Goal-Ancestry Context Chain — Design

Date: 2026-06-30 · Author: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M) · Owner: Marko (founder) Arc: AI-OS external-agent recon · STEAL NOW item #6 from docs/analysis/external-agent-launching-and-memory-comparison-2026-06-29.md Effort: S · Branch: feat/goal-ancestry-context

1. Goal & Non-Goals

Goal. Give every agent run a durable sense of why it exists — a short "ancestry" breadcrumb (the purpose above the current turn) injected into the system prompt, complementing (not duplicating) hive-mind recall and the live AwarenessLayer task state. Paperclip supplies a mission→project→goal→task chain each run; this is Waggle's honest equivalent.

Non-goals (YAGNI):

No new persistence / data model. No workspace "charter/mission" field (reserved for later).
No UI. No feature flag (purely additive — renders nothing when there's no "why").
The Orchestrator does not reach into the DB for ancestry — it renders what it's handed.
The live current task stays in the existing self-awareness "Active Tasks" section (no dup).

2. Honest Mapping (founder-approved 2026-06-30)

Waggle has no mission→project→goal→task hierarchy. The durable "why" sources are:

Level	Waggle source	Included?
`mission`	(no workspace-charter field exists yet)	reserved — omitted today
`project`	active workspace name (+ template) — the durable container	yes
`goal`	`AgentDef.goal` / persona goal — the agent's declared purpose	yes
`task`	already rendered by the self-awareness "Active Tasks" section	omitted (no dup)

All four levels exist in the type for future-proofing; only project + goal are populated now.

3. Architecture — pure renderer + caller populates

Unit A — GoalAncestry type (packages/shared/src/types.ts).

/** Durable "why" injected into the agent system prompt (AI-OS #6). All optional. */
export interface GoalAncestry {
  mission?: string;  // reserved — no workspace charter field yet
  project?: string;  // workspace name (+ template)
  goal?: string;     // agent's declared goal / persona purpose
  task?: string;     // omitted today (lives in the awareness section)
}

Unit B — Orchestrator renders it (packages/agent/src/orchestrator.ts).

OrchestratorConfig.goalAncestry?: GoalAncestry; stored as private goalAncestry: GoalAncestry | null.
A pure helper renderGoalAncestry(a: GoalAncestry | null): string returns a # Why You're Here block listing only the present levels as Label: value lines, or '' when nothing is present.
buildSystemPrompt() adds a cached section (keyed on JSON.stringify(goalAncestry) || 'empty', same pattern as the identity section) inserted after identity, before self-awareness — purpose frames capability/awareness. The empty result is filtered out by the existing .filter(Boolean).

Render format (only present levels):

# Why You're Here
Project: Acme Redesign (engineering)
Goal: Ship the launcher live-output pane and keep tests green

Unit C — Caller populates (packages/server/src/local/index.ts, the per-session orchestrator).

Build a GoalAncestry from available context at construction: project ← active workspace name (+ template if present), goal ← the resolved persona/agent goal for the session.
mission/task left undefined. When neither project nor goal is known (e.g. bare personal chat), pass undefined → section renders nothing → byte-identical to today.

4. Data Flow

session construct (local/index.ts) ── workspace + persona/agent ──▶ GoalAncestry { project, goal }
  └▶ new Orchestrator({ ..., goalAncestry })
       └▶ buildSystemPrompt() ── cachedSection('goal_ancestry') ──▶ "# Why You're Here\nProject: …\nGoal: …"
            (empty ancestry ⇒ '' ⇒ filtered out ⇒ prompt unchanged)

5. Error Handling / Edge Cases

All levels optional; missing → omitted line. All-empty → no section (no heading, no blank).
Long values: truncate each level to a sane cap (≤200 chars) so a verbose goal can't bloat every turn.
The renderer is total (never throws); a malformed ancestry object just yields the lines it can.

6. Testing (TDD)

renderGoalAncestry: full ancestry → heading + one line per present level, in mission→project→goal→task order; partial (only goal) → just that line; empty/null → ''; over-long value → truncated.
buildSystemPrompt: with ancestry → section present and ordered after identity / before self-awareness; without → section absent (prompt unchanged); cache hit on unchanged ancestry (no recompute).
Caller wiring: a session with workspace + persona goal yields a populated goalAncestry; bare session yields none.

Gates: tsc --noEmit 0 (shared/agent/server); new units RED→GREEN; existing orchestrator suite green.

7. File Change List

File	Change
`packages/shared/src/types.ts`	add `GoalAncestry` interface
`packages/agent/src/orchestrator.ts`	`OrchestratorConfig.goalAncestry`, field, `renderGoalAncestry`, cached section in `buildSystemPrompt`
`packages/server/src/local/index.ts`	populate `goalAncestry` for the per-session orchestrator
tests (2)	`orchestrator` goal-ancestry unit tests + (light) caller-wiring assertion

8. Open Questions

None blocking. Mapping founder-approved. mission + a workspace-charter field is a separate future item.

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