Agents running
7live●
32.78°N · 79.93°W CHARLESTON · SOUTH CAROLINA family owned · est. 2023 ● taking Q3 '26
Agentic AI, built porchside.
Palmetto Interactive is a Charleston studio building agentic systems, memory infrastructure, and the developer tooling that makes AI actually ship — and we put the same engineering behind Lowcountry businesses whose sites, stores, and ads just need to work.
Tokens / min
1.43ktok/m
Tasks shipped · '26
312YTD
Selected recent work.
Most of it ships under someone else's name.
We work at the studio scale — three to five engagements at a time, six months average, mostly under NDA. Click a row, or a node on the timeline, to see what we actually did.
XU '06
Startup → Acq.
Wall Street
Palmetto Interactive
2006201420232026 nowengagementmembl · flagship20+ yrs · founder → wall street → studio
2026● featuredmembldeveloper platform · in developmentRustTypeScriptSQLiteTemporal→
2026● open sourceLanternopen source · agentic runtimeRustMCPTemporalgit-worktree↗
2025 — ongoingConfidential — e-commerceshopify replatform · paidShopifyMeta AdsGoogle AdsGA4→
2025Confidential — professional servicesAI enablementPythonOpenAIZapierNotion→
2024Chalets by the Lakeunified booking platformWebAutomationStripe→
2024Shelter Fitnesscustom applicationFull-stackPostgresStripe→
2023 — 2024Oswald Cookewebflow · crm · it strategyWebflowCRMCloudSecurity→
What we're building when nobody's billing.
The membl platform is our own bet — a developer suite for agentic engineering, built in the open from Charleston and dogfooded on every client engagement. Memory first, but far more than memory.
membl
public betaPersistent, portable memory for developers and AI agents. A local-first Rust daemon turns your work into an evidence-backed knowledge graph — provenance on every fact, conflict resolution, ~12ms recall, and a savings ledger that shows the tokens you didn't burn.
- ·
brew install membl - · knowledge graph · provenance · TTL
- · Claude Code, Codex & Cursor hooks
- · savings analytics
membl Cloud
in developmentThe paid tier: encrypted sync and backups, shared team memory, a hosted dashboard, and savings analytics — so your whole team's agents stay current across every machine.
- · cloud sync + backups
- · team workspaces · audit log
- · hosted dashboard
- · savings ledger
Lantern
open sourceA self-contained Rust runtime that orchestrates squads of AI coding agents on your machine — MCP server, git-worktree isolation, durable Temporal-backed state, and recovery when an agent wanders off.
- · multi-agent squads · MCP
- · git worktree isolation
- · durable workflow state
- · one binary per machine
membl Studio
research previewA spec-driven engineering operating system: intent goes in, parallel agent sessions run in collision-proof worktrees, and a human reviews instead of task-manages. CLI and desktop app share one registry.
- · collision-proof sessions
- · per-role worktrees + port ranges
- · Tauri desktop + CLI
- · provider-agnostic agents
We build the useful half of agentic AI —
the part most teams hand-wave past.
Five disciplines, one team, one zip code. Engagements typically pair two of these — strategy + product, or infra + advisory. We don't staff to a model; we staff to a delivery.
01
Agentic systems
Multi-agent orchestration with real tool use — file edits, shell, browsers, internal APIs. We design the planner, the controller, and the evals before we write the prompts.
- · planning · routing · verification
- · tool registries & sandboxes
- · human-in-the-loop checkpoints
- · long-running session memory
02
LLM infrastructure
Memory, retrieval, and evaluation that survives a real codebase. Hybrid stores, conflict resolution, recall traces — the unglamorous plumbing that makes models look smart.
- · hybrid retrieval (BM25 + vector)
- · memory graphs · provenance · TTL
- · eval harnesses · regression tracking
- · cost & latency budgeting
03
Custom AI products
Full-stack ship-it work. Backend in Rust or Python, typed APIs, a dashboard your team actually wants to open. We work in week-long iterations against a written contract of done.
- · 0→1 MVPs · 6–12 week sprints
- · Rust · TypeScript · Postgres · AWS
- · observability · audit · billing wired in
- · handoff docs an engineer can actually read
04
Developer tooling
CLIs, daemons, IDE plugins, and the quiet local-first surfaces engineers prefer. If it has a prompt, a port, and a config file, we have probably built one.
- · CLIs · daemons · file-system glue
- · IDE & editor extensions
- · local-first · single-binary distribution
- · install scripts that don't ask questions
05
Strategy & advisory
For non-AI-native teams making their first real bet. Two-week reviews, one-page roadmaps, eval frameworks you can run without us. We are happy to talk you out of it.
- · two-week technical reviews
- · build vs. buy · vendor pruning
- · team coaching · pairing weeks
- · roadmaps you can actually execute
06
Things we will not do
Generic chatbots. RAG-as-a-service. Sentiment dashboards. Decks with rocket emojis. If the work doesn't move a number you can defend in a board meeting, we are the wrong studio.
- · no chat-on-everything
- · no demos without evals
- · no headcount-shaped engagements
- · no NDAs that prevent learning
How we work, in plain language.
A studio process, not a consultancy process. We staff to the work, ship every week, and write things down. If a phase isn't delivering, we say so on a Friday.
Phase 01
Read the room
Two-week paid review. Codebase, agent traces, eval gaps, the politics. We deliver a written plan even if you don't hire us next.
duration · ~ 2 weeks Phase 02
Write the contract
A one-page contract of done — scope, evals, latency budget, the bill. Nothing in the engagement is allowed to be a surprise to either side.
duration · ~ 1 week Phase 03
Ship in weeks
Week-long iterations against the contract. A shipped surface every Friday — even if it's a CLI flag — and weekly written notes you can forward.
duration · 6 — 16 weeks Phase 04
Hand it back
Runbooks, evals you can run, the on-call we trust. We leave when your team is faster without us than with us. Then we answer the phone.
duration · ongoingQuestions, answered plainly.
What we do, where we are, how we price, and how to start. If your question isn't here, the form below reaches a human in Charleston.
What does Palmetto Interactive do?
Palmetto Interactive is a Charleston, South Carolina agentic AI studio. We build production multi-agent systems, LLM memory and retrieval infrastructure, custom AI products, and developer tooling — and we build high-performance websites and Shopify stores for Lowcountry businesses. We also make membl, an open developer platform for AI memory.
Where is Palmetto Interactive located and what areas do you serve?
Our studio is in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, in the Charleston metro area. We serve businesses across the Lowcountry — Charleston, Mount Pleasant, North Charleston, Summerville, Goose Creek, Daniel Island, Johns Island, James Island, West Ashley, Isle of Palms, Sullivan's Island, Folly Beach, and Kiawah — and work with clients across the Southeast and remotely.
How much does it cost to work with Palmetto Interactive?
Engagements start with a two-week paid technical review, then a one-page contract of done that fixes scope, evals, and budget before build work begins. Custom AI products typically run as 6–16 week sprint engagements. We give honest ranges up front and nothing in the engagement is allowed to be a surprise on the invoice.
What makes Palmetto Interactive different from a typical AI agency?
We design the planner, controller, and evals before writing prompts, and we only take work that moves a number a client can defend. No generic chatbots, no demos without evaluation harnesses, no headcount-shaped retainers. We ship a working surface every week and hand off runbooks and evals your team can run without us.
Do you only build AI, or also websites and online stores?
Both. We bring the same engineering standard to websites, Shopify builds, and paid-advertising programs for Charleston-area businesses as we do to our AI work — fast, modern sites with conversion-focused builds and ongoing care plans.
How do I start a project with Palmetto Interactive?
Use the contact form on this site or email support@palmettointeractive.com with what you are trying to ship and what is in the way. A human in Charleston reads every message, and the average reply time is under 24 hours. We take a limited number of new engagements each quarter.
Start a project.
We take three new engagements a quarter. Tell us what you're trying to ship, and what's in the way. The form below is read by a human in Charleston.