odysseus-navigator

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 — commands/odysseus-core.md
/odysseus · several smells	full Navigator table — commands/odysseus.md
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)

Concern	Owner	ON does
Outer phase / budget / HITL	control-graph	name cg_hook; never restated phases
Inner emptiness DAG	eva-emptiness	name eva_hook ∈ {continue, switch, Ask, skip}
dump → route	control-feeder	after Feed, if cg-outer/eva-inner: diagnose at ORIENT
material consequence / 2036	higher-order-decision-architect	labels Sirens/Circe/Scylla; HODA owns the sequence
surplus / iron-peak	architecture-synthesis	Circe vs iron-peak: surplus must serve Ithaca
refute-first review	adversarial-audit	Prophecy + Cyclops evidence pack
DualLoad	../rules/clt-dual-load.mdc	Navigator is short (extraneous ↓); judgment is germane
Grok/Cursor slash harness	README.md	/odysseus-core fast path; no C tether, Rhai, priors, or hooks

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

• Ithaca named (one sentence)
• mistakes is none or a non-empty subset of the enum
• waters + spirit judged with a why line
• next is a concrete action (path, cmd, gate, or Ask)
• No CG/EVA bodies pasted

Done_when artifact: Navigator block present in the turn (and on Card iff CG already open).

---

Optional numbers (judgment kernels)

Expand references/judgment-math.md when you need scored harm or waters gates.

on-kern score  --cyclops 0.8 --drift 0.3    # harm_* + drift + empire_score
on-kern rank   --cyclops 0.8 --circe 0.2    # mistakes by harm (core uses top one)
on-kern waters --calm --file-count 1 --greppable
on-kern eval   --correctness 0.9 --effectiveness 0.7 --efficiency 0.2
on-kern hubris --metis 1 --metis-allowed 0

Path math (path_te, ∇T, cosθ) stays in mission-map — suggest /mission-map, do not recompute here.