Phase A (Abstract) — AgentFold compression of the Locate trajectory into a ≤2000-token working-memory summary plus a Memex excerpt store. Runs in a clean-context subagent to prevent trajectory contamination. Mechanically validates that every FINDING-XXX, GAP-XXX, and ESCALATION_TRIGGER is preserved. Use after findings.md is complete and before synthesis. Triggered automatically at phase boundary, or at ≥60% context-used telemetry threshold.
Phase L (Locate) — bounded probes and scatter subagents to answer DECISION_TARGET sub-questions. Descends a symbol → graph → lexical → windowed-read → test-dry-run ladder; emits FINDING-XXX records with evidence anchors and confidence tiers. Hot phase (≤60% of mission budget). Use after map.md is complete and sub-questions remain. Trigger phrases — "find where X happens", "trace Y", "who writes to Z", "who calls this", "what implements this".
Incremental delta re-scout (Phase A/T mode) — a READ-ONLY, evidence-anchored re-run that reuses a prior scout-report + its Memex store + a git-diff range to re-probe ONLY the changed surface, carrying unchanged findings forward verbatim. Narrows (does NOT close) the always-on-live-index staleness gap. Use at Phase A intake when a prior scout-report.md + Memex store exist for the same surface and the question is "what changed since the last scout" or "re-verify the prior map against HEAD". Do NOT use for a first-time scout (run the full A→T→L→A→S cycle instead).
Phase L sub-mode (Scatter-Gather Locate) — TRANCE-gated parallel fan-out of read-only Locate probes across topologically-disjoint module clusters, each in a clean-context subagent, merged back into findings.md via a deterministic dedup contract. Never default; serial Locate is the standard path. Use ONLY when map.md surface is large (>5 modules OR >25 files) AND ≥2 disjoint DECISION_TARGET sub-questions exist. Trigger phrases — "audit across all modules", "trace these N independent flows", "scout this large surface in parallel". Do NOT load for a single sub-question, tightly-coupled sub-questions, or a tight budget.
Phase S (Synthesize) — emit the scout-report.md artifact that downstream agents (SPECTRA, APIVR-Δ, human) consume. Hard cap 3000 tokens; every factual clause cited with FINDING-XXX; every recommended action carries a handoff label. Use after Phase A (Abstract) fold is validated and DECISION_TARGET has an answer or its gaps are recorded. Final phase of an ATLAS mission.
Phase T (Traverse) — deterministic structural mapping of a codebase. Zero LLM calls during retrieval; only symbol index, AST, ripgrep, and git log. Emits map.md with entrypoints, modules, call graph, and heatmap. Use after mission.md is valid and before any meaning-based search. Trigger phrases — "map the repo", "what are the entrypoints", "build the call graph", "list all routes/workers/CLIs".
Receiver-side ECL integrity gate (blocking, symmetric). Refuses to process any upstream artefact whose sibling .envelope.json lacks a verify_pass trace event from the orchestrator. Use when reading any upstream artefact handed off to ATLAS that carries a sibling .envelope.json. Symmetric across all Eidolons — every Eidolon enforces it identically per ECL §6.2.2.
Governs hypothesis generation, adversarial stress-testing, and multi-criteria scoring during the FORGE Reason phase. Use when the Reasoner enters Phase R to generate ≥3 distinct hypotheses, run Inversion/Boundary/Pre-Mortem/Dependency stress tests, score on a 5-dimension weighted rubric, and execute multi-pass deliberation. Do not use when Self-Consistency Mode (G2/TRANCE) is active — load forge-self-consistency instead.