Concept

Deploy a fleet of autonomous agents using Hive technology for specialized tasks like security penetration testing. Agents are automatically deployed across a target environment, each with a specific role and position. The model is not limited to security - it generalizes to any business use case that benefits from distributed, coordinated autonomous agents.

Architecture

Agent Fleet

Agents run in Docker containers or VMs, positioned strategically based on their role:

• External Penetration Agent - Sits outside the firewall looking in. Authorized to download and run any tools needed to attempt penetration of the environment from the outside.
• Internal Network Agents - Deployed across different VPCs to test internal network segmentation, lateral movement, and access controls from the inside.
• Observability Agent - Monitors the attacks in real time through tools like Datadog, AWS CloudWatch, and any other observability tooling available. Provides a defensive perspective on what the offensive agents are doing.

Communication & Coordination

MQTT is the sole communication protocol across the entire fleet. All agent coordination, job dispatch, status updates, health checks, and command/control flows through MQTT channels. This keeps the architecture simple and consistent - one protocol to rule them all.

Data & Analysis

All logs, findings, and observations are summarized and ingested into a pgvector/graph database for semantic search and relationship analysis. Agents contribute to shared memory, building a collective understanding of the target environment as the engagement progresses.

Portal & Dashboard

A web-based portal provides a live dashboard view of the entire fleet:

• Health checks - Agent status monitored via MQTT heartbeats
• Command interface - Send commands to and receive output from any agent directly through the portal
• Fleet overview - See what each agent is doing, where it's positioned, and its current findings
• Analysis views - Query the shared pgvector/graph database for patterns, vulnerabilities, and relationships discovered across agents

Key Insight

Security pen testing is just one application. The core pattern - a coordinated fleet of purpose-built agents deployed across an environment, communicating over MQTT, sharing memory via a vector/graph database, and managed through a central portal - applies to many business domains. The Hive provides the orchestration layer; the agents and their objectives are interchangeable.