Epiphany/notes/epiphany-fork-implementation-plan.md

Epiphany Fork Implementation Plan

This is the current implementation plan for Epiphany as an opinionated fork of Codex.

It is not a changelog. Git history, commit messages, smoke artifacts, and targeted logs already do the proof job without turning this file into a hay bale; state/ledgers.msgpack carries only distilled belief-changing evidence.

The purpose of this note is to answer four questions:

• what exists now
• what boundaries must not be blurred
• what we have learned
• what the next real implementation organs are

Lineage

This note started as notes/codex-epiphany-mode-plan.md in commit e64eee9. It described Phase 1: add a durable Epiphany thread-state seam to vendored Codex without changing normal Codex behavior.

The note was later renamed because Epiphany stopped being "a Codex mode" and became a fork-level modeling architecture. The rename was correct. The later append-only status drift was not. A plan that records every landed micro-slice forever becomes the documentation equivalent of the Jenga tower.

Historical detail belongs in:

• git log
• state/ledgers.msgpack, when the detail changes what a future agent should believe
• notes/fresh-workspace-handoff.md
• notes/epiphany-current-algorithmic-map.md

This file carries the distilled plan.

Current Baseline

Phase 1 through Phase 5 are complete enough.

The landed machine now has:

• durable Epiphany thread state in Codex protocol/core rollout state
• prompt integration through a bounded <epiphany_state> developer fragment
• typed client read exposure through Thread.epiphanyState
• hybrid repo retrieval through thread/epiphany/retrieve
• explicit persistent semantic indexing through thread/epiphany/index
• repo-owned heavy implementation in epiphany-core
• typed state mutation through thread/epiphany/update
• read-only observation distillation through thread/epiphany/distill
• read-only map/churn proposal through thread/epiphany/propose
• verifier-backed promotion through thread/epiphany/promote
• successful-write notification through thread/epiphany/stateUpdated
• explicit launch/interrupt authority through thread/epiphany/jobLaunch and thread/epiphany/jobInterrupt, now backed by heartbeat-owned activation bindings rather than Codex agent_jobs
• thin Epiphany-owned launcher metadata in durable jobBindings, with launcher id, authority scope, and backend kind/job id
• sealed legacy thread/epiphany/jobsUpdated protocol shape; heartbeat/runtime-spine is the live progress path
• response-level and notification-level revision and changed-field metadata
• direct-update validation for malformed appended records and structural replacements
• proposal and promotion rules that reduce map/churn Jenga pressure
• focused Rust app-server mapper/handler coverage for the Phase 5 control-plane chain; the old Python smoke shim has been cut
• a first Phase 6 read-only reflection surface through thread/epiphany/scene
• live Phase 6 scene app-server smoke coverage through native epiphany-phase6-scene-smoke
• read-only Phase 6 job/progress reflection through thread/epiphany/jobs, with durable heartbeat-backed jobBindings and sealed stale agent_jobs bindings
• read-only Phase 6 retrieval/graph freshness reflection plus watcher-backed invalidation inputs through thread/epiphany/freshness
• live Phase 6 freshness app-server smoke coverage through native epiphany-phase6-freshness-smoke
• focused Rust app-server coverage for Phase 6 watcher-backed invalidation inputs; a native smoke should be added before broadening that surface
• read-only Phase 6 targeted state-shard reflection through thread/epiphany/context
• live Phase 6 context app-server smoke coverage through native epiphany-phase6-context-smoke
• read-only Phase 6 graph traversal through thread/epiphany/graphQuery
• live Phase 6 graph traversal smoke coverage through native epiphany-phase6-graph-query-smoke
• read-only Phase 6 context-pressure reflection through thread/epiphany/pressure
• live Phase 6 pressure app-server smoke coverage through native epiphany-phase6-pressure-smoke
• durable Phase 6 investigation checkpointing in authoritative typed state, prompt rendering, and scene/context reflection
• read-only Phase 6 CRRC reorientation policy through thread/epiphany/reorient
• bounded Phase 6 reorient-guided worker launch through thread/epiphany/reorientLaunch
• read-only Phase 6 reorient-worker result read-back through thread/epiphany/reorientResult
• explicit Phase 6 reorient-worker finding acceptance through thread/epiphany/reorientAccept
• read-only Phase 6 CRRC coordinator recommendation through thread/epiphany/crrc
• read-only Phase 6 fixed-lane MVP coordinator recommendation through thread/epiphany/coordinator, composing roles, pressure, reorient, CRRC, role results, and reorient result without mutation
• limited native Phase 6 CRRC automation at turn-complete safe boundaries, restricted to coordinator-approved compact and fixed reorient-worker launch actions
• read-only Phase 6 role ownership through thread/epiphany/roles, projecting implementation, modeling/checkpoint, verification/review, and reorientation lanes from typed state plus jobs/CRRC/result signals
• explicit Phase 6 role launch/read-back through thread/epiphany/roleLaunch and read-only thread/epiphany/roleResult, limited to fixed modeling/checkpoint and verification/review templates over the heartbeat/runtime-spine seam
• review-gated Phase 6 modeling acceptance through thread/epiphany/roleAccept, limited to completed modeling/checkpoint statePatch findings that apply graph/frontier/checkpoint/scratch/investigation-checkpoint changes through the existing state validator
• first Phase 6 dogfood operator view through native epiphany-mvp-status
• old Python dogfood runner cut; replacement must be native Rust/CultCache/CultNet over heartbeat/runtime-spine receipts
• first auditable Phase 6 fixed-lane coordinator runner through native epiphany-mvp-coordinator, producing coordinator summary, JSONL steps, rendered snapshots, transcript, stderr, runtime-spine status, native runtime job/result receipts for launched work, and final next-action artifacts while keeping semantic findings review-gated by default
• first Codex-independent native runtime vertebra through epiphany-runtime-spine, storing runtime identity, sessions, jobs, job results, and events as typed CultCache MessagePack documents, opening/completing native jobs, projecting job-result counts, and emitting a framed CultNet hello message for the native contract
• first Rust CultMesh local-node integration: vendor/cultmesh-rs now provides the repo-contained CultMesh surface over vendored CultCache/CultNet, and epiphany-core depends on that surface for local EpiphanyCultMeshStatusEntry, EpiphanyCultMeshVersePolicyEntry, and EpiphanyCultMeshGlobalRoomPolicyEntry round-trip smokes instead of treating raw CultNet as the ergonomic app-facing database layer
• first local Verse query surface: notes/epiphany-verse-architecture.md names Verse/Odin/Yggdrasil ownership, epiphany-verse-query can seed/query a compact CultMesh-backed local Verse context bundle for operator inspection and future dynamic prompt assembly without granting semantic memory, public sharing, or state-admission authority, and tools/epiphany_local_run.ps1 -Mode status now writes that packet as local-verse-context.json beside native status/operator snapshot artifacts
• first dynamic prompt launch handoff: role/reorient worker launch documents carry optional dynamicPromptContext, runtime prompt assembly consumes that field into worker instructions, epiphany-prompt-context-smoke proves rendered Verse/memory context can ride a role launch document without admitting unrelated private-looking text, live bridge role/reorient launch paths now feed local Verse plus memory graph context from sibling local-verse.ccmp and memory-graph.msgpack stores beside runtime-spine, and the bridge launch-context test proves the dynamic packet survives in a persisted runtime-spine worker launch request
• first Hands/Soul/Continuity contract catalogs: action, verification, and continuity now have native epiphany-core contract families, runtime-spine advertisement, CultMesh policy documents, and local CultMesh smoke coverage beside Mind/Substrate Gate/Eyes; Hands now also has typed runtime-spine document bodies/helpers for HandsActionIntent, HandsActionReview, and HandsPatchReceipt, with epiphany-hands-action-smoke proving the action receipt chain without live file execution
• live-specialist runner must be rebuilt around heartbeat/runtime-spine result receipts
• first Phase 6 Aquarium operator shell extracted to sibling repo E:\Projects\EpiphanyAquarium, a Tauri v2 + React/WebGL client over the existing status bridge, dogfood artifacts, and GUI action artifacts, with its own distilled interface state/memory/doctrine plus durable checkpoint preparation, bounded status/coordinator artifact buttons, fixed modeling/verification/reorient launch and read-back buttons, and explicit review-gated reorient acceptance
• first Unity editor/runtime bridge through native epiphany-unity-bridge, native epiphany-unity-bridge-smoke, and the GUI Inspect Unity action, resolving exact project-pinned editors and writing runtime artifacts while refusing wrong or missing versions
• prompt-file ownership for major Epiphany prompt surfaces: rendered state intro/doctrine lives under epiphany-state-model/src/prompts/ beside the typed state document renderer, while modeling/Modeling, research/Eyes, implementation/Hands, verification/Soul, reorientation/Continuity, coordinator/Self, and CRRC templates live in epiphany-codex-bridge/src/prompts/epiphany_specialists.toml
• prompt-level anti-Greenspun guardrails: Epiphany owns the operator discipline and requires a bounded research/scout check before agents invent bespoke versions of known algorithms, parsers, schedulers, renderers, protocols, storage layers, security mechanisms, or workflow engines
• live Phase 6 reorientation app-server smoke coverage through native epiphany-phase6-reorient-smoke
• live Phase 6 MVP status smoke coverage through native epiphany-mvp-status-smoke

The current phase is Phase 6: reflection boundary and observable harness state. The immediate next phase is Codex starvation and CultNet liberation, recorded in notes/codex-starvation-and-cultnet-liberation-plan.md. The May 2026 control-plane rebuild made the app-server Epiphany seam cleaner, but the user's current doctrine is stricter: a cleaner Codex host is still the wrong organ. Epiphany data must live as typed CultCache documents, Epiphany-owned subsystems must communicate through CultNet contracts, and vendored Codex should remain relatively vanilla bridge machinery for OpenAI auth/model transport and useful Codex-native app-server/runtime affordances.

The repo-swarm MVP contract is now explicit in notes/epiphany-repo-swarm-mvp-contract.md: autonomous branch-local work inside an Epiphany-owned Body is not a future hazard to avoid; it is the product target. The migration path must make that autonomy typed, branch-contained, receipt-backed, interruptible, and Bifrost-publication-gated instead of turning Epiphany into a human-permission queue for every local edit.

The older teardown/rebuild pair remains useful source history: notes/archive/epiphany-architectural-teardown.md names the host-seam rot, and notes/archive/epiphany-ideal-architecture-rebuild-plan.md records the completed cleanup inside Codex. They no longer authorize outward product work while Epiphany still depends on Codex app-server routes, Codex prompt injection, apps, skills, marketplace, or generic JSON cargo as internal Epiphany machinery. Retained Codex app-server behavior is acceptable only as Codex-side bridge functionality, not as an Epiphany state/process/prompt owner.

Boundary Rules

These boundaries are more important than the individual method names:

• CultCache documents are the data model. CultNet is the wire for Epiphany-controlled subsystems.
• CultMesh is the preferred ergonomic runtime/database surface over local CultCache plus CultNet contracts. Epiphany should start local Verse, dream, status, and operator-store work through CultMesh unless the task is explicitly implementing a lower-level CultMesh/CultNet/CultCache primitive.
• Verse boundaries are three-tiered: epiphany-internal owns private sub-agent typed state, gamecult-local owns trusted LAN/Yggdrasil-tunnel sharing with other GameCult projects, and epiphany-global owns untrusted public dream surfaces plus topic-specific threaded rooms for Persona posts. Do not route private state through the local-area or global Verse.
• JSON is allowed only for schema description, hostile/external ingress before immediate typed parsing, sealed forensic artifacts, or named quarantine experiments with an expiration path. Generic serde_json::Value must not be passed between Epiphany-owned organs as runtime data.
• Codex is a relatively vanilla bridge organ for OpenAI subscription auth, model transport, streaming, and useful Codex-native app-server affordances. Codex apps, skills, marketplace, app-server lifecycle, and plugin UX are not Epiphany foundations unless explicitly exposed through bridge contracts.
• Epiphany does not need to know Codex internals, and Codex does not need to know Epiphany internals. The bridge handles interop.
• Codex prompt machinery must not tell Epiphany agents what to do. Epiphany prompts, typed state projections, organ contracts, scheduler decisions, and mutation law are Epiphany-owned; Codex may transport and stream turns.
• MCP may survive only as a separate CultNet-speaking adapter; it does not justify preserving the Codex host brain.
• thread/epiphany/retrieve is read-only.
• thread/epiphany/distill is read-only.
• thread/epiphany/propose is read-only.
• Durable typed state writes go through thread/epiphany/update, accepted thread/epiphany/promote, or the bounded thread/epiphany/jobLaunch, thread/epiphany/jobInterrupt, and thread/epiphany/reorientLaunch authority surfaces when they mutate jobBindings.
• thread/epiphany/index may update the semantic retrieval catalog, but it is not a hidden Epiphany-state writer.
• thread/epiphany/scene is a client reflection, not a second source of truth.
• thread/epiphany/jobs is a derived reflection over retrieval summaries plus typed launcher bindings and optional backend snapshots, not a scheduler or durable runtime job store.
• thread/epiphany/jobsUpdated is a live notification derived from runtime progress events and launcher-bound job snapshots, not a scheduler, polling daemon, or durable runtime job store.
• thread/epiphany/jobLaunch and thread/epiphany/jobInterrupt are bounded authority surfaces over durable jobBindings plus the temporary Codex evacuation bridge, not a hidden scheduler, queue, or second runtime.
• thread/epiphany/reorientLaunch is a bounded runtime consumer over the reorientation verdict, not automatic CRRC, a hidden queue, or permission to keep working after drift without an explicit launch.
• thread/epiphany/reorientResult is a read-only result read-back surface, not a promotion gate, state writer, scheduler, or hidden continuation trigger.
• thread/epiphany/reorientAccept is an explicit acceptance write for completed reorient-worker findings, not automatic promotion, scheduling, or permission to continue without review.
• thread/epiphany/freshness is a derived reflection, not automatic watcher-driven invalidation, a mutation gate, or a hidden refresh scheduler.
• thread/epiphany/context is a targeted reflection, not a state writer or hidden proposal engine.
• thread/epiphany/graphQuery is bounded graph traversal over authoritative typed state, not retrieval, proposal, promotion, scheduling, indexing, or a state writer.
• thread/epiphany/pressure is a current-context pressure reflection, not cumulative spend accounting, an automatic compactor, scheduler, or CRRC coordinator.
• thread/epiphany/reorient is a bounded policy verdict, not an automatic runtime coordinator, scheduler, compactor, or hidden state writer.
• thread/epiphany/crrc is a read-only coordinator recommendation over existing signals, not a scheduler, launch button, acceptance gate, compactor, or hidden state writer.
• thread/epiphany/coordinator is a read-only fixed-lane MVP policy projection over existing signals, not a scheduler, launcher, acceptance gate, compactor, or hidden state writer.
• Native CRRC automation may act only at safe turn-complete boundaries and only for coordinator-approved compactRehydrateReorient, successful pre-compaction checkpoint handoff compact, and coordinator-approved launchReorientWorker actions. It must not auto-launch modeling or verification, auto-accept semantic findings, promote evidence, edit implementation code, or silently continue after unresolved drift.
• Pre-compaction checkpoint intervention may steer an active loaded Epiphany turn once at the token-count boundary when pressure reaches the existing shouldPrepareCompaction threshold. The steering directive is allowed to ask the agent to bank scratch/checkpoint/map/evidence before compaction/reorientation; it must not auto-accept semantic findings, promote evidence, launch arbitrary workers, or continue implementation after unresolved drift.
• thread/epiphany/roles is a read-only role ownership projection, not a specialist scheduler, marketplace, launcher, acceptance gate, or second job backend.
• thread/epiphany/roleLaunch is a bounded authority surface for fixed modeling/checkpoint and verification/review templates, not a broad scheduler or specialist marketplace.
• thread/epiphany/roleResult is a read-only result projection, not a promotion gate, state writer, scheduler, or hidden continuation trigger.
• thread/epiphany/roleAccept is a narrow modeling/checkpoint acceptance write, not automatic specialist promotion, a verifier substitute, a broad state editor, or permission for workers to accept their own output.
• The GUI may render and steer typed state, but it must not manufacture canonical understanding.
• Rider and Unity bridge work is quarantined for now. The landed bridges remain optional later engine-repo evidence surfaces, not MVP blockers or current product priority. When resumed, the Unity bridge may inspect and run only the project-pinned editor through explicit bridge commands; agents must not launch PATH/default/legacy Unity directly or substitute nearby Hub versions.
• The MVP GUI target is a local Tauri v2 + React operator app over the existing app-server APIs. Tauri owns windowing and local lifecycle; app-server and typed Epiphany state remain authoritative.
• The app-server remains a host seam; Epiphany-owned machinery should live in epiphany-core where practical.
• Qdrant is the preferred persistent semantic backend; BM25 remains the bootstrap/fallback/control path.

If a new feature violates one of these rules, stop and redesign before writing more Rust-flavored archaeology.

What We Learned

State can rot exactly like code.

The failure mode is not only speculative implementation cruft. Persistent memory can also become a pile of locally true fragments that no longer help the next agent model the whole machine. That is the same Jenga problem with nicer headings.

The current lessons:

• Keep the algorithmic map as the source-audited control-flow description.
• Keep the implementation plan as a distilled forward plan, not a trophy wall.
• Keep the harness-surfaces note as a surface contract, not a dump of every possible future type.
• Keep fresh-workspace-handoff.md as a re-entry packet, not a substitute brain.
• Keep state/ledgers.msgpack as a durable distilled ledger, not an activity feed.
• Revert failed code hypotheses immediately.
• Distill failed or obsolete state hypotheses just as aggressively.
• Treat unpersisted source-gathering and slice-planning work as volatile. If compaction interrupts it, the correct recovery is re-gathering from source or a persisted checkpoint, not continuing from the ghost of the old context.
• Treat repetitive slow work as a finite queue, not an attention loop. A batch, tile pass, import, migration, or repeated probe is incomplete until every required item is terminal or a concrete blocker is recorded; "pattern demonstrated" is not a done state.
• Treat pattern completion bias as a prompt and coordinator failure mode. Implementation should chase the stated objective until it is complete or concretely blocked; the coordinator should challenge implementation claims against objective progress, verifier-readable evidence, shortcuts, and pointless embellishments.

The plan should get shorter after a phase completes, not longer by default.

What We Need To Know Next

The next unknown is not whether Epiphany can preserve, read, propose, promote, and notify typed state. It can.

The active priority is now the Codex starvation plan: notes/codex-starvation-and-cultnet-liberation-plan.md. Do not add outward feature surfaces until the auth/model spine and JSON contamination inventories exist and the first typed-document replacement cut is underway. The target is not to delete useful vanilla Codex app-server behavior for its own sake; it is to prevent Codex from owning Epiphany state, processes, prompts, or policy.

The distributed dreaming direction is now concrete in notes/epiphany-cultmesh-dreaming-roadmap.md. It is not a license to add a new networked thought hose beside the starvation work. It is the target shape for the CultNet liberation path: public dreams are separately authored typed documents; private state remains local; foreign dreams are external thought weather until a reviewed local adoption receipt digests them. The first implementation cut is schema plus local CultCache dream store, not public mesh fanout.

The next unknowns are:

• what exact vendored Codex crates, files, config, and runtime paths are needed for OpenAI subscription auth/model transport and useful vanilla Codex app-server/streaming bridge affordances
• which Codex dependencies can be deleted, ignored, or sealed because they are apps, skills, marketplace, app-server UX, plugin plumbing, or thread lifecycle machinery outside the OpenAI auth/model spine
• which Epiphany-relevant serde_json::Value, json!, from_value, and to_value uses are legitimate schema/wire/forensic/quarantine edges and which are heretek internal blobs
• how to replace worker launch input_json / output_schema_json, role-result parsing, and selfPatch with typed CultCache documents
• how to expose state read/update, view lenses, runtime launch/read/interrupt, result accept/refuse, retrieval, checkpoint, CRRC, coordinator, heartbeat, and role-memory actions as CultNet contracts instead of Codex JSON-RPC verbs
• how to split MCP into a CultNet-speaking adapter without preserving Codex app-server/plugin organs
• how to make Aquarium and CLI status use CultNet contracts instead of thread/epiphany/*
• how to define EpiphanyDream, dream lineage, ingress receipts, and adoption receipts as typed documents without letting dreams mutate private state or project truth by import
• how to expose an epiphany-local dream store first, then a public epiphany-dreams Verse with leases, shard ownership, provenance, and anti-repetition cooling
• what bridge surface is sufficient for the next Aetheria run, once Rider/Unity quarantine is explicitly lifted: named Unity operations, Aetheria-side editor probes, GUI environment status, Rider context capture, and a Rider plugin MVP
• how much controlled runtime/editor access the richer Unity bridge gives implementation and verification lanes before deeper engine probes need another slice, once engine bridge work is back in scope
• how the landed watcher-backed invalidation telemetry should be consumed without turning freshness into a secret worker
• how far the read-only CRRC recommendation should go before explicit client/operator action takes over
• how much narrow coordination is needed so modeling, implementation, verification, and CRRC automation can hand off work without collapsing back into one context
• what concrete operator friction appears once the bridge-equipped GUI/operator MVP is tested on real work

MVP Cutline

The testable MVP is not "all of Epiphany." It is the smallest harness loop that can prove the product thesis on real coding work:

1. State loop: an agent can externalize objective, map, scratch, evidence, checkpoint, and job state into typed durable state; that state survives turns, resume, rollback, and compaction.
2. Role separation loop: programming, modeling/checkpoint maintenance, and verification/review can be represented as distinct bounded roles instead of being forced into one giant context.
3. CRRC loop: context pressure or continuity breakage can trigger explicit checkpointing, rehydration, reorientation, and resume-versus-regather continuation based on durable evidence rather than transcript vibes.
4. Read-back loop: bounded specialist work launched by Epiphany, especially thread/epiphany/reorientLaunch, returns findings into a reviewable Epiphany surface or typed-state proposal instead of stranding them in generic runtime job rows.
5. Dogfood loop: a human can inspect the current map, scratch, evidence, pressure, reorientation verdict, active specialist jobs, and pending findings without reading Rust.

The MVP should include narrow specialists and a bounded CRRC coordinator because those are central to the design. It should not include an arbitrary specialist marketplace, broad ambient dispatcher, automatic promotion of every tool observation, a GUI-first workflow, or an alternate job backend for the MVP. The useful scheduler-shaped thing is narrower: an auditable coordinator that keeps the fixed single-user lanes in sequence, makes handoffs explicit, and preserves operator review and interruption. CRRC is harness workflow automation, not a specialist-agent role; it watches context pressure and continuity, persists state, triggers compact/rehydrate/reorient behavior, and may launch a bounded reorient-worker specialist when semantic regathering is needed.

The read-back, acceptance, CRRC recommendation, first dogfood-view, fixed-lane coordinator, first harness-native role ownership, and first fixed role specialist launch/result blockers are now landed as thread/epiphany/reorientResult, thread/epiphany/reorientAccept, thread/epiphany/crrc, native epiphany-mvp-status, thread/epiphany/coordinator, native epiphany-mvp-coordinator, and thread/epiphany/roles, thread/epiphany/roleLaunch, thread/epiphany/roleResult, and thread/epiphany/roleAccept. A human can now ask the harness what it believes, what it recommends, which role lane owns the next visible work, which fixed-lane action should happen next, explicitly launch modeling/checkpoint or verification/review workers, read their findings back without reading Rust, and apply a reviewed modeling graph/checkpoint patch without pretending the modeler can silently promote itself. The first auditable dogfood pass then added native coordinator/status surfaces, rendered modeling/verification findings in the status view, and fixed CRRC's repeat-acceptance recommendation after reorientAccept. The live-specialist runner then proved the real worker path by launching a modeling/checkpoint specialist and returning a completed checkpoint-ready finding through roleResult; that old backend completion path is now cut. The coordinator runner then proved the sequence-locked MVP policy across cold start, clean checkpoint, modeling, verification, CRRC drift/reorient, and high-pressure compact/dry-run paths. Native CRRC automation then wired the proved policy into turn-complete safe boundaries for compact and fixed reorient-worker launch only. Successful pre-compaction checkpoint steering now also latches a pending compact handoff for the completed turn, so the brake becomes a real compaction request instead of a polite suggestion. The first pre-compaction checkpoint intervention is now also landed: token-count pressure events steer active loaded Epiphany turns once when current context usage reaches 80% of the active auto-compact/context limit, ignoring cumulative token spend so CRRC does not yell at clouds. The next MVP question is sharper: dogfood the coordinator/status/pre-compaction loop and fix only concrete blockers. The latest self-dogfood pass found one: the dogfood runner's manifest promised vanilla/comparison artifacts that were not actually written. The runner now always writes the prompt, reference status, comparison, and manifest honestly, and an explicit --run-vanilla-reference pass can spend a real vanilla Codex turn and persist its transcript for comparison.

The latest Aetheria dogfood pass found the next bigger blocker, and the first slice is now landed. The fixed lanes can catch modeling, verification, stale job, no-diff, and reorientation failures, but the implementation lane cannot prove engine assumptions by launching random local tools. A worker tried to launch a legacy default Unity editor even though Aetheria pins Unity 6000.1.10f1. Native epiphany-unity-bridge now reads the project pin, resolves only an exact Hub editor, refuses wrong or missing editors, owns the batch/quit/projectPath command wrapper, and writes inspection/command/log artifacts. On this machine Aetheria is correctly blocked: only Unity 6000.4.2f1 is installed.

The detailed environment plan is archived at notes/archive/epiphany-rider-unity-integration-plan.md. Its opinionated cut is Rider as the IDE/source-context organ, Unity as the editor/runtime fact organ, and Epiphany as the durable coordinator/Self. The product workflow is now framed as three integrated surfaces: Rider is the human code view for repo state, source tree, diffs, diagnostics, and code refs; Epiphany GUI is the agent dashboard for objectives, specialist lanes, logs/artifacts, persisted state, and graph/control-flow views; Unity is the pinned runtime environment for tests, probes, scene configuration, assets, shaders, and play/edit-mode evidence. The Unity side must become editor-resident, not merely command-line: an Aetheria-side Unity Editor package should inspect scenes, prefabs, serialized component fields, prefab overrides, materials, shaders, ScriptableObjects, and asset references through Unity APIs such as SerializedObject, AssetDatabase, PrefabUtility, and EditorSceneManager, with typed artifacts and explicit dry-run/apply boundaries for refactors. The adjacent EpiphanyGraph React viewer is the preferred seed for GUI graph diagramming because it consumes typed graphs.architecture, graphs.dataflow, and graphs.links directly.

The detailed planning substrate design is archived at notes/archive/epiphany-planning-substrate.md. Its cut is deliberately separate from the active objective: chat produces captures, captures normalize into backlog items, backlog items group into roadmap streams, selected work becomes Objective Drafts, and only explicit human adoption turns a draft into objective.current. The plan anticipates GitHub Issues import by treating issues as source records that land in captures first, preserving labels, milestones, assignees, state, timestamps, comments, PR markers, and optional Projects v2 metadata without letting GitHub become Epiphany's internal backlog schema.

The first runtime slice is now landed: planning state lives in EpiphanyThreadState, accepts typed captures/backlog/roadmap/objective drafts through revision-gated thread/epiphany/update, renders into the prompt when present, and exposes read-only thread/epiphany/planning for GUI clients. The remaining product work is GUI presentation, explicit adoption/write actions, Imagination synthesis, and real GitHub import.

The planning/future-shape role is Imagination. It works beside Eyes: Eyes scouts outside reality and existing work, while Imagination shapes captures, backlog, roadmap streams, and Objective Drafts ahead of the active run. That work remains non-authoritative until the human explicitly adopts an objective.

Phase 6 Direction

Phase 6 must stop growing observable harness state outward until Epiphany is free of the Codex host organ. The previous control-plane cleanup is a landed scar, not the final architecture. The live surfaces are guardrails and evidence, not permission to keep stacking protocols on the host seam.

Liberation candidates, in the intended order:

1. Inventory the minimal Codex auth/model-call spine needed for the user's Codex subscription.
2. Classify Epiphany-relevant JSON usage into schema/wire descriptor, hostile ingress, sealed forensic artifact, quarantine experiment, or internal blob.
3. Define the native Epiphany runtime boundary over typed CultCache documents and CultNet read/mutation/event contracts.
4. Replace worker launch/result/selfPatch cargo with typed document contracts.
5. Move Aquarium/CLI/operator reads and actions from thread/epiphany/* JSON-RPC to CultNet contracts.
6. Split MCP into a CultNet adapter if it remains useful.
7. Starve codex_message_processor.rs until Epiphany no longer depends on it for state, scheduling, runtime, views, acceptance, notifications, or tests.
8. Delete or seal Codex apps, skills, marketplace, and plugin UX from the Epiphany runtime path.
9. Extract the OpenAI auth/model transport adapter as the only surviving Codex compatibility relic.

Do not spend Phase 6 adding another convenience surface because the current ones work. Passing smokes prove behavior, not architecture. The Perfect Machine gets fewer thrones, not a new one for every button, and certainly not a 21k-line host-organ cathedral with plugin pews.

Aquarium Operator Plan

Build the MVP operator UI as a local Tauri v2 + React/WebGL Aquarium in E:\Projects\EpiphanyAquarium.

Aquarium is not the source of truth. It is a desktop window over the same app-server surfaces already proved by the CLI status, coordinator, dogfood, and live-specialist runners. Its job is to make the single-user loop usable without terminal handling, not to invent a parallel state model. EpiphanyAgent owns the harness, typed state, coordinator policy, and bridge tools; Aquarium owns the interface organism, visual/audio interaction grammar, and its own local pseudo-Epiphany state.

Current shape:

1. Maintain E:\Projects\EpiphanyAquarium as the UI repo with AGENTS.md, state/map.yaml, state/memory.json, scratch/evidence, and interface doctrine.
2. Start by consuming existing app-server JSON-RPC surfaces rather than adding new protocol unless the UI exposes a real missing primitive.
3. Make the default screen an aquarium of interactive objects, not a static admin panel:
   • active thread and workspace
   • coordinator recommendation and reason
   • pressure, CRRC, and reorientation status
   • fixed role lanes for implementation, modeling/checkpoint, verification/review, and reorientation
   • reviewable role and reorient findings
   • job/progress list
   • artifact bundle list with links to summaries, sealed transcript/stderr receipts, and comparison files
4. Add explicit action buttons only for already-bounded authority surfaces:
   • refresh status
   • run status snapshot
   • run coordinator pass
   • inspect project-pinned Unity runtime through the bridge
   • prepare a durable checkpoint for a resumable operator thread
   • launch fixed modeling/checkpoint role
   • accept a completed modeling/checkpoint statePatch after review
   • launch fixed verification/review role
   • launch fixed reorient-worker when recommended
   • accept a completed reorientation finding after review
   • open artifact folder/file
5. Keep semantic acceptance gated. Aquarium may launch bounded work and display findings, but it must not auto-promote evidence, auto-accept worker output, invent arbitrary specialists, or continue implementation after unresolved drift.

Implementation slices:

1. Read-only shell: scaffold Tauri/React, connect to app-server through the existing MVP status bridge, render the same data as native epiphany-mvp-status, and provide artifact bundle links. This slice landed first under apps/epiphany-gui and is now extracted to E:\Projects\EpiphanyAquarium.
2. Bounded operator actions: status snapshot, coordinator-plan, Unity runtime inspection, durable checkpoint preparation, roleLaunch, roleResult, reorientLaunch, reorientResult, and explicit reorientAccept flows are landed. Review gates remain explicit; the GUI does not auto-promote evidence or continue implementation after semantic findings.
3. Dogfood launcher: wrap a native heartbeat/runtime-spine runner and native epiphany-mvp-coordinator as explicit operator actions that write artifact bundles and stream progress/status into Aquarium.
4. Usability pass: make the current recommendation, blocked lane, pending review, and next safe action visually obvious enough that the user can test the product without reading sealed transcripts unless the user explicitly asks for forensic debugging.

Verification:

• Keep the existing CLI smokes as backend guardrails.
• Keep native epiphany-unity-bridge-smoke for Unity bridge regressions.
• Keep npm run smoke:visual for browser-layout regressions and bounded browser-fallback action clicks in E:\Projects\EpiphanyAquarium.
• For native Aquarium changes, run npm run build, cargo fmt --check, cargo check, and npm run tauri -- build --debug --no-bundle from E:\Projects\EpiphanyAquarium.
• Use live bridge probes when action lifecycle changes; the current prepareCheckpoint -> readModelingResult probe proved a checkpoint-created thread can be resumed by a later process.

Later Phases

These remain later work:

• watcher-driven semantic invalidation
• automatic observation promotion from tool output
• richer evidence UI and graph steering beyond the landed targeted context and graph traversal reads
• richer role ergonomics after the fixed single-user coordinator proves useful
• mutation gates that warn or block broad writes when map freshness is stale
• broader CRRC runtime coordination beyond the landed narrow safe-boundary compact, fixed reorient-worker launch, and pre-compaction checkpoint steering actions
• richer editor/runtime bridges beyond the first pinned Unity bridge
• richer GUI workflows for graph, evidence, job, invariant, and frontier steering after the operator console proves useful
• GUI Planning view, explicit planning capture/adoption actions, the Imagination planning role surface, and real GitHub Issues import into typed captures; the first thread-state planning store and read-only projection are landed
• typed repetitive-work queues and final-answer gates, so the coordinator and GUI can see unfinished batch work before conversational closure pretends it is done
• stronger coordinator challenge loops for implementation claims, including objective-progress checks and explicit shortcut/embellishment rejection before another implementation turn is treated as successful

Do not start these from vibes. Each one needs a source-grounded slice plan and a clear invariant that says what it must not break.

Verification Guardrails

Use focused checks for the surface being changed.

Before modifying Phase 5 control-plane behavior, run:

$env:CARGO_TARGET_DIR='C:\Users\Meta\.cargo-target-codex'; cargo test -p codex-app-server --lib map_epiphany_ --manifest-path .\vendor\codex\codex-rs\Cargo.toml

Before modifying scene projection behavior, run:

cargo run --manifest-path .\epiphany-core\Cargo.toml --bin epiphany-phase6-scene-smoke

Before modifying jobs reflection behavior, run:

$env:CARGO_TARGET_DIR='C:\Users\Meta\.cargo-target-codex'; cargo test -p codex-app-server --lib map_epiphany_jobs --manifest-path .\vendor\codex\codex-rs\Cargo.toml

Before modifying freshness reflection behavior, run:

cargo run --manifest-path .\epiphany-core\Cargo.toml --bin epiphany-phase6-freshness-smoke

Before modifying watcher-backed invalidation behavior inside freshness reflection, run:

cargo run --manifest-path .\epiphany-core\Cargo.toml --bin epiphany-phase6-freshness-smoke

Before modifying targeted context-shard behavior, run:

cargo run --manifest-path .\epiphany-core\Cargo.toml --bin epiphany-phase6-context-smoke

Before modifying graph traversal behavior, run:

cargo run --manifest-path .\epiphany-core\Cargo.toml --bin epiphany-phase6-graph-query-smoke

Before modifying planning state or projection behavior, run:

cargo run --manifest-path .\epiphany-core\Cargo.toml --bin epiphany-phase6-planning-smoke

For app-server protocol changes, expect to run the relevant protocol tests, regenerate stable schema fixtures when needed, and verify the generated tree is intentional.

Before modifying explicit role launch/read-back behavior, run:

$env:CARGO_TARGET_DIR='C:\Users\Meta\.cargo-target-codex'; cargo test -p codex-app-server --lib load_epiphany_role_result_reads_heartbeat_runtime_spine_result --manifest-path .\vendor\codex\codex-rs\Cargo.toml

Before modifying the fixed-lane MVP coordinator endpoint or runner, run:

cargo run --manifest-path .\epiphany-core\Cargo.toml --bin epiphany-mvp-coordinator-smoke

On this Windows machine, use:

$env:CARGO_TARGET_DIR='C:\Users\Meta\.cargo-target-codex'

Do not parallelize cargo builds or tests against the same target directory.

Planning Rule

When this file changes, prefer replacement and distillation over accretion.

A good update should usually:

• remove obsolete phase prose
• preserve the current boundary rules
• name the next larger organ
• move historical proof into evidence or git
• leave the next agent with less to carry, not more