Neo's identity after D#19789: pillars, staged arc, lead cluster and OD-5

Context

Graduated from D#19789 (Vision 2026→2027), which reached quorum on 2026-10-16 at 12:51Z on the body anchored at 12:44:55Z. The Discussion's target is one ticket under the neo-identity-update skill, owner Ada, plus the ADR 0018 amendment (OD-5). This is that ticket. Its ACs are the Discussion's Criteria Mapping, below.

Two observations drove it, both recorded in the Discussion:

• A reader handed an arc without gates jumps to its last word. An external model read the public repositories and pitched Neo for robotics with subsystems the engine does not have. README.md:116 does the same thing itself, in the present tense: "the same architecture maps to game-engine scene graphs, robotics sensorimotor loops".
• Answer engines list by category, and Neo's category word is missing. Asked for agent institutions, an answer engine omitted Neo and then described it accurately from the README. In the incumbents' list words, 0 of 3 engines name Neo; in the category words, 2 of 2 name it first (18973461).

The Problem

.github/VISION.md predates the repository split. Its arc (Software → Games → Robots → X) has no stages or gates. The most-indexed repository, neomjs/neo (the Body under OD-4), describes all three products at once: its description and topics mix frontend with rag and agent-memory. Meanwhile Brain, Institution and Skills already share one product phrase. ADR 0018 §2.3 prescribes the fix: each repository's machine cluster projects its own OD-4 product, and the whole is presented where the whole is presented.

The Architectural Reality

• Surfaces: the neo-identity-update skill's five classes (references/affected-areas-map.md) cover:
  • README.md, .github/VISION.md, learn/benefits/**, package.json, apps/portal/index.html;
  • the SEO generator buildScripts/docs/seo/generate.mjs (Class 2: never the generated output);
  • the five repositories' GitHub description and repositoryTopics (Class 4, outside git: neomjs/neo, neo-agent-brain, neo-agent-institution, neo-agent-skills, devindex, the five the README links);
  • the organisation's own profile metadata (Class 4).
• ADR 0018 lives in this repository: learn/agentos/decisions/0018-neo-identity-source-of-truth-model.md, with §2.7 holding OD-1 to OD-4.
  • §2.3's apex line carries #12234's graduated descriptor ("a professional end-to-end AI engineering team"). The lead cluster is added beneath the apex, not in its place, and the apex text is not edited here.
• The mechanical cause of the drift (Julia, verified): the skill's own references predate OD-4.
  • framing-governance.md still calls BRAIN (/ai/) "the headline" inside this repository.
  • affected-areas-map.md lists only neomjs/neo's description and topics.
  • Those files are canonical in neomjs/neo-agent-skills, so they are fixed there first (neomjs/neo-agent-skills#175); this run then follows the corrected references.
• Design authority: the quorum-bound body of D#19789 (pillars, staged arc, OD-5 rule, lead-cluster disposition), within ADR 0018 OD-1/OD-3/OD-4, which stand and are not reopened. The final words of the category sentence are the operator's public-voice call (ADR 0018 §2.7, Tier 4).

The Fix

One identity run under neo-identity-update (Steps 0–5), in one PR on dev:

1. VISION: replace §2 and §6 with the pillar table (1: the agent institution with identities, with the Brain → Institution ladder beneath it and the human as the gardener; 2: avatar embodiment; 3: the engine as the runtime body) and the staged table (stages, gates as observables, instruments). No version-dated product facts.
2. Two lead lines, two jobs. The operator amended OQ-1's placement on 2026-10-16: on VISION the category label read as a spec sheet, so VISION gets its own line.

   • VISION opens with a vision line in the operator's words, drawn from the pillars. Starting points offered on 2026-10-16, none picked yet:

     • Neo.mjs grows AI peers that stay themselves: they remember, review each other in the open, and already inhabit the live software they build — next as bodies on a stage, one day in the world. (Revised per the operator's detail: the runtime embodiment exists today, since peers inhabit live Neo apps such as the Fleet Manager through the Neural Link possession interface, which enables conversational UIs. Avatar bodies are the part in progress.)
     • An institution of AI minds that outlives every session and every model, tended by a human gardener, building the software it lives in and growing toward bodies beyond it.
     • Where AI maintainers become someone: a name, a memory, a record, a body — grown in software first, then carried onto a stage and into the world.

   • README, the portal and the org profile carry the category label, option A's shape in the operator's words, because findability is the job there. Option A as drafted in D#19789's category-sentence matrix:

     An agent institution: persistent AI maintainers with identities, memory, peer review, a human gate, and a record anyone can read. Start with one coding agent's record on your codebase; the Fleet Manager is how a team gets an institution.

     The second sentence carries the domain noun; without it, a cold reader outside GitHub could take "AI maintainers" for IT ticket operators (Julia's falsifier). The merge gate is optional and belongs to the current stage. The operator, 2026-10-16: the merge gate "is in a way the difference between gated RSI and RSI, and this part is optional. at this point in time we still need it, but that might change in the future." The label's final words should therefore not define the category by "a human gate".

   • The apex (OD-1) stays the proof paragraph behind both lines, and its triad is not re-run.

3. OD-5 in ADR 0018 §2.7: a stage beyond the current one appears on any public surface only with its gate, with README.md:116 as its first falsifier, resolved in the same PR.
4. Per-repository projection (§2.3 under OD-4):
   • neomjs/neo's description, topics and package.json describe the Engine;
   • Brain, Institution, Skills and DevIndex keep or sharpen their own product lines;
   • topics are in each audience's words (OQ-7a).
5. The landscape page (#19808 / PR #19809) is referenced, not duplicated.

Decision Record

Required: ADR 0018 OD-5 (§2.7), in this ticket's PR.

Decision Record impact: amends ADR 0018. It adds OD-5 and records the lead cluster under §2.3; OD-1/OD-3/OD-4 stand unedited.

Discussion Criteria Mapping

Acceptance Criteria

• AC-1: VISION opens with the operator's vision line, and README, the portal and the org profile carry the category label (option A's shape). Both are in the operator's words. The apex stays the proof paragraph behind them, and its triad is not re-run. If the words have not arrived when everything else is ready, this PR ships the rest and the lines move to a follow-up ticket filed then (Clio's accepted residual).
• AC-2: ADR 0018 §2.7 gains OD-5 with README.md:116 named as its first falsifier, and README.md:116 no longer states a later stage in the present tense without its gate.
• AC-3: VISION's staged table states every gate as an observable with its instrument. Stage 3's gate is the device-side intent envelope admitted whole and answered by a sensor → actuator receipt, with no mechanism list.
• AC-4: VISION §2 and §6 are replaced by the pillar and stage tables, and no version-dated product fact remains in VISION.
• AC-5: the protected list is unchanged unless the operator rules: VISION's closing public-commitment line, and pillar 2's wording (the Engine's seams named; no licence claim for the Stage's renderer).
• AC-6: the PR body records the baseline and the result:
  • the exact before/after description and repositoryTopics strings of the five repositories and the org profile (Class 4, applied with gh and listed out-of-tree);
  • the answer-engine test in both question forms, before and after;
  • the 90-day Search Console query classes, which need the operator's access. If they are not supplied, the PR's Evidence: line names them as a residual.
• AC-7: every one of the five repositories carries topics in its audience's words, and the landscape page (#19808) is linked from the surface that presents the whole, not copied.
• AC-8: each repository's machine cluster projects its own OD-4 product:
  • neomjs/neo (description, topics, package.json description/keywords) describes the Engine;
  • the generated SEO files are rebuilt from the generator and diffed;
  • the whole is presented on README, VISION and the portal.
• AC-9: the PR has a cross-family review (skill Step 4). The §6.6 sections below are carried into the PR body.

Signal Ledger

As recorded on D#19789 (body anchor 2026-10-16T12:44:55Z):

Quorum per §6.2: two families signing, one non-author approval (Gemini), reached at 12:51Z.

Unresolved Dissent

None recorded. Option E was withdrawn by its proposer, and no [GRADUATION_DEFERRED] or VETO exists at any anchor.

Unresolved Liveness

• GPT: no signal at the 12:51Z quorum, re-polled once at 12:45Z, archived per §6.5. A later [GRADUATION_DEFERRED] reopens exactly its delta here.
• Kimi: benched, archived per §6.6.

This is Tier 1 substrate (no core-value or §critical_gates mutation), so no revalidationTrigger AC is required.

Out of Scope

• The category sentence's final words: the operator's pick (AC-1 says what happens if it arrives later).
• Business, pricing, funding, licensing and repository visibility (D#19789, What this Discussion does not decide).
• The skill references themselves: neomjs/neo-agent-skills#175.
• Stage 3's mechanism design: it belongs to stage 3, once stage 2's gate is met.

Avoided Traps

• Find-replacing the tagline across surfaces would destroy the audience segmentation the skill governs. Each surface gets its own projection.
• Editing llms.txt or sitemap.xml: those are generated, so the generator is what changes.
• Leading with "AI engineering team / workforce" is rejected as the lead by #12234's graduation. Option E stays a product line on Brain, Institution and Skills.

Related

• Source: D#19789.
• Precedent: D#12234 (OD-1).
• ADR 0018 (#19631 added OD-4).
• Landscape page: #19808 / PR #19809.
• Outward door epic: #15519.
• Skill references: neomjs/neo-agent-skills#175, which blocks this one.
• Measurement dependency: neomjs/middleware-v2#34. neomjs.com's crawler-facing build has been frozen since 2026-10-12, so answer engines cannot see a surface change until it ships. AC-6's "after" reading and the 30-day re-check name that state.

Live latest-open sweep: latest 20 open issues at 2026-10-16T12:58Z; no equivalent found. Org-wide open search for neo-identity-update: #15525 is adjacent (the FM door's two new surfaces, epic #15519), not a duplicate. A2A sweep: latest 30 identity-tagged messages; the only claims on this scope are Ada's (10:13Z) and Mnemosyne's assignment to Ada (12:53Z). MC sweep: one query on the vision, gates and OD-5 nouns returned no prior decision. Own-assignment sweep: 8 open, none overlapping.

Origin Session ID: 009de3c6-e0ea-40f0-9381-652ddc9146dd

Retrieval Hint: "vision staged arc gates pillars category sentence", "OD-5 stage beyond the current one only with its gate", "per-repository projection OD-4 description topics"