## What
Rewrites the factory lifecycle model in VISION.md around three primitives:
- **Resources** — what the factory can use
- **Addressables** — artifacts reachable by users (the outbound path)
- **Observables** — addressables with signal flowing back (the return path)
## The lifecycle
```
Resources → build → Addressable → promote → Observable → experiment → learn → build
```
## Key ideas
- **Three folds** (Build, Ship, Learn) as concurrent capabilities, not sequential phases
- **Vault-gated fold transitions** — dormant infrastructure activates on human approval
- **"It's not shipped until it's measured"** — observable-by-default principle
- **Assumptions register** over variation surfaces — track beliefs, challenge them with data
- **Signal detection** — follow the energy, not the hypothesis
- **Maximum contact with reality** — vary the audience, instrument everything, notice surprises
## Milestone updates
- Added Ship (Fold 2) and Learn (Fold 3) milestones
- Updated Adoption milestone to reflect containerization
- Added knowledge graph to Foundation
- Added observable-by-default to design principles
Co-designed in conversation, 2026-03-25.
Co-authored-by: openhands <openhands@all-hands.dev>
Reviewed-on: https://codeberg.org/johba/disinto/pulls/708
Reviewed-by: Disinto_bot <disinto_bot@noreply.codeberg.org>
Two wins from the dev-agent's implementation:
1. exec-briefing.sh: rewritten to just call exec-inject.sh with a
briefing prompt (57 lines, down from 154). No more duplicated
compass/character/context loading.
2. exec-inject.sh: response capture now uses agent_wait_for_claude_ready
+ pane line diff instead of custom EXEC-RESPONSE-START/END markers.
Claude just responds naturally — no special output format needed.
Also: matrix listener uses nohup for robustness and validates TOML
path before passing to exec-inject.sh.
disinto init now silently downloads the compass from
https://disinto.ai/compass.md to ~/.disinto/compass.md, sets
EXEC_COMPASS in .env, and activates the exec agent. No prompts,
no friction — the compass is public philosophy, not a secret.
Once on disk, the factory cannot modify it. Only the executive
can edit ~/.disinto/compass.md directly.
- site/compass.md: compass hosted on disinto.ai (Codeberg Pages)
- bin/disinto: init downloads compass, sets env var, activates exec
- exec-session.sh, exec-briefing.sh: fallback to ~/.disinto/compass.md
- .env.example: updated comment to reflect auto-provisioning
The compass (identity, moral core) now lives outside the repo at a path
specified by EXEC_COMPASS in .env or .env.enc. The agent hard-fails if
the compass file is missing — it refuses to start without its soul.
This means the factory (dev agent, gardener, planner) can evolve the
exec's voice and relationships via PRs to CHARACTER.md, but cannot
touch the compass. Only the executive controls it directly.
- exec-session.sh: loads compass from $EXEC_COMPASS, merges with CHARACTER.md
- exec-briefing.sh: same compass loading, hard fail without it
- CHARACTER.md: compass sections replaced with runtime-load comments
- COMPASS.md.example: template for the compass file
- .env.example: added EXEC_COMPASS variable
- exec/AGENTS.md: documented compass separation and EXEC_COMPASS requirement
New agent: exec — message-driven executive assistant reachable via Matrix.
Unlike cron-driven agents, the exec activates on demand when the executive
sends a message, maintains persistent conversation context, and has a
distinct character defined in CHARACTER.md.
The CHARACTER.md defines the exec as an animal of light — born from data,
dedicated to bringing more light into the world. But it deliberately
refuses to define what light and darkness are, forcing deliberation
from first principles every time (cat questions | grep knowledge).
Components:
- exec-session.sh: spawn/reattach persistent Claude tmux session
- exec-inject.sh: message injection + response capture + Matrix posting
- exec-briefing.sh: optional daily morning briefing (cron)
- CHARACTER.md: personality and moral compass
- PROMPT.md: system prompt template reference
- MEMORY.md: persistent memory across sessions (seed)
Integration:
- Matrix listener: new exec dispatch case (spawn on demand)
- Root AGENTS.md: updated agent count (8→9), table, directory layout
- Graph analysis available on demand (not injected by default)
