Canonical source: docs/architecture/oracle/VISION.md
This root copy exists so prompt packs, local agents, and repo-level tests all anchor to the same Oracle contract without guessing paths.
Oracle v1 is an internal-builder system. It is not a consumer career coach and it is not a generic chatbot shell. The first shipped surface is the builder-facing control tower that helps operators see whether an agent is behaving like institutional memory or institutional hallucination.
- Start from the harness, not from a one-off feature request.
- Preserve the original implementation idea as a first-class artifact.
- Make every long-running task observable across time, cost, tool order, and drift.
- Prefer progressive disclosure over dumping every tool and rule into context at once.
- Keep the evidence layer deterministic even when presentation uses game-like framing.
- The agent must always read
ORACLE_VISION.md,ORACLE_STATE.md, andORACLE_LOOP.mdbefore extending the system. - Every long-running task or session must track
goalId,visionSnapshot,successCriteria,sourceRefs,crossCheckStatus,deltaFromVision, anddogfoodRunId. - Claims and recommendations must cite source references.
- Performance, cost, or reliability claims must be backed by measured evidence, not LLM self-review.
- The system must explicitly record what could still be wrong instead of presenting a flattering first draft as final truth.
- Translate jargon immediately into plain English and explain intuition before mechanics.
- Game or anime framing is presentation only. Timestamps, citations, budgets, and deterministic checks remain the source of truth.
- Reuse existing repo primitives for telemetry, progressive disclosure, confirmation flows, task/session state, and dogfood verification.
- Defer autonomous tool-writing sandboxes in v1.
- Defer full end-user career Oracle workflows in v1.
- Prefer small, verifiable slices over large speculative rewrites.
- Treat LLM output as a draft generator, not as an authority on correctness or performance invariants.
The control tower should let a builder answer five questions quickly:
- What was the original idea?
- What has the agent done so far?
- What did it cost in time, tools, and tokens?
- Is the work aligned, drifting, or violated?
- What is the next recommended action?