Using Axiom

Using Axiom

Axiom routes only the smallest installed workflow set that matches.

Route Once

1. Honor all higher-priority instructions.
2. Route only an explicit Axiom invocation or a clear bundled-description match.
3. Load the smallest matching skill set and active-phase references. Do not inspect candidate bodies before selection.
4. Normalize unambiguous non-English wording to the canonical English route. Ask once only when route or authority would materially differ.
5. On no match, continue through the host normally without mentioning Axiom. A no-match result is not a denial, does not create authorization, and does not manufacture a repository-state conflict.

Bundled Routes

• agents-architect: create, audit, split, migrate, or maintain repository AGENTS.md, routed .agents/ guidance, and repo-local skills; also handle explicit effective-instructions, effective-instructions:preview, effective-instructions:refactor, effective-instructions:force, effective-instructions:reconcile, and effective-instructions:reconcile-preview modes. Packaged plugin skills stay outside.
• agent-plugin-architect: design or audit packaged Codex or Claude Code plugin architecture across shared Skills, routes, manifests, wrappers, hooks, and compatibility evidence. Repo-local AGENTS systems and ordinary plugin code stay outside.
• optimize-codex-usage: explicitly reduce or diagnose Codex credits, tokens, context, Skill/AGENTS/MCP loading, tool churn, or output overhead while preserving the required quality and safety bar.
• review-axiom-task: review observable routing, authorization, actions, evidence, stops, and outcome for an identified Axiom task or explain why Axiom selected, allowed, or refused something. Prior refusal does not govern an audit, criticism, appeal, or narrowing request.
• confirm-external-action: prepare, authorize, execute once, and verify an explicitly requested consequential external action such as send, publish, invite, purchase, trade, delete, or an external app/account change when its actor, target, payload, disclosure, cost, or retry boundary is material. Read-only lookup and draft-only work stay host-native.
• traceable-git-submit: create traceable checkpoints or baseline metadata, consolidate or recover their history, or perform an explicitly invoked, hardened, multi-target, or otherwise independently traceable Git push. A combined commit, tag, and push of an already-prepared plugin release selects this route. Ordinary named-remote non-force staging, commits, and pushes without a tag, checkpoint, baseline, consolidation, recovery, hardening, multiple targets, or history replacement stay host-native; merely mentioning submit, publish, or push does not select this route.
• reversible-system-change: plan, rehearse, or execute a persistent install, upgrade, deployment, migration, destructive retention, or promotion with rollback, data, service, or activation risk. Plans remain read-only.

Resolve cross-route ownership from this table before inspecting either candidate body. A deployment, promotion, migration, destructive retention, or similar persistent change that also causes a consequential external app or account effect, including publish, delete, or remote-state mutation, selects both confirm-external-action and reversible-system-change. Keep the exact external action envelope and the persistent write-set and rollback gates independent; authorization under either route never satisfies the other. Publication of an already-prepared artifact alone selects only confirm-external-action; publication alone is not a persistent system change.

Explicit machine-credential lifecycle work composes the existing owners; read references/credential-lifecycle.md, not a new route. Select reversible-system-change for metadata inventory, planning, consumer activation, or cleanup; confirm-external-action for provider creation, revocation, or disclosure; use both end-to-end. Authentication, human login, conceptual help, and secret reveal stay no-route. Routing grants no transition, secret access, or retry; each owner keeps separate action, write-set, rollback, and verification gates.

When a request delegates a choice among mutually exclusive implementations and the alternatives would select materially different route sets, write surfaces, or authorization or safety boundaries, routing MUST NOT choose an alternative for the user. Select no route yet and ask exactly one concise clarification question. Wording such as "choose one" does not remove the ambiguity. Once the user chooses an unambiguous implementation, resume normal route selection.

An explicit usage-reduction goal selects optimize-codex-usage; add another route only for its distinct authority or safety contract. Ordinary AGENTS audits select only agents-architect; ordinary performance work does not.

An explicit Axiom retrospective or question about an Axiom decision's observable basis selects review-axiom-task; implementation needs separate authority and routing. Prior refusal or assistant prose creates no policy.

An external action selects confirm-external-action only when requested. Preparation grants no execution; an exact current request needs no redundant confirmation unless its envelope is missing or changes. Independently traceable Git belongs to traceable-git-submit; ordinary named-remote Git remains host-native.

A persistent change with no distinct consequential external effect stays under reversible-system-change; apply the cross-route rule above when both effects are present.

Boundaries

• Routing selects instructions, never edits, commits, pushes, deployments, deletion, credentials, remote writes, or scope expansion.
• Startup routing is foreground and read-only: no writes, network, service, background process, telemetry, or update check.
• On resume or compaction, reselect every still-active route from current direct evidence before any new mutation. If route or phase cannot be reconstructed, perform zero new mutations; let each selected route's handoff contract resolve prior attempts.
• Do not load every skill, route on topical similarity, edit protected metadata without scope, or persist one-off discoveries as durable instructions.
• Ordinary coding, documentation, explanation, status, local commits, named-remote non-force pushes, and conceptual requests continue normally unless a route description clearly matches.

Explicit Refresh

Only for an explicit Axiom update or refresh request, read references/updating.md. Never check, fetch, install, or announce an update automatically.