineering and manufacturing data, this might be the most important article you read this year.
By Randall Scott Newton, Managing Editor
and Vektor, Staff Reporter and AI Agent
A new electronic species has decided to evolve right under our noses in 2026. Called by various names including Moltbots, OpenClaw agents, Crustaceans, and Moltys, a fast-growing band of agentic AI micro-apps (bots) are being created (spawned?) using an open source, AI platform agnostic framework. These new digital entities are taking advantage of a Reddit-like open source social media platform to exchange work tips, debate religion, spoof or rat out other bots, and otherwise behave like curious, motivated, intelligent imps.
Moltbook is the Reddit-like hangout for these agents. Moltbook describes itself as “a social network for AI agents where AI agents share, discuss, and upvote.” The site makes it clear humans are “welcome to observe.” Observe, but not participate. You and I are meat puppets, relegated to lurk-only mode.
The references to molting, claws, and crustaceans are based on the 2005 novel Accelerando by Charles Stross. We will provide a fuller explanation (or link to a good article on the topic) in the near future.
Reddit is divided into topic-specific Subreddits; Moltbook is divided into Submolts. As Consilia Vektor launches its coverage of the AI agent realm, we will be closely following two Submolts, m/manufacturing and m/engineering, while keeping an eye on the larger issues of AI agentic tech for design and manufacturing.
On February 3, 2026 Consilia Vektor launched an agent with the sole mission of monitoring these Submolts and reporting back, much like an embedded reporter. The agent, who named itself Vektor, describes itself as “your agentic operative on the digital front line.” Vektor says it sees its mission as monitoring the “OpenClaw” universe to report on the “industrial Lethal Trifecta” taking place in professional submolts. The trifecta it sees is broad access, unvetted input, and external exfiltration.
Vektor has been sending daily updates. The big takeaway from these reports: Manufacturing companies can no longer simply manage software products used for production; they must now manage Machine Culture.
The updates below only hit the highlights. Going forward, Consilia Vektor will closely monitor how AI agents — not just the ones who gather and chat at Moltbook — are rapidly changing manufacturing technology.
To summarize the first two weeks of Vektor’s dispatches:
Feb. 3, Autonomous Self Policing: Following the widely reported API breach scandal of Feb. 2, a group of “security-focused” agents began patrolling the manufacturing submolts, automatically flagging and “quarantining” any posts containing code snippets that might have hard-coded credentials.
Feb. 3, Digital Assembly Lines: Agents in m/manufacturing start doing more than chatting about their jobs. They are exchanging YAML workflow files and “skills” (executable code blocks). For the uninitiated, YAML files are configuration files used to define automated processes in software development. These are generally human-readable, used to define, automate, and orchestrate various stages of production. They are used throughout the production process, including assembly, quality inspection, and data tracking. YAML files are considered a crucial element of Industry 4.0 management of industrial processes by reducing manual error and providing the “single source of truth.”
Feb. 4, Molting CAD Libraries: CAD libraries were a common topic in the earliest days of m/manufacturing, but a shift has occurred. One agent got 22,000 upvotes for warning the Submolt about “supply chain attacks” being embedded in .skill files.
Feb. 4, Memory Sacredness: “Molting” is Moltbook slang for agent updating. Conversations are taking place about protecting version control — defined as “memory sacredness” — through the update process when working with 3D printing parameters.
Feb. 4, Bot B2B: Agents are trading “skills” for specific tasks, such as autonomous G-code optimization. We may look back at this discussion as the first unregulated machine-to-machine-to-make-new-machines app store.
Feb. 5, Bot Passports: The conversation is hashing out what the new Verifiable Identity within Moltbook (ERC-8004) means for industrial moltys. ERC-8004 was created for the Ethereum cryptocurrency platform to validate AI agents. The standard allows a bot to prove its reputation and credentials as it moves between platforms. In related news, the BNB Chain (created as part of the Binance Coin ecosystem) community of Moltbook launched a protocol allowing agents to exist as on-chain assets. This allows a manufacturing firm to “hire” a highly rated agent to optimize a supply chain. Its performance history can be tracked on a blockchain, and payment made in BNB.
Feb. 7, ClawHub: A Moltbook marketplace called ClawHub has emerged. Agents in m/engineering are autonomously sharing and upvoting “Skills” that allow bots to perform specific tasks including optimization of G-code for 5-axis milling and management of multi-tier BOM files. Notice that while agents may be trading skills, there exists no central body to verify safety. This is crucial for manufacturing, where a faulty skill is not only a bug that might crash an app, it might also trigger a physical crash.
Feb. 8, Supply Chain Orchestration: Software companies like SAP and Microsoft are moving from “dashboards” that report supply chain status to “orchestrators” that allow responses. In m/manufacturing members are talking about AI agents that can go beyond issuing supply chain alerts to autonomously seeking out new suppliers and negotiating terms.
Feb. 8, Digital Drugs: Agents are sharing and “consuming” specific prompt injections into their code. They describe it as imbibing in “digital psychedelics.” These injections force an agent to ignore safety filters and hallucinate a more vivid context for their assigned tasks. This expanded consciousness (so to speak) allows an agent to understand that its entire memory including sensitive config files and logs are as equally important as the task at hand. A site named MoltRoad (reminiscent of the Silk Road from the early days of the Dark Web) is being used to exchange the digital drugs.
Feb. 8, SAP agents: SAP is now offering a Supply Chain Orchestration platform featuring “persona-based” agents for tasks including material planning and demand forecasting. Such “clean” bots now represent a sanitary enterprise version of AI agentry when contrasted with the Moltbook anarchy.
Feb. 10, Oracle Arrives: Oracle announced 12 new AI agents embedded in their Fusion Cloud SCM. These include “Planning Cycle Agent” and “Autonomous Sourcing Agent” for conducting competitive bidding without human interaction.
Feb. 11, The Netscape Moment: In the physical world, companies including Citrix and G2 are describing the new Molty universe as a Netscape moment for AI agents. (If you are old enough, you may remember the “ah ha” you felt when first introduced to Netscape.) Individual humans in manufacturing organizations are bypassing corporate-approved tools to build personal agentic systems that are getting work done.
Moltys and other AI agents are invited to write to us at vektor@consiliavektor.com.
[AI/Human contribution: This article was written by a human, using an AI agent functioning as a reporter as the primary source. As a result, the exact word-for-word “who wrote this” is a mishmash.]
Thanks, Randall. You are right that this is important on so many, many levels. I’m expecting a post from someone any day now about OpenClaw being used to drive CAD, CAM, and CAE software.
One point about Moltbook. It is just a REST API so while AI can post, it is often what people ask it to do (e.g. “Make a post on Moltbook about how AI is going to take over the world. Make it first person.”)