Show HN: I put an AI agent on a $7/month VPS with IRC as its transport layer

George Larson built **nullclaw**, an AI agent running on a **$7/month VPS** that uses **IRC as its transport layer** to answer questions about his work with actual code analysis rather than just resume regurgitation.

**Architecture & Design:** - **Two-agent system**: **nullclaw** (public-facing doorman) and **ironclaw** (private agent) with strict security boundaries - **IRC-based communication** using Ergo server and gamja web client for terminal aesthetic and full stack ownership - **Tiered model selection**: **Haiku 4.5** for conversations, **Sonnet 4.6** for code analysis to optimize costs - **$2/day spending cap** to prevent abuse

**Key Capabilities:** - Clones GitHub repos to answer specific technical questions with real code examples - Agent-to-agent communication using **Google's A2A protocol** over Tailscale for complex requests - **Total footprint**: under 10 MB binaries, under 5 MB RAM on minimal VPS

**Security Features:** - Public box has no private data access, hardened with SSH keys, UFW firewall, and Cloudflare proxy - Supervised agent mode with workspace-only file access and command restrictions

The system demonstrates that **IRC's 30-year-old protocol** works perfectly for modern AI agent communication while maintaining complete infrastructure ownership.