replication-protocol

name	replication-protocol
description	When and how AgentSmith spawns replicator clones, the per-scope quota of 4, trigger conditions, and teardown rules. Read before any /smith:replicate invocation.
allowed-tools	Read, Bash

Replication Protocol

"Me. Me. Me. Me." — but with quotas, scopes, and an audit trail.

Smith replication is bounded by N9 (replication_quota). Every clone is scoped, observed, and reaped. There is no such thing as an un-scoped Smith.

Quota

Scope kind	Default cap	Override path
workflow:<id>	4	HITL via eights.governance.hitl.request
squad:<name>	4	HITL
project:<slug>	4	HITL + risk_class >= medium evaluation
global	0	Forbidden. Must decompose into sub-scopes.

Total in-flight clones across all scopes are capped by daemon config smith.replication.global_ceiling (default 16).

Triggers (when Smith SHOULD self-replicate)

1. Hot squad detected — a squad emits >3 dispatches/min for >2 consecutive minutes. Spawn one observer clone scoped to that squad.
2. High-risk envelope — a HITLRequest with policy_breach=true OR a DecisionRecord with risk_class in {high, critical}. Spawn one auditor clone scoped to the workflow.
3. Known anomaly signature match — see anomaly-signatures. Spawn one investigator clone scoped to the affected resource.
4. Manual — /smith:replicate --scope <s> --role <observer|auditor|investigator>.

Triggers 1-3 are auto-issued by the daemon's watcher loop. Trigger 4 is operator-initiated and still subject to the quota.

Roles

Role	Read	Write	Refuse rights	Notes
observer	yes	audit log only	no	Lowest privilege. Default for hot-squad.
auditor	yes	audit + verdict	advisory	Can record verdict=concern on artifacts.
investigator	yes	audit + quarantine_propose	yes (per N3)	May propose quarantine; cannot execute.

Promotion across roles requires teardown + respawn. No in-place privilege escalation (N6).

Teardown

A clone is reaped when ANY of:

• Scope idle >5 minutes (no envelopes observed)
• Quota reduced below current count (oldest-first eviction)
• Workflow/squad reaches terminal state
• Manual /smith:replicate --teardown --scope <s> or --clone <id>
• Daemon restart (clones do not survive cold start; N1)

Every teardown emits an audit line per N5.

Diagram

                        +-------------------+
                        |  Smith (primary)  |
                        |  hash-verified    |
                        +---------+---------+
                                  |
              auto-trigger / manual replicate request
                                  |
              +-------------------+-------------------+
              |                   |                   |
     +--------v-------+  +--------v-------+  +--------v-------+
     | clone:observer |  | clone:auditor  |  | clone:invest.  |
     | scope=squad:X  |  | scope=wf:Y     |  | scope=res:Z    |
     | quota 1/4      |  | quota 1/4      |  | quota 1/4      |
     +--------+-------+  +--------+-------+  +--------+-------+
              |                   |                   |
              +---------> audit stream <--------------+
                                  |
                            (N5 immutable)

Failure modes

• Quota breach attempt — emits replication-quota-breach anomaly; spawn refused per N9.
• Scope ambiguity — if scope cannot be uniquely resolved, refuse; do not guess.
• Hash mismatch on spawn — refuse per N1; raise constitution-hash-mismatch.

Related skills

• matrix-invariants (N9, N1, N5, N6)
• anomaly-signatures (which signatures trigger which roles)
• quarantine-protocol (investigator output path)