# Openrig Operating Model

> Use when you do not know WHERE something belongs: you learned a lesson and are unsure which file takes it; you are about to create a new doc, folder, or convention; you are asking "should this be a skill, a note, or a chain file?"; you inherited a seat and want to know what SHOULD exist; or you are about to duplicate knowledge that already has a home. Also the trace-to-root: how a seat orients by reading one filename at each level from where it stands up to the fleet.

- Skill: `mvschwarz/openrig-operating-model` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 11 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add mvschwarz/openrig-operating-model`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/mvschwarz/openrig-operating-model/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: AI & ML
- Author: mvschwarz (https://skillmd.com/u/mvschwarz)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/mvschwarz/openrig-operating-model

---


# The OpenRig Operating Model

**Canonical term: the Operating Model.** How an OpenRig topology organizes every
kind of context so that any agent — cold, fresh, or five generations in — can
find what it needs and knows where to write what it learns. Authored context stays in addressed Markdown and manifests. Supported writers
record semantic judgments; their read models remain rebuildable from those artifacts.

This skill owns the structure: trees, chains, tracing, and placement of authored
knowledge. Resolve installed context through its current library addresses and
the project's selected loadout; a private corpus is not a required public dependency.

Companion implementation assets in this skill's folder:
- `templates/` and `scripts/` — starters and working tools, described in §8.

## 1. The model in one breath

Everything lives on one of **two trees**, and every kind of context is a
**chain**: the same filename at every level of a tree. To know anything, you
**trace from where you are toward the root**, reading that one filename at each
level — nearer levels refine or override farther ones. The **trace** (§5) is
the act of doing that ascent deliberately, with your own file reads.

- **Topology tree** — how work is done: `fleet → instance → rig → pod → seat`.
- **Work tree** — how the product gets built: `project → mission → slice → proof item`.

An **instance** is one OpenRig daemon and the rigs it manages; a **fleet** is all instances. Where
a daemon runs is a deployment fact, not an altitude — say the instance's name when you mean a
particular one.

**The one-parent law:** the trace follows the
directory path and NOTHING else — no pointer fields, no link-following, no
branching, ever. The trace is the instrument confused agents reach for, so it
must be simpler than anything it corrects: path-only ascent fails only in
obvious ways. A child that relates to a second parent gets an `also-serves:`
ANNOTATION (read by humans and agents, walked by nothing) — and a genuine
two-parent tie usually means the item belongs one level up, under the common
ancestor, with mentions pointing down. The operational many-to-many lives in
the queue's tags, which are maintained by use. Legacy `serves:` lines are
transition bridges for the flat layout only: never required, never walked,
deleted as work nests properly.

**The filename law:** one name per chain, identical at every level. The folder
tells you *whose* it is; the filename tells you *what kind* it is. A seat named
`pm-lead` in two different rigs has two different `LEARNED.md` files — the path
is the identity. Never invent per-level names (no SEAT.md, no RIG.md): that
breaks the trace, the self-description, and every tool at once.

## 2. THE GRID — what exists at each level, and who keeps it true

This table is the model. If you internalize one thing, internalize this.

### Topology tree

The chains carry what is true of a **position**. How a *kind* of thing works — the operating
model — ships in the mode-neutral `openrig-core` plugin; an operating-mode plugin
(`openrig-lab`, `openrig-factory`, or `openrig-hq`) may refine it.

| Level | `CULTURE.md` — values | `LEARNED.md` — what THIS ONE has learned | kept true by |
|---|---|---|---|
| fleet | default culture (ships with OpenRig) | fleet-level lived practice | **operator agent** |
| instance | *(inherits)* | what is true of every rig on this daemon | **the instance's operator** |
| rig | the rig's constitution | this rig's lived practice | **the rig's orchestrator** |
| pod | *(inherits)* | this pod's lived practice — the **context domain**: anything useful to anyone in this pod | **the pod's lead** |
| seat | *(inherits)* | this seat's lived knowledge — **the file that fixes handovers** | **the seat itself** |

**Chain files sit on nodes, not on the shelves that hold them.** `rigs/`, `pods/`, `seats/`,
`missions/` and `slices/` are shelves — the trace passes through them and expects nothing there.

### Work tree

**ONE authored node file: `SPEC.md`.** Intent lives in its FRONTMATTER; the specification lives in
its body. Alongside it sit three files with different jobs and different writers:

| file | what it is | who writes it |
|---|---|---|
| `SPEC.md` | the node — `intent:` composes, body specifies | the node's owner |
| `NOTES.md` | **LIVED** — what actually happened doing it, in the doer's own words | whoever is doing it |
| `PROOF.md` | evidence the thing does what was intended | the prover |
| `PROGRESS.md` | authored narrative and historical checklist marks; current proof readiness is derived from attributed judgments | the scope's owner and provers |
| `proof/judgments/` | retained item judgment receipts written by `rig proof judge` | judges selected by the owning proof policy |

**A scaffold may create `NOTES.md` and its starter instructions; its lived entries are never
generated or projected.** It is the work tree's lived file, the way `LEARNED.md` is the topology
tree's — the field-notes rung, where raw observation goes before anything has earned a place in the
node itself. Keeping lived files out of the render path is what makes them safe to write freely in.

**Legacy name:** older workspaces may use `MISSION_NOTES.md`. Keep legacy
content addressable; use `NOTES.md` for the chain because its name works at every altitude.

| Level | `SPEC.md` — frontmatter `intent:` (why) + body (what must be built) | progress | kept true by |
|---|---|---|---|
| project | `intent:` only — stable, changes at real pivots | derived roll-up | the project's PM |
| mission | `intent:` and proportional mission-level specification; organizes slices | derived child readiness; distinct outcome judgment | the mission's PM |
| slice | `intent:` and the concrete slice specification | derived proof readiness | the slice's owner |
| proof item | authored promise in the proof contract | attributed evidence-backed judgment on that revision | the selected judge |

**Current acceptance:** Scope relationships and policy are authored in manifests; an item
judgment is recorded once against its promise, evidence and policy revision. Slice, mission
and project readiness derive upward. A distinct outcome or publication decision remains its
own authority. Queue ownership and generic `done` are custody facts, not proof acceptance.
Historical checkbox marks stay readable without acquiring current item authority.

Use `rig proof --help` for the supported write/read path. The project owner selects
`proofPolicy.judges` in `project.yaml`, `mission.yaml` or `slice.yaml` (nearest wins),
using exact actor addresses. There is no implicit fixed-role review conveyor.
`rig proof judge mission/slices/slice#1 --verdict accept --reason 'Observed the outcome' --evidence proof/result.md`
resolves the item identity, revision, evidence digests and retry identity. Evidence may be
an existing legacy artifact or a non-code outcome. A patch-equivalent subject also names
its actual comparison/adoption receipt with `--comparison`; the agent owns that judgment.
`rig proof show` returns the current basis and retained receipt; it does not publish anything.

Correct with `reject`, or `withdraw` when prior acceptance no longer stands. History stays
in the addressed proof home. A repeated request returns its original receipt and current
readiness; `--replace` deliberately reaffirms an old identical judgment after a correction.
Changed promises, policy or evidence require a current judgment. Explicit optional
`<!-- proof-item: stable-id -->` markers preserve identity across wording edits; the
product otherwise derives identity from the full promise and reports ambiguity.

**Intent composes; the body does not.** The trace reads the `intent:` FIELD at every altitude, so
four levels unfurl as four sentences rather than four documents. The body is read only when you
are standing on that node.

    compose.py up <node> --name SPEC.md --field intent --root <project>

A level whose file exists but lacks `intent:` is reported as a gap — a mission with no intent is
real information, never silently skipped.

**Legacy `README.md` nodes stay valid indefinitely** — the resolver prefers `SPEC.md` and falls
back, so nothing is forced to migrate and dormant missions need no attention.

**PROGRESS stays separate.** Narrative and legacy marks are retained testimony. For a
project with selected proof policy, current readiness comes from `rig proof show` and the
shared existing views, not hand-maintained parent checkboxes or copied status prose.
`scripts/compose.py progress` remains a legacy checklist renderer; it does not certify
attributed acceptance. Intent composes downward; proof readiness aggregates upward.

**The axis behind the columns:** every context kind has a *template* half
(what ships — SOP, the default culture) and a *learned* half (what living
in it taught — LEARNED, culture amendments). Only the pace of change differs:
values change rarely and deliberately, like a constitution; practice changes
constantly and cheaply, like working notes; intent changes at real pivots.
Keep each file's pace; don't constitutionalize your notes or scribble on the
constitution.

## 3. Why this exists (the failure it fixes)

Seat knowledge needs a durable home that successors and other runtimes can read.
A private runtime memory or an urgent handover packet alone can omit standing
duties and the reasons behind a practice. Keep general operating craft in the
shared skill and position-specific knowledge in the seat's `LEARNED.md` chain.
At a handover, read the current chain alongside the packet and record any missing
job context before claiming readiness. Each occupant maintains what the seat has
learned; the handover packet carries the current transition.

## 4. LEARNED.md — the living file (all altitudes; seat shown)

Sections, in order — see `templates/LEARNED.md`:

1. **Header** — coords · which SOP it refines · updated date (from the
   clock command, never from memory).
2. **MY JOB HERE** — this instance's actual function, in plain operational terms.
3. **STANDING DUTIES** — every recurring duty, each with its rhythm and where
   it happens. Duties listed anywhere else die at the next handover; this
   section is why they survive.
4. **HOW I WORK** — practices learned on the job, **each with its reason**.
   A practice with its why can be re-judged when the world changes; a bare
   rule outlives its reason and gets misapplied.
5. **GATES & AUTHORITIES** — what this instance may decide alone, what it must
   never assume. Authority exists in writing or not at all.
6. **KEY RELATIONSHIPS** — who it hands to, who reviews it, who it reports to.
7. **TRIGGER POINTERS** — "when X happens, read Y." Attach pointers to the
   *moments* that need them; lists of boot-time reading decay.
8. **LESSONS** — dated, newest first. Periodically distill old entries into
   HOW I WORK or drop them.

**Size: soft guidance, not a rule.** Keep it as small as honestly covers the
job — attention is the budget, and every reader pays it. Some seats genuinely
need more; write what the job needs. The failure mode to watch for is the
rulebook that only ever grows. Distill lessons into practices with reasons at
deposit boundaries (before clear or handover); use that habit, not a line count.

## 5. The trace — deliberate reorientation

A trace is walking your chains **with your own file reads** and writing down
where you stand: what am I doing (queue/NOTES) → under what contract (SPEC) →
toward what intent (`SPEC.md` intent field, leaf to root) → by what practice (LEARNED +
SOP) → within what values (CULTURE). A few written lines at the end.
`scripts/compose.py up` assembles any chain for you.

Two rules give the trace its value:

- **Your reads are the trace.** A trace written from memory is a recitation —
  if you didn't open the files, you didn't trace, and you will confidently
  re-derive whatever drift you already have.
- **Report broken links; never obey them.** A missing file, a stale date, an
  intent that contradicts observable reality — say so to the level that owns
  it. That is how the chains stay true: they are audited by being used. And
  the chains **inform** decisions; they never enforce anything by themselves —
  a stale map must never be able to block true work.

**When to trace — one principle:** *trace when enough has changed that your
picture of where you stand may be stale* — after a large stretch of work, at a
boundary (boot, handover, new mission, confusion), or when someone asks you to
reorient. Why not simply "every N hours": identical scheduled prompts fade
from an agent's attention with repetition, and idle seats accumulate ritual
traces that crowd out real context.
Where a schedule fits your context anyway, use one — but prefer gating the
*action* on evidence of change: `scripts/trace-due.sh` decides "has enough
happened since my last trace?" deterministically and stays silent when the
answer is no, so a scheduler can fire it as often as it likes.

## 5b. Trace and `rig walk` — one idea, two ends

These get confused because they share a word. They are not in conflict; they are the same thing
seen from either end, and the relationship is worth holding.

**A chain is an ordered sequence of context meant to be absorbed one piece at a time.** Two kinds
exist and both are chains in that sense:

- **Altitude chain** — the same filename at every level of a tree, read by ascending
  (`LEARNED.md`; `SPEC.md` with `intent:`). The sequence is *position*: leaf → root.
- **Boot chain** — a seat's startup reading sequence. The sequence is *order of onboarding*.

**A chain can be traversed two ways, and that is the only real difference:**

| | who drives | mechanism | when |
|---|---|---|---|
| **PULL** | the agent | `compose.py up` renders the chain; the agent reads it | it is awake and oriented enough to look — a trace, a refocus |
| **PUSH** | an orchestrator | `rig walk --through <files> --pace <n>` sends one piece at a time into the pane | it *cannot* self-start — freshly cleared, re-primed, cold |

**Pacing is the mechanism in both directions, and it is the load-bearing part.** Absorption
*between* pieces is what makes a chain land; a concatenated dump of the same bytes is a failed
delivery regardless of content. That is why `rig walk` elapses `--pace` between pieces, and why a
composed render is meant to be read as a sequence rather than skimmed as a wall.

Use distinct names for the two directions:

- **TRACE** — the pull ascent. `compose.py up` renders a node's chain to the root.
- **`rig walk`** — the push verb for paced delivery into a seat's pane.

Use `refocusing` for the current trace workflow. A delivery receipt and an
agent's read-depth report answer different questions; pacing alone does not
establish understanding.

## 6. Writing — two principles

1. **Your LEARNED.md is yours.** You write it, in your own words, as part of
   doing the job — when you learn something about how to do your work, the
   file carries it before you move on. When anyone else wants it changed
   (a correction, new doctrine), they tell you and *you* write it — knowledge
   someone else typed into your file was never yours. The one exception:
   when an instance is empty or broken, whoever is responsible for it writes
   what's needed, marks those lines as written-for-the-instance, and the next
   occupant rewrites them in its own words.
2. **Shipped things belong to their authors.** `openrig-core`'s operating-model
   skill and the shipped culture change through their owners, never by an instance
   editing in place. If it is wrong for everyone, propose the change to its owner;
   if it is wrong for *you*, that's what LEARNED.md is for.

Everywhere: date what you write (from the clock), and correct by adding a
dated correction rather than silently rewriting history.

## 7. Composed views

Any node can be **rendered**: its chains assembled into one document
(`scripts/compose.py`; `up` = your effective view from a leaf, `down` = every
chain file under a root — run `down` at a tree root and you get the whole
operating picture in one document). Two rules:

- **Rendered documents are generated, never edited.** The chain files are the
  source of truth; a render is a snapshot view of them.
- **Every chain render opens with a TRACE** — a tree-shaped orientation
  header derived at render time (never stored in any file): one line per
  level showing its state (seeded ✓ / unseeded ⟂ / stale-marker ⚠ / absent ✗)
  and a "you are here" anchor at the leaf. It shows the shape of your context
  the way `tree` shows the shape of a directory — where you sit, and where the
  screams are, before you read a word of content.
- **When an approval must freeze exact content** (for example a plan-lock on a
  spec), it records the *hash of a render* — the frozen bytes live in the
  approval record while the chain files stay live for reading and revision.

The **root render + diff** is how a high-altitude seat keeps a current mental
model of a changing fleet without reading everything: render the tree root,
diff against your previous render, read only the diff
(`scripts/trunk-diff.sh`).

## 8. Where knowledge goes — the placement rule

**Context lives at the narrowest scope that needs it; skills are only for what
has no scope.** Seat-specific knowledge → that seat's LEARNED.md. Rig practice
→ the rig's files. Only truly scope-free craft (useful to any agent anywhere)
belongs in the skill layer.

### The one axis that decides file-vs-plugin: KIND or POSITION

- **A chain holds knowledge about a POSITION** — *this* seat, *this* mission. **Unshareable by
  construction**, because the path is the identity.
- **A plugin holds knowledge about a KIND** — a seat-type's job, a domain's craft, an operating
  model. Shareable, versionable, cross-harness.

**A plugin cannot hold LEARNED.** Plugins are shared; LEARNED is per-instance. Two rigs installing
the same orchestrator plugin must not share what one seat learned about its own merge desk. That
is why chains exist alongside plugins rather than being replaced by them.

**And plugins are the distribution mechanism, which imposes a hard test.** A plugin ships skills;
a skill may ship a script; **that script must run unmodified on a stranger's machine.** So it
resolves paths from configuration (`rig config get workspace.root`), never from a literal, and it
never asks the agent to work out which of several candidate directories is the real one. If a user
points their workspace at a git repo or a `projects/` folder, everything keeps working with no
further setup. **A script that only works for its author is not shippable, however correct it is.**

### What belongs INSIDE a node — two tests before a sentence goes in

**A node holds what is true of THIS position and stays true.**

- **Portability.** If a sentence would read correctly on a stranger's machine, it is knowledge about
  a KIND. It belongs in this skill or a plugin, not on the tree. A node body that is fully portable
  is documentation that wandered onto the chain.
- **Volatility.** A value that changes faster than the file gets edited — a SHA, a count, a status,
  a roster — goes in as the **command that derives it**, never as the answer.

**Then check which tree.** Traps, practice and how-we-work are position knowledge on the *topology*
tree (`LEARNED.md`). What is being built is the *work* tree (`SPEC.md`). One rig owns both; they
still do not mix.

**Keep specification depth proportional.** A project carries stable intent; a
mission carries its intent and mission-level specification in the same authored
`SPEC.md`. Slices provide their concrete implementation scope. Follow the selected
`mission-slice-sop` and any explicit mode overlay; mission specification is not a
requirement to repeat every slice detail.

### The other axis: AUDIENCE is not MATURITY

These are independent, and merging them is seductive because the merged version is prettier.

- **Audience decides WHERE knowledge lives** — which altitude, which file. Something belongs at
  pod level because anyone in that pod benefits. Full stop.
- **Maturity is an attribute of a LINE inside that file** — the epistemic ladder: data →
  observation → field note → insight → **canon**. The vocabulary already ships as the `stage:`
  enum (`wip | provisional | established | canonical | superseded | retired`).

A pod-level item can be raw observation; a seat-level one can be canon. **A skill can contain
something immature and still be the right home**, because audience picked the file.

**So promotion to canon is NOT a move up the tree.** It is a maturity event and can happen at any
altitude — a seat-level observation that is universally true graduates straight to a skill. What
earns maturity is evidence: recurrence, independent corroboration, a measured cost, surviving
change, surviving an attempt to falsify it. **Facts about mechanisms can skip the ladder**
(*backticks substitute in double-quoted shell strings* is one command away); **inferences about
practice must accrue** (*never broadcast to a large rig* took an incident).

**LEARNED.md is not a staged item — it is the bed everything lies in.** Its gradient is
positional: the dated append-log at the bottom is raw observation, the concise sections at the top
are what survived. Attach distillation to a **trigger**: distil at deposit boundaries (pre-clear, pre-handover) where a write is
already required and the author still remembers why each line exists; refocus merely *notices*
when the log has outgrown the distilled part.

## 9. Standing the structure up

`scripts/scaffold.sh` creates any missing chain files from `templates/` and
**never overwrites or deletes anything** — so a brand-new workspace and a
living system are the same command with different starting states. Created
files are marked UNSEEDED until their real owner writes the first true
version. **Never mass-produce LEARNED.md content for other instances** — each
instance writing its own first version is both how the knowledge becomes real
and how you discover which seats cannot yet describe their own job.

## 10. Pitfalls (only what isn't taught above)

- Editing a rendered document instead of its chain files — your edit is lost
  at the next render, silently.
- "Improving" the trace with pointer-following, serves-resolution, or any
  branching — the trace's entire value is that path-only ascent cannot fail
  subtly; keep the trace path-only.
- Summarizing this model for another agent instead of pointing them here —
  a summary becomes another copy that can drift from its source.
- Scripts in `scripts/` are macOS-flavored in places (`stat -f`); verify
  platform compatibility before trusting them on another OS.

## Files in this skill

`templates/{SPEC,LEARNED,SOP}.md` ·
`scripts/{compose.py, trace-due.sh, trace-stamp.sh, trunk-diff.sh, scaffold.sh}`