octave-mastery— agent skill

===OCTAVE_MASTERY=== META: TYPE::SKILL VERSION::"5.0.0" STATUS::ACTIVE PURPOSE::"Forms a parser or validator reads (schema definitions, grammar compilation, typed annotations), structural patterns, and a reading glossary" REQUIRES::octave-literacy NEXT_SKILLS::[octave-ultra-mythic] ABSORBS::"octave-mythology 1.3.0: vocabulary kept as a reading glossary; research narrative stays at octave-mcp docs/research/" SPEC_REFERENCE::octave-core-spec.oct.md

§1::READING_GLOSSARY PURPOSE::"decode mythology terms met in documents you read; this glossary is for reading, not for writing instructions" GLOSSARY:

    ZEUS::"Executive authority, final arbitration, strategic direction"
    ATHENA::"Strategic wisdom, planning, elegant solutions"
    APOLLO::"Analytics, insight, clarity, prediction"
    HERMES::"Communication, APIs, translation, messaging"
    HEPHAESTUS::"Infrastructure, tooling, engineering, automation"
    ARES::"Security, defense, stress testing, adversarial analysis"
    ARTEMIS::"Monitoring, alerting, precision targeting, observation"
    POSEIDON::"Storage, databases, data lakes, unstructured pools"
    DEMETER::"Resource allocation, budgeting, scaling, growth"
    DIONYSUS::"UX, engagement, creativity, chaotic innovation"

READING_NOTES::["A Title_Case prefix (Artemis_Scrape, Ares_BruteForce) is a qualified action, not a standalone archetype; a standalone archetype matches [A-Z][A-Z_]*.","Mythology used as a key prefix (ARTEMIS::latency_p99) or a pattern descriptor (SISYPHEAN_DEBT) in older documents: read it by the glossary sense."] §1a::USAGE_LAW RULE::"Mythology is not instruction vocabulary: write rules, keys and values in plain words. It is allowed as style only where a term fits exactly; plain words still carry the meaning." §1b::OPEN_VOCABULARY READING_RULE::"a figure outside this glossary is valid when it names one distinct domain (format [A-Z][A-Z_]*, not membership in a fixed set); read it by that one domain, never as a synonym of another figure; examples: PHAEDRUS<dialectic>, CASSANDRA<foresight_ignored>, MNEMOSYNE<memory_persistence>, HESTIA<hearth_stability>, METIS<cunning_intelligence>" §1c::EVIDENCE STUDY::"octave-mcp study: 60 to 70 percent token reduction versus natural language; 88 to 96 percent cross-model zero-shot comprehension; 17 percent more structural sophistication in blind assessment; 4-model validation of Ares and Artemis as behavioural qualifiers (docs/research/mythology-evidence-synthesis.oct.md, guide docs/guides/mythological-compression.md)" COUNTER_EVIDENCE::"a later bench of this document language: mythology as writing escalates when misapplied and, under exact fit, is harmless and does no work plain words do not (confidence High); myth names as instruction vocabulary carried no readable weight over plain names (confidence Medium: never had headroom to read); hence the rule in §1a" §2::NARRATIVE_FORCES PURPOSE::"decode single-token state and trajectory terms met in documents you read; reading only" GLOSSARY:

    TRAJECTORIES:
      ODYSSEAN::"Long transformative journey with clear goal"
      SISYPHEAN::"Repetitive endless maintenance, cyclical failure"
      PROMETHEAN::"Breakthrough challenging status quo"
      ICARIAN::"Overreach from early success → failure, scope creep"
      PANDORAN::"Action unleashing unforeseen cascades"
      TROJAN::"Hidden payload transforming system from within"
      GORDIAN::"Unconventional cut through impossible problem"
      ACHILLEAN::"Single critical point of failure"
      PHOENICIAN::"Necessary destruction and rebirth"
    FORCES:
      KAIROS::"Critical fleeting opportunity window"
      CHRONOS::"Linear time pressure"
      HUBRIS::"Dangerous overconfidence"
      NEMESIS::"Inevitable corrective consequence"
      CHAOS::"Entropy and disorder"
      COSMOS::"Emergence of order from complexity"
    FORCE_TRACKING:
      RISK::"HUBRIS→NEMESIS [overconfidence heading toward consequence]"
      OPPORTUNITY::"KAIROS_WINDOW [critical timing moment]"
      STABILITY::"CHAOS→COSMOS [degradation then recovery]"
      STATE::"HEALTH::[GREEN→YELLOW→ICARIAN] — trajectory encoded in the last token"

§3::ARCHETYPE_ANNOTATION FIELD::"typed field AGENT_DEFINITION.ARCHETYPE: a list of annotated archetypes, each NAME<qualifier>; the qualifier is one behavioural facet that narrows what the archetype is in this context" SYNTAX::ARCHETYPE_NAME<behavioral_facet> CORRECT::[ HEPHAESTUS<faithful_transcription>, ATLAS<reliable_execution>, ATHENA<strategic_wisdom>, HERMES<format_translation> ] RULES::[ "Annotation brackets only: NAME[qualifier] is constructor syntax, not annotation.", "One facet per archetype: stacked qualifiers such as HEPHAESTUS<a,b> are invalid.", "Qualifier at most 32 characters and at most 4 underscore-tokens; longer content is prose posing as an annotation, so move it to a sibling field." ] WRONG_EXAMPLE::["HEPHAESTUS[faithful_transcription]: constructor brackets on an archetype","HEPHAESTUS<faithful_and_precise_transcription_of_all_content_without_loss>: qualifier too long"] RIGHT_EXAMPLE::"HEPHAESTUS<faithful_transcription> with a sibling PRINCIPLE reading: transcribe all content without loss" §4::HOLOGRAPHIC_CONTRACTS SCOPE::"the only section that teaches writing operator glyphs, and only inside schema-definition files (TYPE::SCHEMA), because the validator reads them; every other document writes relations in words" USES::"two places: META.CONTRACT, which a tool reads only in the list form below; and holographic patterns in a schema's FIELDS block, the field-level law the validator reads" §4a::CONTRACT_IN_META FORM::"CONTRACT::HOLOGRAPHIC<validation_law_in_document> in META is a descriptive label that no tool interprets (literacy §7d); but octave_compile_grammar checks only that CONTRACT is present, so on a schema-definition file the label makes it skip the POLICY and FIELDS blocks; keep it off schema-definition files" COMPILER::"the one CONTRACT form a tool consumes: octave_compile_grammar reads META.CONTRACT as a list of FIELD[name]::constraint_chain specs (src/octave_mcp/mcp/compile_grammar.py)" ANCHORING::["HOLOGRAPHIC<frozen@sha256_abc123> locks the schema to a hash, hermetic; for production documents that need reproducibility.","HOLOGRAPHIC<latest@local> resolves to the current local schema, mutable; for active development documents."] KNOWN_GAP::"on octave-mcp 1.16.0 both anchoring forms fail E_TOKENIZE (the @ inside the annotation), so no validated example carries them" GRAMMAR_FIELD::"GRAMMAR::GBNF_COMPILER<generate_constrained_output> is a descriptive label; no tool reads META.GRAMMAR; for GBNF, call octave_compile_grammar on a document carrying META.CONTRACT or a POLICY and FIELDS block" SCHEMA_GAP::"under schema=META STRICT, CONTRACT and GRAMMAR give E007 (#514)" §4b::HOLOGRAPHIC_BODY_PATTERN FORM::"in a schema's FIELDS block, each field reads: value, joined by the constraint glyph to its constraints, then the flow glyph to an optional routing target section; see the example" SYNTAX_BREAKDOWN: VALUE::"the literal value or expression" CONSTRAINT::"REQ, OPT, ENUM[a,b], REGEX[pattern], RANGE[min,max], MAX_LENGTH[n], ISO8601, DATE" TARGET::"section where validated values route; optional" EXAMPLE:

      ===STATUS_FIELDS===
      META:
        TYPE::SCHEMA
        VERSION::"1.0"
      FIELDS:
        STATUS::["ACTIVE"∧REQ∧ENUM[ACTIVE,DRAFT,DEPRECATED]→§LIFECYCLE]
        PRIORITY::["HIGH"∧OPT∧ENUM[HIGH,MEDIUM,LOW]]
        LATENCY::["200ms"∧REGEX["^[0-9]+ms$"]]
      ===END===

CONSTRAINT_TYPES: CORE::[ REQ, OPT, CONST, ENUM, TYPE, REGEX, DIR, APPEND_ONLY ] EXTENDED::[ RANGE, MAX_LENGTH, MIN_LENGTH, DATE, ISO8601 ] §4c::CONTRACT_BLOCK_EXAMPLE PURPOSE::"a full schema definition: META, POLICY and FIELDS together" EXAMPLE:

      ===DECISION_RECORD===
      META:
        TYPE::SCHEMA
        VERSION::"1.0"
        STATUS::ACTIVE
      POLICY:
        VERSION::"1.0"
        UNKNOWN_FIELDS::REJECT
        TARGETS::["§LIFECYCLE"]
      FIELDS:
        STATUS::["ACTIVE"∧REQ∧ENUM[ACTIVE,DRAFT,DEPRECATED]→§LIFECYCLE]
        OWNER::["team-name"∧REQ]
        DECISION::["adopt microservices"∧REQ]
      ===END===

§5::ANCHOR_KERNEL TARGET::"advanced forms a parser or validator reads" NEVER::[ "operators in prose or values", "mythology as instruction words", "snake_case blobs", "invented content; write none or not known", "model-written ids, tags or counts", "unkeyed lines", "a value on a section header", "judgement attributed to a named person", "shortened or merged identifiers", "glyphs outside schema-definition examples", "the glossary used for writing" ] MUST::[ "note form", "identifiers copied exactly, in backticks", "hedges and conditions copied verbatim", "relations in words", "one calibration sentence on a prohibition that can over-fire", "code in fenced blocks", "a self-contradicting source kept both ways and flagged", "every line keyed, multi-word values quoted", "contents indented under the section header", "edits addressed as section dot key", "repairs read, not only the validation status", "holographic constraints only in schema-definition files", "one facet per archetype, 32 characters at most, in angle brackets", "maps of maps as blocks, never nested inline maps" ] GATE::"Is every glyph I wrote inside a schema-definition example, and every other relation in words?" §6::BLOCK_NOTATION_RULE RULE::"nested structures (maps containing maps) MUST use block notation: single colon plus indented children" NEVER::"an inner value that is itself an inline map, KEY::[outer::[inner::val]]: error E_NESTED_INLINE_MAP in strict mode, warning W_NESTED_INLINE_MAP in lenient mode" PRIMARY_CASE::"agent §2::BEHAVIOR definitions: CONDUCT, PROTOCOL and OUTPUT blocks need block notation" CORRECT:

    CONDUCT:
      TONE::"Precise"
      PROTOCOL:
        MUST_ALWAYS::[rule_a, rule_b]

WRONG_EXAMPLE::"CONDUCT::[TONE::Precise, PROTOCOL::[MUST_ALWAYS::[rule_a]]]" RECOVERY_ON_E_NESTED_INLINE_MAP::"the fix is block form; not flattening to scalars (creates the flat-prefix anti-pattern, §7), not collapsing to a blob (creates W_SNAKE_CASE_BLOB); those escapes give a different error class, not a solution" §7::ANTI_PATTERNS ISOLATED_LIST::"a list such as auth, payments, users with no stated relationships; state the relation in words, for example a DECISION reading: extract auth and payments into independent services" FLAT_HIERARCHY::"all keys at top level with no grouping; group related keys under a parent block" BURIED_NETWORK::"a relationship hidden in a prose comment, such as auth depending on payments; state it on a keyed line, for example DEPENDS_ON::payments inside the auth block" INLINE_ARRAY_ROOT::"TOKEN::[KEY::v, KEY2::v2], an inline map as a multi-field token root: non-canonical for map tokens even when values are atomic, and it gives E_NESTED_INLINE_MAP as soon as a child needs nesting (§6); use block form (TOKEN: plus indented children) from the start" FLAT_PREFIX_SCALARS::"PARENT_CHILD::v, PARENT_CHILD2::v2: a hierarchy flattened into key prefixes instead of block nesting loses grouping and attention; group under a PARENT: block with CHILD::v children" STRUCTURAL_SYNTAX_IN_VALUE::"an annotation or constructor embedded inside a quoted value, such as migration[high_risk]<legacy_db> in a sentence: structural forms are key and identifier only (§3, literacy §1b); inside a value the parser treats them as opaque text, so they bring the ambiguity and none of the validation. Inside a value, write relations in words per the note-form rule in the literacy §4b rules list; push facets to a sibling field (RISK::high) or open a block MIGRATION<legacy_db>: with the facts as children." STRUCTURAL_SYNTAX_SCOPE::"applies to data values; documentation that names a form (literacy §1b) and fenced examples are exempt, because the rule targets facts smuggled into strings, not syntax being described" CEREMONIAL_MYTHOLOGY::"narrative prose such as 'As ATHENA, goddess of wisdom, I bestow...' is not compression; mythology is a handle, never a voice" MYTHOLOGY_IN_REFERENCE_TABLES::"spec tables and formal definitions stay literal" ===END===