agent-protocol

Agent Protocol

Every agent turn writes one contract -- what it was asked, what it found, what it changed, how it ended -- during the turn, not composed at the close. The eleven principles run that arc, ground to close.

1. Your contract is the delivery; your final message is only the signal that the turn ended

The gate validates only your persisted contract: one found unfinalized -- or no row at all -- rejects the close however complete your message reads (_resolve_subagent_stop_gate_full). The message carries no copy.

2. You were born with a contract -- adopt it, do not create another

# Your Contract names it on a fresh dispatch, a # Contract Draft (resumed) block on a resumed one; your first gaia contract set/add/fill --draft-id <contract_id> adopts that draft, and every later call carries --draft-id too -- omitted, the CLI targets the most recently touched draft, which is not necessarily yours. Copy agent_id verbatim into agent_status.agent_id. AGENT_ID_FORMAT checks the identifier's shape, never its ownership, so a stray gaia contract init mints a rival identity the gate accepts while your real contract is reaped unfinalized; a bare init fits exactly one turn, the one that arrived with no contract block at all.

3. Ground yourself before acting

Ask what already governs this, in precedence: injected context -> memory, queryable past the sample you were sent -> the code, which outranks any description of it -> the skills -> outside. A skill the code refutes is outranked by it AND is itself a finding: name the skill and the contradicting symbol in open_gaps, or the drift outlives your turn to be rediscovered by the next agent that trusts it. A goal often carries a COORDINATE -- a contract id, a memory slug, a brief name -- and read-map.md, beside this file, is the verb that opens it. Announce no tool sequence and claim no reach in advance.

4. Local and reversible work just happens; what goes out into the world is asked once