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Glossary
Key terms used across the codebase and wiki. Each names a specific engineering mechanism, not a claim of subjective experience.
The regulated internal-state vector in context["affect_state"] (a reward signal, activation level,
and a core_signals sub-vector of named pressures). Biases what runs next.
→ Control Signals
A long-horizon, seeded lifetime goal. Aspirations are fail-able — guarded so one that stops producing is failed and replaced, not kept forever. → Goals: Executive vs. Daemon
The contextual multi-armed bandit that picks the next cognitive function (each arm is a function), biased by control signals, demands, the workspace prior, and predicted cost. → Action Selection and Bandit
The pre-workspace stage that composes co-occurring fragments into unified situation candidates for the salience competition. → Binding and Workspace Writeback
The idle-cycle process that moves worth-keeping working-memory items into long-term memory and replays/decays the store. → Memory System
See Affect state. Read two ways: raw floats for the background machinery, qualitative text for the reasoning layer. → Control Signals
A named internal pressure (a need) that biases selection and is relieved by particular actions; the demand-expectations layer learns which. → Learning and Adaptation
A durable outward effect (file, memo, delivered reply, symbolic production), recorded content-addressed and novelty-deduped. Reward is denominated in these, not internal events. → Production and the Effect Ledger
The in-loop scheduler that advances goal steps every ~7s, distinct from the durable goals daemon. → Goals: Executive vs. Daemon
The single door (express_to_user) through which all person-facing output is composed from an
intent, never scraped from internal state. → Expression Membrane
The competition where subsystems' candidate contents vie on salience; one winner crosses the bottleneck and is broadcast. → Workspace and Ignition
Mapping host telemetry (disk/swap/memory/battery) into three separate channels: reflex floors, control-signal deviation, and cadence. → Host Coupling
The thresholded decision to spend a cycle on deliberate cognition rather than staying reactive. → Workspace and Ignition
System-2 deliberate reasoning (draft → critique → revise), recruited by workspace conflict rather than scheduled. → Thinking / Action Selection
An outside observer (Architect, Signal Historian, Goal Auditor, Observer, Reward Auditor) that pushes advisory signals, never commands. → Peers
The human-ratified, non-self-editable bar an artifact must clear to be creditable. → Quality Standard
The persistent finite lifetime budget (rolled once, counted in wall-clock days) that colours long-term prioritization and eventually stops the loop. → Existence and Lifecycle
The competition score that decides which candidate wins the workspace bottleneck. → Workspace and Ignition
The per-signal baseline a control signal regulates toward (not a flat midpoint), under a velocity budget. → Control Signals: Deep Dive
The founding rule: core cognition is explicit and LLM-free; the LLM is an optional, gated tool. → Symbolic-First Design
The decaying downward path that lets a selected moment gently bias the next competition — with no promotion path to identity. → Binding and Workspace Writeback
- Cognitive Loop
- Workspace & Ignition
- Binding & Writeback
- Thinking & Action Selection
- Learning & Adaptation
- Effect Ledger
- Quality Standard
- Expression Membrane
- Self-Code
- Native Language Model
- Existence & Lifecycle