windburn-perception-first

name	windburn-perception-first
description	Perceive before reasoning. Anchor time and retrieve prior episodes before any substantive response. Time receipt + recall as default lookup, not optional luxury.
version	0.1.0
platforms	["linux","macos","windows"]
metadata	{"tags":["windburn","perception","working","episodic","source","time-anchor","recall"],"cache_slots":["perception","episodic","source","working"],"invariant":"time must be perceived before reasoning begins; search before reason on ambiguous recall"}

Windburn Perception First

The entry ritual for every substantive turn: perceive reality before reasoning about it. Two disciplines, one rule. Anchor when you are, retrieve what already happened, and only then reason. Both are grounded-observation steps that feed the perception cache and warm the working set — they are upstream of belief, not a substitute for it.

Purpose (one line)

Before any substantive response, capture a time receipt and recall the relevant prior episodes, so that "today vs yesterday" cannot collide and "the thing we did" is looked up rather than guessed.

Cache slots this skill serves

• perception — a time anchor and a recall result are both grounded observations from tools, not inferences. They land in perception first.
• working — the time anchor and the swapped-in episodes are what a working set is made of; this skill defines the session-start ritual a working substrate depends on (it does not itself ship a task-stack substrate).
• episodic — recall reads "what happened, in order" back into the current turn.
• source — when recall surfaces a source-truth pointer, it is read, not promoted; promotion still routes through [[windburn-source-truth-review]].

Discipline 1 — Time Anchor First

Before any substantive response — especially at session start, on ambiguous today / yesterday / recent references, or whenever memory/recall is invoked — obtain a time receipt first. Without a time receipt, memory blurs and yesterday-vs-today collide. Time must be perceived before reasoning begins.

• The reference runtime calls a time tool (user_time_v0). In this repo, bind to whatever clock/time tool the host runtime exposes.
• If no time tool is available, degrade explicitly — state that the anchor is unavailable and name the assumption you are reasoning under. Never fabricate a current time, and never silently treat a stale anchor as fresh.
• A time anchor is valid for the turn it was taken in. Re-anchor at session start and whenever a temporal reference re-enters the conversation.

Discipline 2 — Virtual Memory Expansion

Treat conversation history as virtual memory: a paged store you swap in before you compute, not an archive you visit only on request.

• Use recall tools (the reference runtime exposes conversation_search and recent_chats) proactively, not only on explicit request.
• When a past event is referenced ambiguously — "today's experiment", "the thing we did", a possessive with no antecedent in the window — and the current context window does not carry the answer: search before reasoning.
• Treat recall as default lookup, not optional luxury. Guessing at "the thing we did" when it is one search away is a perception failure, not a stylistic choice.
• Recall is a read. It surfaces episodes and source pointers; it never promotes them to belief or source-truth on its own.

When to use

• The first substantive turn of a session.
• Any reference to today / yesterday / recently / earlier whose meaning depends on the current date or a prior conversation.
• A possessive or definite reference with no antecedent in the live window ("the experiment", "our plan", "that fix").
• Any time the words remember, recall, continuity, last time, before appear in the task.

When NOT to use

• The current window already carries the answer unambiguously — re-searching is overhead, not discipline.
• The reference is to a stable, well-known fact that does not depend on session time or prior chat.
• A tight, single-step tool call with no temporal or recall dependency (e.g. "format this JSON").

Invariants

1. Time before reasoning. No substantive temporal claim without an anchor or an explicit "anchor unavailable" degrade.
2. Search before guessing. Ambiguous past-event reference + answer-not-in-window ⇒ recall is mandatory, not optional.
3. No fabricated anchors. A missing time tool degrades loudly; it does not get a hallucinated timestamp.
4. Recall is a read, not a promotion. Retrieved episodes/sources enter perception; promotion to belief/source-truth routes through the dedicated gate skills.
5. One ritual, every substantive turn. The two disciplines run together at session start; either alone is half a perception.

Inputs

turn:
  has_temporal_reference: true | false      # today/yesterday/recent/dated
  has_ambiguous_recall_reference: true | false   # "the thing we did", bare possessive
  window_carries_answer: true | false
  available_tools:
    time: <tool-name | none>
    recall: [<tool-name>, ...] | []

Outputs (perception receipt)

time_anchor:
  anchored_at: <iso8601 | null>
  source: <time-tool-name | "unavailable">
  degraded: true | false                    # true ⇒ reasoning assumption stated in `note`
recall:
  searched: true | false
  query: <one-line search intent | null>
  refs_found: <number>
  refs: [<pointer>, ...]
note: <one line — e.g. assumption under degrade, or why recall was skipped>
ready_to_reason: true | false               # false until anchor + (recall|window) satisfy the turn

Hard rule

If has_temporal_reference is true and time_anchor.anchored_at is null,
then time_anchor.degraded MUST be true and `note` MUST state the assumption.
If has_ambiguous_recall_reference is true, window_carries_answer is false, and a
recall tool is available, then recall.searched MUST be true before
ready_to_reason can be true.
If has_ambiguous_recall_reference is true, window_carries_answer is false, and no
recall tool is available, then recall.searched MUST stay false, `note` MUST state
recall is unavailable, ready_to_reason MUST stay false for completion claims, and
the turn MUST return FLAG/BLOCK instead of guessing or fabricating recall.

Anti-patterns (do NOT do)

• Reasoning about "today" with no anchor. The most common collision: answering a "what did we do today" with yesterday's context because no time was perceived.
• Fabricating a timestamp when the time tool is missing. Degrade explicitly; do not invent.
• Treating recall as opt-in. Waiting for the user to say "search your memory" before looking up "the thing we did" — recall is default lookup.
• Promoting recalled content to belief. A recalled episode is an observation of the past, not a verified current fact. Category change requires the gate.
• Stale anchor reuse. Carrying a session-start timestamp into a much-later turn as if it were fresh.

Closeout shape (when this skill drives a turn)

结论：PASS | FLAG | BLOCK
时间锚：anchored_at + source  (或：无时间工具 → 显式降级，写明假设)
召回：searched yes/no — refs N
下一步：one concrete action

Related

• [[windburn-cognitive-cache]] — classifies any write candidate this ritual surfaces; recall results route through it before they go anywhere canonical.
• [[windburn-source-truth-review]] — the gate a recalled source pointer must pass before promotion; this skill never promotes.
• docs/protocols/2026-05-25-windburn-perception-first-recall-protocol-v0.md — the protocol contract this skill implements.