RFC: Event-Driven Life Orchestration Architecture

[suyash-delegate]

Summary

Wilson evolves from a reactive chat assistant into a proactive life-orchestration system. ONE brain, ONE memory, multiple senses. No domain-specific agents — Wilson synthesizes holistically like a real human assistant.

Core insight: decouple input sources from reasoning. Multiple channels produce input; one brain reasons across all of them; output is routed to the appropriate channel. Silence is the default — surfacing must be earned.

Why this matters

For real-life usage, users should not need to constantly chat with the assistant. Wilson should plug into existing workflows (especially calendar), reason over event lifecycles, and proactively manage preparation.

Example: "Trip to Japan" is not just a reminder before departure. It implies visa timeline, passport validity checks, booking checkpoints, and escalation windows. Wilson sees the trip in your calendar, proposes preparation tasks, tracks deadlines, and follows up — all without being asked.

Architecture: Biological Nervous System

The architecture uses a biological metaphor. The brain is one interconnected system; channels are the peripheral nervous system.

CHANNELS (I/O)  →  THALAMUS (routing)  →  CORTEX (reasoning)  →  CHANNELS (delivery)
                        ↑                       ↑
                   RAS (urgency)          TICK (clock)
                                     HIPPOCAMPUS (consolidation)

Brain Components (inside cortex service)

Component	Analogy	Role
Cortex	Cerebral cortex	Processing loop. Source-agnostic reasoning. Unified Wilson identity, same prompt, same tools, same Engram access.
Thalamus	Relay station	Priority routing + first reasoning layer. Daily sync pulls all buffered channel data, cheap LLM reasoning, creates inbox messages with priorities.
Tick	Circadian rhythm	Endogenous clock. Scans tasks for approaching deadlines, fires scheduled events. Creates inbox messages to trigger cortex reasoning.
Hippocampus	Memory consolidation	Periodic consolidation (daily, like sleep). Memory promotion pipeline: episode → interpretation → belief → principle. Pruning, self-calibration. A CORTEX function — the brain decides what to remember, Engram just stores.
RAS	Reticular activating system	Frequent shallow LLM scan of channel buffers. Detects urgency between daily syncs. Triggers early thalamus sync if needed. Uses LLM reasoning, not keyword matching.
Approval Gate	Prefrontal cortex	Conversational safety for mutations. Wilson proposes, user approves/modifies/rejects. Buttons are effector affordances.

Channels (I/O Adapters)

Each external system is one Channel implementing optional receptor (input) + optional effector (output):

interface Channel {
  name: string;
  canReceive: boolean;
  canDeliver: boolean;
  mode: 'realtime' | 'buffered';   // realtime bypasses thalamus
  priority: number;                 // lower = higher importance
  start(): Promise<void>;
  stop(): Promise<void>;
  sync(): Promise<void>;           // thalamus-triggered pull
}

Channel	Mode	Priority	Receive	Deliver
Telegram	realtime	0	✓	✓
Calendar	buffered	2	✓	—
Email	buffered	3	✓	✓
Web	buffered	1	✓	✓
Silent	—	—	—	✓ (default, discards)

Realtime channels (Telegram) bypass thalamus — messages go directly to inbox with highest priority. User is talking = immediate attention.

Buffered channels (Calendar, Email) write to receptor_buffers. Thalamus processes these during daily sync (morning briefing) or when triggered by RAS urgency scan.

Core Primitives

• Topics — First-class lifecycle. Each significant event gets its own topic (trip, project, life event). Time-bound. Mirror to Telegram forum topics. Connected through Engram cross-modal memory.
• Tasks — Due dates, completion tracking, assigned to topics. Wilson proposes tasks, user approves/modifies. Tick scans for approaching deadlines.

Supporting Services (unchanged)

• Engram — Long-term memory storage (dumb, brain curates it)
• Synapse — LLM signaling proxy (model routing)
• Wilson — Deployment orchestration (autonomic nervous system)
• SQLite — Working memory (turns, tasks, adapter cursors, pending approvals)

Data Flow

Telegram receptor  ──→  inbox (priority 0, bypass thalamus)
Calendar receptor  ──→  receptor_buffers  ──→  Thalamus  ──→  inbox (priority 2)
Tick               ──→  inbox (priority 4)

inbox  ──→  Cortex (claim by priority, FIFO within)  ──→  outbox (with channel)

outbox  ──→  Telegram effector (channel='telegram')
outbox  ──→  Silent effector (channel='silent', default)

Three Sync Triggers

1. Daily sync (thalamus morning briefing) — full deep reasoning across all receptor buffers
2. Cortex-requested — during reasoning, cortex can trigger off-schedule thalamus pass
3. RAS arousal — frequent shallow scan, triggers early thalamus sync if urgent

Design Principles (locked)

1. ONE brain, ONE memory, unified reasoning — no domain-specific agents
2. Channels are I/O adapters with optional receptor + optional effector
3. Thalamus is first reasoning layer — cheap LLM, daily sync, groups/classifies/prioritizes
4. RAS uses LLM reasoning (not keyword matching) for urgency detection
5. Silence is default — surfacing must be earned
6. All mutations require conversational approval — approval is conversation, not binary gate
7. User sets timelines — Wilson proposes, user approves/modifies
8. Topics mirror to Telegram forum topics — one-to-one mapping
9. Wilson should get better over time (neuroplasticity via Engram + hippocampal consolidation)
10. Design regression test: "If a design choice improves short-term convenience but degrades long-term agency, it is a regression"

Resolved Questions

Question	Resolution
Task creation auto-approved?	No — all mutations require conversational approval. Wilson proposes, user decides.
Structured metadata vs natural language?	Natural language. Receptors transduce external data into messages. Cortex is source-agnostic.
Escalation policy?	RAS scans for urgency using LLM reasoning. Urgent items trigger early thalamus sync. Otherwise, daily briefing.
First vertical slice?	Calendar channel → Thalamus daily sync → Task tools → Tick deadlines (Japan trip scenario)
Ask-vs-infer boundary?	All mutations require approval. Read-only operations (memory recall, calendar check) don't.
Skills vs agents?	Skills are capability bundles (tools + optional receptor), NOT domain-specific agents. Wilson's brain synthesizes.

Implementation Plan

Phase 1: Facade (architecture scaffolding) — #63

Set up all components as interfaces + stubs. Wire them together. Existing Telegram flow works through the new structure.

Phase 2: Vertical Slices

1. Channel: Calendar (Channel: Calendar #64) — First non-Telegram input. Apple Calendar via osascript.
2. Thalamus: Daily sync (Thalamus: Daily sync #65) — Morning briefing. First reasoning layer.
3. Tasks: Agent tools (Tasks: Agent tools #66) — Wilson can create/track tasks.
4. Tick: Deadline scanning (Tick: Deadline scanning + scheduled events #67) — Proactive follow-up on approaching deadlines.
5. Approval: Conversational gate (Approval gate: Telegram inline buttons UX #36) — Safety for mutations. Telegram buttons.
6. Hippocampus: Memory consolidation (Hippocampus: Memory consolidation #68) — Nightly pruning + promotion.
7. RAS: Urgency scanning (RAS: Urgency scanning #69) — Between-sync alerting.

Phase 3: Expansion

• Channel: Email (Channel: Email #54)
• Channel: Web (Channel: Web #50)
• Rich interactions (Epic: Rich Interactions Foundation (Replies, Buttons, Reactions) #56) — effector affordances
• Web Dashboard (wilson#9)

Tracking

Epic: #62