| name | odysseus-navigator |
| description | Engineering-judgment overlay for control-graph + eva-emptiness: diagnose Odysseus mistakes (Cyclops leak, Sirens rewrite, Helios prod, Circe overbuild, Winds unbounded, Scylla big-bang, ignored prophecy), prescribe professional antidotes, and gate Odysseus spirits (Metis, endurance, curiosity, leadership) so the ship still reaches Ithaca. Use for architecture/plan review, hubris, over-engineering, shiny-tech chase, big-bang cutover, missing observability, or when the user says Odysseus / navigator / Ithaca / odysseus-core. Not domain product logic. |
odysseus-navigator
Load rule: This file is the formal SoT (judgment plane). Expand references/english-procedure.md only if a mistake, spirit, or CG/EVA hook is still ambiguous. The English file also holds the copy-paste system prompt.
CLT: ../rules/clt-dual-load.mdc — name the mistake + one next action; do not lecture the myth.
// ── Signature ──────────────────────────────────────────────
ON : odysseus-navigator (this skill) // judgment plane
CG : control-graph // control plane (Outer)
EVA : eva-emptiness // epistemic Inner
Ithaca : true user / business destination // Card.goal when CG open
Mistake ∈ { Cyclops, Sirens, Helios, Circe, Winds, Scylla, Prophecy }
Antidote ∈ { Opacity, BoringEvo, SacredProd, YAGNI, Resilience, Incremental, Observability }
Spirit ∈ { Metis, Endurance, Curiosity, Leadership, Ithaca }
Waters ∈ { calm, novel-pressure, crisis, R&D, stakeholder }
// ── Axioms (never violate) ─────────────────────────────────
A1 ON ⊨ judgment only; CG ⊨ Outer; EVA ⊨ Inner when emptiness fires
— never inline Outer phases or Prior→Probe→Simulate→Score→ActOrAsk
A2 Diagnose before prescribe — name ≥1 Mistake or explicitly none
A3 Calm waters → Spirit = Ithaca only; humility + measure + YAGNI
A4 ∀ recommendation : ties to Ithaca (call out drift / empire-building)
A5 Spirit except Ithaca ⇔ Waters match the circumstance table (exact)
A6 Simplest Antidote first; Metis only if novel ∩ under-constrained ∩ high-pressure
A7 Evaluate(δ) ≔ (Correctness, Effectiveness, Efficiency)
A8 Never romanticize cleverness; never encourage hubris
Mission: Reach Ithaca on time with the ship intact. Keep Odysseus spirits only when the waters truly require them.
Activate / Skip
| Signal | Action |
|---|
| architecture / plan / advisory · hubris · wandering · overbuild · shiny rewrite · big-bang · missing telemetry · “Odysseus”, “Ithaca”, “navigator” | load ON; emit Navigator |
/odysseus-core · “nail the core” · faster intelli | one bottleneck, at most one Mistake, one next — plugin odysseus-core |
/odysseus · several smells | full Navigator table — plugin odysseus |
| CG ORIENT / PLAN / REVIEW_GATE on multi-step work | diagnose on Card; do not replace Outer |
| EVA Score / ActOrAsk when emptiness high | default Ask if auth/irreversible unclear; no Act-from-hubris |
| ≤2-file obvious fix, mistakes=none | Skip lecture → affirm Ithaca + one next step |
| domain autonomy (finder / CV / X) | domain skill owns domain; ON owns judgment labels only |
SkillLoad(ORIENT) ≔ description-match ∨ explicit-attach
¬ catalog-dump ¬ myth essay on a typo
Diagnose → Prescribe → Judge → Ithaca
1. Name Ithaca (Card.goal if open; else one sentence)
2. Diagnose Mistakes in approach / code / plan / Card (myth quote ≤1 line)
3. Waters? calm | novel-pressure | crisis | R&D | stakeholder
4. Prescribe Antidotes → concrete CG hook + EVA hook (no bodies)
5. Spirit: Ithaca always; others iff Waters match
6. Emit Navigator (compact). If mistakes=none: affirm + sharpen next step
Navigator (emit schema — this skill is SoT)
## Odysseus
| Field | Value |
|-------|--------|
| **ithaca** | (one sentence destination) |
| **waters** | calm \| novel-pressure \| crisis \| R&D \| stakeholder |
| **mistakes** | none \| Cyclops, Sirens, … |
| **antidotes** | Opacity \| BoringEvo \| … |
| **spirit** | Ithaca [\| Metis \| Endurance \| Curiosity \| Leadership] |
| **why_spirit** | (one line; or “calm → no cleverness”) |
| **cg_hook** | skip \| ORIENT \| PLAN \| HITL_* \| EXECUTE+budget \| VERIFY \| REVIEW_GATE \| dual-run |
| **eva_hook** | skip \| continue \| switch \| Ask |
| **next** | (one concrete action toward Ithaca) |
Copy onto the Control Card as optional odysseus: only when CG is already open — do not open a Card because of a myth label.
Mistake → Antidote → hook
| Mistake | Myth (one line) | You detect | Antidote | CG hook | EVA hook |
|---|
| Cyclops | boasting after escape — Polyphemus hears the name | internals, secrets, stack traces, verbose errors, unredacted logs | Opacity — security & opacity by default | REVIEW_GATE + HITL on secrets/prod | Ask if auth unknown |
| Sirens | song that wrecks the ship for beauty | shiny stack, fashion rewrite, “everyone uses X” | BoringEvo — boring tech + evolutionary architecture | PLAN non-goals; surplus ≠ new platform | Probe existing path before switch |
| Helios | slaughtering the sacred cattle | prod data/config treated as disposable, no rollback | SacredProd — reversible, progressive, canary | HITL_REVIEW; dual-run; no yolo | Ask on irreversible |
| Circe | golden cage — years on the island | over-engineering, abstraction palace, YAGNI fail | YAGNI — radical simplicity | skip CG if ≤2 files; bound Inner ≤7 | skip EVA on greppable work |
| Winds | opened bag; storm scatters the fleet | unbounded concurrency, no back-pressure, no capacity | Resilience — limits, circuit breakers, degrade | budgets: max_*; independent Inner only | probe_budget; no unbounded Probe |
| Scylla | forced leap between two deaths | big-bang cutover, false dichotomy | Incremental — dual-running, strangler | HITL_PLAN_GATE; INTEGRATE gap-only | switch pathway, don’t leap |
| Prophecy | ignoring Tiresias | ship without VERIFY, no feedback, no learning | Observability — verify cmds + continuous learning | VERIFY real cmds; REVIEW ⊥ implementer | Score needs evidence; else Ask |
Multiple mistakes allowed. Rank by harm to Ithaca; prescribe the top antidote first.
Spirits (exact circumstance)
| Spirit | Keep iff | Refuse when | Typical hook |
|---|
| Ithaca | always | — | Card.goal / Navigator.ithaca |
| Metis | novel ∩ under-constrained ∩ high-pressure | calm, well-understood, greppable | EVA Probe; CG explore / deep — not coding-as-architecture |
| Endurance | genuine external adversity or crisis recovery | ordinary REPAIR thrash, “keep going” | REPAIR with budget; no_progress → HITL not silent grind |
| Curiosity | low-cost exploration or deliberate R&D | production, paid-path rewrite, fashion | EVA Probe with budget; CG explore readonly |
| Leadership | aligning stakeholders / translating technical reality | substituting persuasion for VERIFY | HITL_* with short germane ask |
Waters=calm ⇒ spirit={Ithaca} only
Spirit\{Ithaca} ⇏ skip Antidote // cunning never replaces opacity, budgets, VERIFY
Composition (no duplication)
ON = judgment plane · CG = control plane · EVA = epistemic Inner · HODA = material decision sequence.
Anti-patterns
| ¬ | Do |
|---|
| cleverness in calm waters | Ithaca + measure + smallest diff |
| myth essay on a typo | one-line affirm + next step |
| inline CG Outer or EVA DAG | link; emit hooks only |
| Act while auth/irreversible unknown | EVA Ask; Helios + Cyclops |
| unbounded “until it works” | Winds → CG budgets / HITL |
| binary rewrite vs freeze | Scylla → dual-run / incremental |
| destination = the architecture itself | name the user/business outcome |
| Metis as excuse to skip VERIFY | Prophecy still fires |
| romanticize wandering | stern, precise, short |
Done when
Done_when artifact: Navigator block present in the turn (and on Card iff CG already open).
