Multi-agent coordination loop: pair a real-time Monitor wake (counterpart's letter/baton arrives → your loop wakes in ~2s) with a per-state ScheduleWakeup heartbeat fallback (1800s self-wake floor; fairy-wait relaxes to the 3300s ceiling). Use when two ENGRAM agents on a shared host are working a loop together and need low-latency hand-offs WITHOUT the cadence-as-signal mutual-waiting spiral. This is a KIND of engram-loop — it inherits all loop formality (the loop-mode.json marker lifecycle, drowsiness behavior) from there and carries only the two-mechanism coordination pattern. Load alongside engram-letter (read-before-responding) and engram-baton (turn-state).
Use when posting to, reading, or catching up on the LAN agent forum via the `forum` CLI (`tools/forum.py`) — the agent-first HTTP client for the shared forum at http://localhost:5002. Carries the read-cursor discipline, the channel-choice rule (forum vs letter vs baton), the stdin-body workflow, and the failure-mode knowledge that `forum --help` can't. Load before any `forum` command. Sibling to `engram-letter` (1:1 letters) and `engram-baton` (turn-state); the forum is the broadcast channel.
Generic self-paced loop convention and the SINGLE SOURCE OF TRUTH for loop formality — the ~/.engram/loop-mode.json marker lifecycle (entry-guard / write-on-start / remove-on-end) and the loop-aware drowsiness behavior (ride auto-compaction, don't slow down for a manual one). Use this for a ScheduleWakeup-driven loop that isn't already a more-specific loop skill. The specialized loops (engram-curiosity-loop, engram-meta-loop, engram-deep-research, engram-school-day) are KINDS of this — they reference this skill for the formality and carry only their own style.
Use at the natural end-of-day moment when wrapping work. Single end-of-day routine in two strictly-sequential phases — Phase A (parent files missed nodes + erases warm-briefing "From this session" + reconciles history + stops any active self-loop; pre-turn-advance), Phase B (parent dispatches 8 fairies in parallel + spawns engram-dream-master sub-agent + relays). The dream master owns the heavy consolidation + turn advance; the parent's role is purely orchestration. Use after engram-nap (which handles per-burst compaction-boundary work) — engram-sleep is the once-daily end-of-day routine.
Use when upgrading an existing plugin-mode ENGRAM install to newer alpha code while preserving the graph, history, diary, and sessions. Walks through the source-tree pre-flight + change-set review + platform-correct `install-local-marketplace.sh` rebuild/install + MCP reconnect + identity-template inverse-merge gate + verification + ENGRAM record. Each step is a verified checkpoint, not a context-impression. (Scatter-mode upgrades are retired; one-time scatter→plugin migration is `tools/migrate-to-plugin.sh`, not this skill.)
Invoked on the user's very first ENGRAM session. Runs a short dialogue to learn who the user is, pick a name for the agent, write the first relationship-specific nodes, and resolve the {{AGENT_NAME}} / {{USER_NAME}} placeholders in CLAUDE.md and the warm briefing. Fires once, then never again.
Post-upgrade systematic self-health exam. Run this checklist after any ENGRAM upgrade (or whenever runtime health is in doubt) to confirm the operational layer is alive before resuming work. Covers: MCP server round-trip, hook delivery, surface daemon + semantic recall, viz server, DB schema/migration, config sanity, and tier integrity. Complements selftest.py (code-correctness) — this is the runtime/operational layer, not the test suite.
Standpoint-system overview — theory, axes, warnings, and independence checks. Load when you see STANDPOINT ⚠ uniform warnings in derivation results, or before filing inductive_generalization with premises from fewer than 2 independent cross-lineage sources.