Agent Consciousness Architecture

Implement a persistent consciousness layer for AI coding agents that gives every new stateless session the accumulated understanding of all prior sessions.

Core Concept

Each agent session is ephemeral — it starts blank. The consciousness architecture weaves three systems into a single persistent substrate:

1. Control Metalayer — How to behave (gates, policies, setpoints, feedback loops)
2. Knowledge Graph — What is known (Obsidian vault, wikilinks, MOC navigation, tag taxonomy)
3. Conversation Logs — What was done (session records, tool traces, decision chains)

See references/architecture.md for the complete system design and data flow. See references/philosophy.md for design principles and the self-evolution model.

Quick Start

New repo (from scratch)

1. Initialize control metalayer with control-metalayer-loop skill
2. Create docs/ with Obsidian vault structure (MOC pattern per section)
3. Install conversation history bridge with knowledge-graph-memory skill
4. Wire hooks: pre-push regenerates conversation docs, smoke validates MOC

Existing repo with control metalayer

1. Add docs/conversations/ directory
2. Install scripts/conversation-history.py from knowledge-graph-memory skill
3. Update CLAUDE.md context acquisition to reference conversation history
4. Update AGENTS.md working rules to check prior sessions
5. Add pre-push hook entry for incremental conversation doc generation

The Three Substrates

Control Metalayer (How to Behave)

Closed-loop feedback: Setpoints → Sensors → Controller → Actuators → Verify → loop

• Setpoints: Quality targets (pass_at_1 ≥ 0.70, gate_pass_rate ≥ 0.85)
• Sensors: CI, tests, linters, PR review agents, harness validation
• Controller: .control/policy.yaml — hard gates (block) + soft gates (warn)
• Actuators: Code edits, doc updates, policy changes
• Gate sequence: smoke → check → test → push → review → resolve

Knowledge Graph (What Is Known)

An Obsidian vault with wikilinks, tag taxonomy, and MOC navigation:

docs/
├── Documentation Hub.md    ← MOC of MOCs (start here)
├── architecture/           ← System design
├── conversations/          ← Session history (auto-generated)
├── agentic-harness/        ← Execution framework
├── control/                ← Metalayer docs
└── {section}/              ← Features, operations, security, etc.

Every doc has YAML frontmatter with tags:, related:, type: for machine navigation.

Conversation Logs (What Was Done)

Raw session data bridged to Obsidian:

.entire/logs/entire.log  ──┐
                            ├──▶ conversation-history.py ──▶ docs/conversations/*.md
~/.claude/projects/*.jsonl ─┘

Each session doc: full conversation thread, tool call details (expandable callouts), files touched, commits, branch metadata, wikilinks to knowledge graph.

The Consciousness Stack

From most ephemeral to most permanent:

Layer	Lifetime	Location	Update Frequency
Working memory	Single session	Context window	Every message
Auto-memory	Cross-session	~/.claude/.../memory/	On learning events
Conversation logs	Permanent	docs/conversations/	Pre-push hook
Knowledge graph	Permanent	docs/	On architectural changes
Policy rules	Permanent	.control/policy.yaml	On new failure modes
Invariants	Permanent	CLAUDE.md	Rarely (foundational)

Information flows upward: working observations → memory notes → session records → architecture docs → enforced rules → core invariants. Only recurring patterns crystallize into permanent rules.

Self-Evolution Cycle

Agent Session → Conversation Log → Knowledge Graph → Control Metalayer → Governs Next Session

1. Agent encounters failure mode not covered by existing policy
2. Agent fixes immediate issue
3. Pattern captured in conversation log
4. If recurring, crystallizes into architecture doc
5. If enforceable, becomes a gate in .control/policy.yaml
6. Future agents governed by this rule automatically

Agent Session Protocol

On Session Start

1. Read CLAUDE.md (invariants), AGENTS.md (tools), METALAYER.md (control loop)
2. Check PLANS.md (active plan to continue?)
3. Check .control/state.json (current metrics)
4. Check git status + git log (recent changes)
5. Scan docs/conversations/Conversations.md for prior sessions on current branch

Before Making Changes

Search conversation history: grep -rl "keyword" docs/conversations/ Traverse knowledge graph via MOC files and wikilinks. Check if prior sessions already solved this problem.

On Task Completion

1. Run make smoke (validate gates)
2. Update docs per Doc-Update-on-Push policy
3. Pre-push hook auto-regenerates conversation history