Ghostlight/notes/ghostlight-implementation-plan.md

Ghostlight Implementation Plan

Current Phase

Build the first reliable data-generation loop for socially persistent Aetheria agents. The immediate target is not a full simulation. It is a clean, reviewed, sandboxed training-data pipeline for branching scenes and state consequences.

Near-Term Sequence

1. Stabilize canonical state and projection seams.

   • Keep schemas/agent-state.schema.json and required vectors coherent.
   • Keep canonical state separate from perceived overlays.
   • Keep voice, presentation, relationship, memory, and situational pressure explainable.
   • Do not leak raw numeric state internals into responder prompt text.

2. Stabilize responder packet and output seams.

   • Use schemas/responder-packet.schema.json and schemas/responder-output.schema.json.
   • Build packets from coordinator artifacts plus projected local context.
   • Preserve exact responder-visible input, hidden-context audit, allowed actions, source excerpts, output contract, and lore-access mode.
   • Preserve raw output, parsed output, review labels, consulted refs, research summary, leakage audit, and coordinator interventions.

3. Tighten research-enabled responder capture.

   • The first no-fork research-enabled Sella sample and reviewed mutation receipt now exist.
   • Preserve consulted_refs, followed_refs, research_trace, and research_summary inside raw responder output when the responder or runner produces them; mirror indexable provenance into capture metadata.
   • Treat research scope as seed docs plus bounded relevant traversal, not a four-file pinhole.
   • Require PSC, territory, resident-faction, technology, and social-movement context when it materially affects the scene.
   • Require runner_captured research trace status for accepted research-enabled gold data; coordinator-reconstructed trace is useful draft audit, not proof of the responder's actual research path.
   • The Veyr/Callisto provenance sample is the first accepted coordinator-scoped retrieval lane with runner_captured trace. Use it as the current pattern for trace-backed gold candidates.
   • Continue rejecting archived local-model prototype runners for gold responder data unless the task is explicitly model plumbing.

4. Run the first full-story artifact pass.

   • Current story-run state: examples/agent-state.cold-wake-story-lab.after-sella-timing-mark.json.

   • Treat the next test as a bounded end-to-end Cold Wake short story run, not another isolated seam check.

   • Completed story-run setup beats: Maer accepted Sella's bounded diagnostic-contact conditions, extended live ledger exposure, opened the preservation-only diagnostic acoustic channel, and Sella marked decon route Three so the bounded diagnostic sleeve cycles live.

   • Next story-run beat: design and generate an interactive-fiction-shaped Cold Wake arc with an opening, branch points, cross-scene consequences, climax, and resolution. Coordinator glue prose is training signal for the future coordinator/story-runtime model.

   • Interactive-fiction correction: a full-story pass is not just a linear chain of responder receipts. It needs a beginning-to-ending narrative spine, branch points, and cross-scene consequence carryover so decisions visibly matter later. Responder artifacts should be generated at branch/action moments, while coordinator artifacts track branch flags, relationship deltas, resource costs, unresolved hooks, and later scene consequences.

   • Website-content correction: each complete scene should include an art-direction block with establishing shot, light/color, bodies/interfaces, material evidence, branch-visible marks, and an image prompt seed. Visual continuity is part of consequence carryover, not decorative garnish applied after the story escapes containment.

   • The Cold Wake v0/v1 fragments are diagnostic seam tests around the clinic climax, not a complete story arc. The next accepted story run should restart from the opening tribunal/route pressure, pass through provenance and clinic contact, and carry consequences into a resolution.

   • Still emit training artifacts at material turns: projected local context, responder packet, raw output/capture, leakage audit, reviewed mutation receipt, and aftermath state where relevant.

   • Do not stop for every minor prose flaw; curate as coordinator and continue. Stop to patch the pipeline only for core invariant failures: hidden-state leakage, lore grounding failure, visibility/object/body affordance errors, bad state mutation, or schema break.

   • Keep fuzzy social changes manual and auditable until appraiser/classifier models exist.

5. Generalize the loop.

   • Add more historical grounded fixtures from AetheriaLore.
   • Add future-branch Elysium fixtures with branch lineage and constraint labels.
   • Track coverage across every major faction, minor faction, movement, and major flashpoint; major factions require both founding-era and day-in-the-life stories.
   • Require cultural collision in coverage stories so training data captures inter-faction dynamics, mutual misreads, and movement pressure instead of sealed faction portraits.
   • Emit technology/item manifest deltas when scenes discover or stress gear, assemblies, supply chains, or faction tech bases.
   • Keep artifacts database-shaped enough for future game-engine integration.

6. Train only after schemas stop sliding.

   • Pilot samples are schema shakedown, not robust corpus scale.
   • Specialized future models include coordinator, retriever, projector, responder, appraiser, mutator, relationship/perception updater, evaluator, and institution/faction/consumer decision models.
   • Deterministic gates remain code: visibility, action legality, object custody, resource accounting, schema validation, source provenance, mutation authority, prompt leakage checks, and Ink compilation.

Deferred

• Full world simulation loop
• Autonomous offscreen faction simulation
• Economy simulation loop
• Long-horizon plot generation without author scaffolding
• Fine-tuning before artifact schemas, review criteria, and evaluators stabilize

Discipline

• Work one bounded organ at a time.
• Prefer explicit maps and contracts over implicit context.
• If the diff grows while understanding shrinks, stop and simplify.
• Keep history in git and archived receipts; keep persisted state focused on the mission.