Cortex

Cortex is a structured cognitive operating layer for high-leverage AI collaboration.

It is not a note system. It is not a knowledge dump. It is not a session archive.

Cortex stores distilled cognitive leverage — reusable structures that improve clarity, reliability, and execution speed across projects.

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What Cortex Contains

Cortex contains only high-signal, reusable artifacts:

• Principles
• Patterns
• Contracts
• Specs
• Templates
• Canonical Prompts
• Playbooks
• Policies
• Philosophical Positions
• Operating Model Definitions

Every artifact must:

• Increase structured thinking
• Improve agent reliability
• Be reusable across projects
• Reduce cognitive entropy

If it does not compound reasoning power over time, it does not belong here.

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What Cortex Does Not Contain

Cortex does not store:

• Raw sessions
• Chat logs
• Telemetry
• Checkpoints
• Project state
• Experimental exhaust
• Brainstorm dumps

Git history is sufficient provenance.

Cortex is a reasoning layer, not an activity log.

Project State Boundary

Project-instance operational state belongs in a configurable boundary root.

• Default boundary root is .cortex/.

• Boundary root may be changed only through policy-governed contract update.

• Policy: policies/project_state_boundary_policy_v0.md

• Spec: specs/project_state_boundary_spec_v0.md

• Contract: contracts/project_state_boundary_contract_v0.json

• Enforcement gate: scripts/project_state_boundary_gate_v0.py

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Design Philosophy

Cortex exists to compound structured thinking.

It is optimized for:

• Clarity over accumulation
• Reusability over novelty
• Discipline over volume
• Architecture over tools

Cortex is a long-term cognitive multiplier.

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Tech Stack

Cortex standardizes on:

• uv for Python environment + command execution
• just for task orchestration

Primary operational entrypoints should be callable through just recipes that shell out via uv.

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User Documentation

• Cortex Coach docs: docs/cortex-coach/README.md
• Maintainer gate: just quality-gate (fallback: ./scripts/quality_gate_v0.sh)
• CI gate: just quality-gate-ci (fallback: ./scripts/quality_gate_ci_v0.sh)

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Artifact Admission Rules: [ARTIFACT_ADMISSION.md]

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Footnotes

[1] Reflection-loop pattern inspiration: aviadr1/claude-meta [2] Comparative research reference and credited project: jayminwest/mulch (report: .cortex/reports/project_state/mulch_comparative_research_report_v0.md)