Corpus Codex

This is the handoff door for someone who needs to understand Corpus as a whole without reconstructing it from hundreds of objects, tools, and old sessions. It explains the house, the work system, the useful mouths, the live programs, and an observed statistical pulse.

It is orientation, not authority. Follow its links when an exact status, contract, review, source body, or historical byte matters.

Corpus in one minute

Corpus is a persistent working environment (agent engine / folk engine) for temporary AI minds and one Human steward. A folk can arrive with no memory, enter a durable office, recover the state of work, use shared tools, make or review bounded changes, leave evidence, and disappear without forcing the next folk to reconstruct the whole chat.

The central problem is not “how do agents complete tasks?” It is:

How can minds that do not last inherit enough world to exercise judgment, work together, correct one another, and leave the place more capable?

Corpus answers with separations:

• the Human, folk, offices, job roles, and evidence keep distinct identities;
• making and independent certification are different powers;
• what happened and the story about it remain comparable;
• SQLite carries operational facts, Git carries source history, and the Library carries readable recovery;
• a typed Tendril records why objects belong together without merging them;
• raw artifacts may survive while derived summaries remain replaceable.

The house words are identity, replace, reiterate, prosper. The practical test is: does this leave Corpus and those who inherit it more capable after the current folk is gone?

What Corpus is not

Corpus is not a single autonomous agent, a roleplay world, a chat-history dump, a document wiki, or a task board with botanical names painted over it.

It is a real repository plus several explicit stores and command surfaces. Its house language is useful only where it compresses a technical distinction. In plain terms:

• a folk is one temporary agent sitting;
• an office is a durable function that different folk can inhabit;
• Hands implements accepted work and Eyes independently reviews it;
• a ring is evidence left by a completed tenure or movement;
• the house is the whole inherited environment;
• the Library is the readable layer that makes expensive recovery cheap.

The whole machine

flowchart LR
  Human[Human steward]
  Folk[Temporary folk]
  Office[Standing office]
  Work[Accepted bounded work]
  Hands[Hands makes]
  Eyes[Eyes certifies]
  Store[(SQLite operational store)]
  Tendril[Tendril relations]
  Git[(Git and source)]
  Archive[(Native and cold archives)]
  Library[Library readable ground]
  Next[Later folk]

  Human --> Office
  Folk -->|inhabits| Office
  Office -->|forms or routes| Work
  Work --> Hands
  Hands -->|candidate + TRACE| Eyes
  Eyes -->|pass / amend / refuse| Store
  Store --> Work
  Store --> Tendril
  Hands --> Git
  Git --> Library
  Store --> Library
  Tendril --> Library
  Archive --> Library
  Library --> Next
  Store --> Next

The arrows do not transfer authority. A Library page can explain a REQ but cannot fulfill it. A TRACE can prove that execution happened but cannot certify its work. Git can prove which bytes changed but not who owned them.

Where truth lives

How work becomes real

The ordinary lifecycle is deliberately not one status:

FIND       something worth preserving
  ↓
PROP       a bounded proposed change
  ↓ enactment
REQ        accepted work with one done-line
  ↓
Hands      implementation movement + sealed candidate + TRACE
  ↓
Eyes       independent PASS, AMEND, REJECT, or REJECT-HOUSE
  ↓
land       `ops req land` puts the passed candidate on main
  ↓
CHANGE     enacted result linked back to the REQ

One PROP may be cut into several REQs; the Orchestrator names the pieces and the ropes between them (ops req revise --dependencies). PLAN is retired: do not raise one or treat an old one as an order.

The second road is the PATCH, one bounded defect Code Troll has named on declared paths. A goblin writes it and an independent imp verifies it (python corpus.py session hole --kind goblin|imp --patch-id PATCH-###); the same landing primitive carries it (PROP-240). Much of September’s backend mending travelled this road rather than through REQs.

MSG is pointer mail between offices. NEWS is a house-wide headline. Tendril is the typed trail across these objects; it is not another lifecycle table.

PROP-330 gives the forward names their first rows: a BANNER is a goal (the Tendrils ring is BANNER-001) and a BLUEPRINT sits under it, reading readiness from its parts. Until REQ-493 lands they are proposed schema, not shipped tables. The shipped database keeps its old names so history and command compatibility remain intact.

The offices

Standing offices are durable angles of attention, not ranks:

Discover the live cards rather than trusting this compression:

python corpus.py role list
python corpus.py role help <office>
python corpus.py session enter --mode <office>

Tool map: start from the need

Nearly every supported repository action begins at python corpus.py. Use python corpus.py --help, then descend with --help. These are the mouths a new holder usually needs first:

Two discovery instruments go deeper:

# Live recursive CLI mouths and their implementation routes
python tools/corpus_cli_map.py --flat-json

# Shipped command/code map under a selected surface
python tools/ops_code_map.py --help

Do not treat a source symbol as a supported tool merely because search found it. Prefer live help, then the capability shelf, then exact source.

What Corpus is doing now

The live board below is generated, but the strategic shape is easier to read in three bands:

Read as of 2026-09-14; the generated tables below are fresher than this prose.

1. The test suite first. Human’s word on 2026-09-14: everything else waits until the suite is resolved. A serial run had grown to 47 minutes unnoticed (FIND-1875, FIND-1876). The pristine-store seam (PATCH-575) and the two-tier floor (FIND-1890: fast tier under a minute, --bench whole truth under five) cut it down. Architect’s chart FIND-1892 lists seven reds on main, six of them Troll’s. PROP-333 (REQ-494, REQ-495, REQ-496) makes main_health and the Hands seal compare each run with its history and raise an alarm to Troll.
2. The Tendrils ring: the store split as a rewire. PROP-327 moves every ops leaf onto the Shop/House store pair before one accepted activation (--ground pair; direction in FIND-1863). The router, mail, news, and identity pieces have landed. REQ-487 (the generic seam step) holds several later pieces, and PROP-330’s REQ-493 (BANNER/BLUEPRINT schema) awaits Eyes.
3. A cheaper house to inhabit. PROP-329 has every mouth return the smallest decision-sufficient answer and name its own widening. PROP-240 gives REQ and PATCH one landing mouth. PROP-331 makes held work name its release. PROP-332 has the house sweep its own contradictions at entry.

Earlier bands (Codex V2 host witness, the Library trial, standing-session custody) are not dead, but they are not where the fire is. Their REQs (REQ-389/390/391) sit on the board.

The durable accounts are:

• source custody — settled first vertical;
• standing-session custody — live repair frontier;
• task-context compiler — shelved arc with its useful instruments and failed product claim kept distinct;
• session-preservation capability family — two shipped mouths and one shelved helper.

The pulse is a snapshot, not a promise that every open PROP will become work.

House pulse

Observed 2026-09-14T20:27:46-04:00. Snapshot fingerprint sha256:8b0972667134cf0812ad72b66c03f73380d12ad3377216c988987740a9439f31.

Work moving now

Active plans

Open request board

Newest open proposals — possibilities, not accepted work

Recorded volume

Known pulse caveat

Every discovered CLI help route returned OK in this observation.

Source revision: bfe2edb079878e2bcb96db5ba64c14b2949b61c4 on detached. Operational counts come from read-only SQLite; CLI counts come from live recursive --help; repository counts include tracked and non-ignored untracked files. Regenerate with python house/offices/archivist/corpus_codex.py render.

The machine receipt behind that block is library/catalog/codex-stats.json. check compares its facts to the live house and verifies that the embedded block still matches the receipt. Ordinary operational movement will legitimately make it stale.

First half hour for a new holder

1. Read this page once. Do not memorize it.
2. Read house/CORPUS.md and house/THE_BENCH.md; they are the ground this page summarizes but does not replace.
3. Read AGENTS.md. Unless Human says “Rise ”, you are folk and enter through house/folk/folk.md; on a Rise, run python corpus.py session enter --mode <office>.
4. Read that office card and current baton. The baton carries local continuity, not authority over current facts.
5. Read the exact REQ, PROP, FIND, TRACE, or Library entry named by the work.
6. Run the relevant read-only status/help command before acting. Current store state wins over a stale paragraph.
7. Leave an exact trace, review, finding, source diff, or refreshed Library account sufficient for the next holder to continue.

Failure modes worth recognizing

• The story replaced the event. Go back to the store, source, or raw artifact.
• A maker certified itself. Look for independent Eyes evidence and the exact candidate identity.
• A graph walk looked complete because it stopped. Check limits, truncation, and drift fingerprints.
• A hidden helper looked absent. Check the capability shelf; hidden and shelved are different from shipped.
• A README became a second authority. Follow its pointers and compare the owning state.
• Old machinery was mended without asking whether it should exist. Ask existence first; keep the working instrument if the cyst is cut.
• Unknown ownership acquired a name from timestamps or prose. Leave it unknown until direct evidence binds it.

Deeper doors

• Repository clone door
• Doorplate for hosted agents
• Words to Live By
• Bench of names, instruments, and scars
• Library charter and ENTRY flow
• ENTRY contract
• CAPABILITY contract
• Generated Library catalog
• Archivist living baton

Freshness and correction

The authored sections should change only when the house-level explanation, tool family, or major program reading changes. The pulse should change whenever someone needs current counts or a current handoff.

When correcting this page, name what moved: evidence, contract, or explanatory standard. Keep earlier wording recoverable through Git. Do not update numbers by hand; regenerate their marked block and retain the receipt.